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Policies

Contents

 

Open Access Policy

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (IJ-SoTL) is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of all articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.

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Review Process

For the journal’s full review process, see the Review Process page.

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General Submission Rules

IJ-SoTL exists to help promote an evidence-based, collegial, public approach to teaching and learning that continuously builds a body of understanding and knowledge. Anyone from any program, discipline or field may submit an original manuscript to be considered for publication in IJ-SoTL provided the author owns the copyright to the work being submitted or is authorized by the copyright owner or owners to submit the article.

Submitted articles cannot have been previously published, nor be forthcoming in an archival journal or book (print or electronic). Please note: "publication" in a working-paper series does not constitute prior publication. In addition, by submitting material to IJ-SoTL, the author is stipulating that the material is not currently under review at another journal (electronic or print) and that he or she will not submit the material to another journal (electronic or print) until the completion of the editorial decision process at IJ-SoTL. If you have concerns about the submission terms for IJ-SoTL, please contact the editors.

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Ethical Guidelines for Authors

IJSoTL is committed to publishing work of the highest integrity. Toward that end, we provide the following requirements and offer some suggestions for authors.

YOUR WORK

Originality:
Your submission must be your original work, and must not have been published elsewhere in any form or language (partially or in full), unless your new work is an expansion of some previous work. To avoid accusations of self-plagiarism, any re-use of your own previously-published material must be disclosed within the article. You must acknowledge any other works that you quote directly, paraphrase, or summarize, both in your text and in your References section.

Integrity:
Misrepresentation of your research, or manipulation of your findings injures our entire discipline. Your results must be presented as clearly and as honestly as possible. Studies with methodological flaws, manipulated data (through statistical analysis, image manipulation, or comping), or analyses that do not directly correlate with your findings will be rejected.

Unity:
Your submission must include the totality of your study. That is, your work must not be split into multiple parts in order to increase the number of submissions. Exceptions to this may be studies that have a follow-up at a later date, or short manuscripts that details the underpinnings of an incipient or ongoing study. We will consider each study as an organic whole, and look for manuscripts that encompass your entire process.

Disclosures:
Your submission must disclose any sources of funding or other external support. It should also include any potential conflicts of interest (financial or non-financial). If your work involved human participants, a statement on their informed consent must be included. Your touchstone for this process should be avoiding the possible appearance of impropriety.

YOUR SUBMISSION

Sole Submission:
IJSoTL will consider only sole-submission manuscripts. If your article is under consideration with us, submitting it to another journal will terminate our editorial review process.

IJSoTL reserves the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with these guidelines. The author or authors assume individual responsibility for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned guidelines.

IJSoTL will consider only manuscripts that incorporate extant SoTL literature (e.g., cites SoTL literature) and directly builds upon and expands/contributes to current discourses within SoTL.

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Areas of Submission

Submissions in the following areas may be made at any time during the posted submission window.

  • Research articles (3,000 - 8,000 words) IJ-SoTL focuses upon original research about teaching and learning topics in higher/tertiary education. The results of the research are to be analyzed and evaluated for their meanings, implications, and applications for the improvement of student learning.
  • Essays (2,000 - 5,000 words) Essays on such topics as how SoTL can directly improve student learning outcomes; how SoTL has transformed an academic community/culture; the connections between SoTL and other forms of scholarship; how best to integrate SoTL into higher education; the problems and benefits of international collaboration in doing SoTL and applying the results to college teaching (classroom, online, or in combination)

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Format & Style Guidelines

Use APA format as found in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA), 7th Edition.

Before you begin the submission process, please be sure you have the following items:

  • Article Title
  • Article abstract (100-150 words, separate from the article body)
  • Keywords for the article (4-6)
  • Article in one of the following formats: Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) or Rich Text Format (.rtf)

Document Structure

  • Ensure that there are no mark-ups or comments in the manuscript, unless they are meant to be part of the final text. (Within your word processing software, you may need to "accept all changes" in track changes or set your document to "normal" in final markup.).
  • Page size should be 8.5 x 11-inches.
  • All margins (left, right, top and bottom) should be 1 inch (2.54 cm), including pages with tables and figures.
  • Layout of the text should be in a single column, with left justified text.
  • Tables and figures should be placed at the end of your manuscript, with each table or figure on a separate page.
  • Submit your manuscript, including tables, figures, appendices, etc., as a single file.
  • If figures are included, use high-resolution images (minimum 180 dpi), preferably encoded as encapsulated PostScript (eps).

Formatting

  • Do not include a title page with the body of your submission. Begin the body of your document with the abstract. (A title page will be added to your paper by the editors.)
  • Do not include page numbers, headers, or footers. These will be added by the editors.
  • The name(s) of the author(s) should not appear in the original submission of the manuscript. You should also remove the names of academic or independent institutions that might offer information that could potentially identify the author(s). The names of authors, if present in the text, should be replaced with “Author 1,” “Author 2,” etc. The names of institutions should be replaced with “Institution 1,” Institution 2,” etc.
  • Line spacing for all text except that in tables or graphs should be at 1.5 lines.
  • Single-space text within tables and graphs.
  • Use 12 point Garamond font for the body of the text.
  • Indent all paragraphs except those following a section heading. An indent should be at least 3 em-spaces (.5 inches, or 1.27 cm).
  • Do not insert extra space between paragraphs of text, with the exception of block quotations, theorems, propositions, special remarks, etc. These should be set off from the surrounding text by additional space above and below.
  • Do not "widow" or "orphan" text (i.e., ending a page with the first line of a paragraph or beginning a page with the last line of a paragraph).

Language and Grammar

  • All submissions are to be in English. Please avoid using colloquialisms and regional terminology that may be unknown to an international audience. Except for common foreign words and phrases, the use of foreign words and phrases should be avoided.
  • Authors should use formal English grammar. The Elements of Style (fourth edition) by William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White is the "standard" guide, but other excellent guides exist as well.
  • Copyedit your manuscript.

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    Copyright & Licensing Terms

    All articles published in IJ-SoTL are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Authors retain all copyrights without restrictions, and agree to the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license for their work as a condition of publication.

    End users' rights under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license are outlined here. For all other purposes, permission must be obtained from the author.

    Copyright and licensing terms for International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning are registered with Sherpa Romeo.

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    Plagiarism Policy

    IJ-SoTL may use Similarity Check, a multi-publisher initiative, to selectively screen article submissions for originality. Similarity Check uses the iThenticate software, which checks submissions against millions of published research papers (the Similarity Check database), documents on the web, and other relevant sources. These submitted papers are not retained in the Similarity Check system after they have been checked. Read more at Crossref's Similarity Check & Researchers page.

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    Charges & Fees

    IJ-SoTL levies no submission charges, or charges or fees for publication of accepted articles.

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    Digital Archiving

    IJ-SoTL is preserved using CLOCKSS, a leading preservation archive that guarantees persistent access to journal content for the very long term. Articles also receive Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) through Crossref to ensure they can always be found.

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