Authors are requested to submit their papers electronically by using the Computers & Education online submission and review
web site (http://ees.elsevier.com/cae). This site will guide authors stepwise through the submission process. Authors
are requested to submit the text, tables, and artwork in electronic form to this address. Authors who are unable to provide an electronic
version or have other circumstances that prevent online submission must contact the Editors prior to submission to discuss alternative
options; email: sheller@gwu.edu or jean.underwood@ntu.ac.uk. The Publisher and Editors regret that they
are not able to consider submissions that do not follow these procedures.
Submission of articles
General It
is essential to give a fax number and e-mail address when submitting a manuscript. Articles must be written in good English.
Submission
of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published
lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors
and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published
elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the copyright holder.
Upon acceptance
of an article, authors will be asked to sign a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' (for more information on this and copyright see: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright).
Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail (or letter) will be sent to the corresponding
author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this
agreement.
Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles including abstracts for internal circulation
within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution outside the institution and for all other
derivative works, including compilations and translations (please consult: http://www.elsevier.com/permissions).
If
excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit
the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: please consult: http://www.elsevier.com/permissions.
Funding body agreements and policies Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose
articles appear in journals published by Elsevier, to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions
of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies.
Authors' rights As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details you are referred
to: http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Role of the funding source You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research
and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis
and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. If the funding source(s)
had no such involvement then this should be stated. Please see http://www.elsevier.com/funding.
Contributors All authors must have materially participated in the research and/or article preparation. The statement that all authors have approved
the final article should be true and included in the disclosure.
Conflict of interest All authors are requested to disclose
any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations
within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work. See
also: http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.
Online submission to the journal prior to acceptance Submission to this journal proceeds totally online. Use the following guidelines to prepare your article. Via the EES homepage of
this journal (http://ees.elsevier.com/cae) you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the
various files. The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in
the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process,
these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision
and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail and via the author's homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail.
The
above represents a very brief outline of this form of submission. It can be advantageous to print this "Guide for Authors" section from
the site for reference in the subsequent stages of article preparation.
Electronic format requirements for accepted articles
General points We accept most wordprocessing formats, but Word, WordPerfect or LaTeX is preferred. Always keep a backup
copy of the electronic file for reference and safety. Save your files using the default extension of the program used.
Wordprocessor
documents It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the wordprocessor used. The text should be in single-column
format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article.
In particular, do not use the wordprocessor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts,
superscripts etc. Do not embed "graphically designed" equations or tables, but prepare these using the wordprocessor's facility. When
preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid
is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional
manuscripts (see also the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier: http://www.elsevier.com/guidepublication). Do not import the
figures into the text file but, instead, indicate their approximate locations directly in the electronic text and on the manuscript.
See also the section on the preparation of electronic illustrations.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use
the "spell-check" and "grammar-check" functions of your wordprocessor.
Preparation of text
Presentation of manuscript
General Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted, but not a mixture of these). Italics
are not to be used for expressions of Latin origin, for example, in vivo, et al., per se. Use decimal points (not commas); use a space
for thousands (10 000 and above). If possible, consult a recent issue of the journal to become familiar with layout and conventions (a
free sample copy is available to download from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03601315).
Word count While no maximum length for manuscripts is prescribed, authors are encouraged to write concisely.
Language polishing Authors
who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission please visit: http://www.elsevier.com/languagepolishing
or contact: authorsupport@elsevier.com for more information. Please note Elsevier neither endorses nor takes responsibility
for any products, goods or services offered by outside vendors through our services or in any advertising. For more information please
refer to our Terms & Conditions: http://www.elsevier.com/termsandconditions.
Title page Provide the following
data on the title page (in the order given).
Title. Concise and informative. Titles are often used in information-retrieval
systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
Author names and affiliations. Where the family name may be ambiguous
(e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below
the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate
address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name, and, if available, the e-mail address of each
author.
Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who is willing to handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and
publication, also post-publication. Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to
the e-mail address and the complete postal address.
Present/permanent address. If an author has moved since the work
described in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a "Present address" (or "Permanent address") may be indicated as a footnote
to that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript
Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.
Abstract. A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should state
briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separate from the article,
so it must be able to stand alone. References should therefore be avoided, but if essential, they must be cited in full, without reference
to the reference list. Non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first
mention in the abstract itself.
Keywords. Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 5 keywords. These
keywords will be used for indexing purposes and should be chosen from the following list: adult learning; applications in subject
areas; architectures for educational technology system; authoring tools and methods; computer-mediated communication; cooperative/collaborative
learning; country-specific developments; cross-cultural projects; distance education and telelearning; distributed learning environments;
elementary education; evaluation methodologies; evaluation of CAL systems; gender studies; human-computer interface; improving classroom
teaching; intelligent tutoring systems; interactive learning environments; interdisciplinary projects; learning communities; lifelong
learning; media in education; multimedia/hypermedia systems; navigation ; pedagogical issues; post-secondary education; programming and
programming languages; public spaces and computing; secondary education; simulations; teaching/learning strategies; virtual reality.
Abbreviations. Define abbreviations that are not standard in this field at their first occurrence in the article: in the
abstract but also in the main text after it. Ensure consistency of abbreviations throughout the article.
N.B. Acknowledgements.
Collate acknowledgements in a separate section at the end of the article and do not, therefore, include them on the title page,
as a footnote to the title or otherwise.
Arrangement of the article Subdivision of the article. Divide
your article into clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ?), 1.2, etc. (the abstract
is not included in section numbering). Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to "the text." Any subsection
may be given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.
Introduction. State the objectives of
the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
Experimental/Materials
and methods. Provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Methods already published should be indicated by a reference:
only relevant modifications should be described.
Results. Results should be clear and concise.
Discussion.
This should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often
appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.
Conclusions. The main conclusions of the
study may be presented in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion
section.
Acknowledgements. Place acknowledgements, including information on grants received, before the references, in a
separate section, and not as a footnote on the title page.
Appendices. If there is more than one appendix, they should be
identified as A, B, etc. Formulae and equations in appendices should be given separate numbering: (Eq. A.1), (Eq. A.2), etc.; in a subsequent
appendix, (Eq. B.1) and so forth.
References. See separate section, below.
Figure captions, tables, figures, schemes.
Present these, in this order, at the end of the article. They are described in more detail below. High-resolution graphics files must
always be provided separate from the main text file (see the section below on the preparation of illustrations).
Specific
remarks Mathematical formulae. Present simple formulae in the line of normal text where possible. In principle,
variables are to be presented in italics. Use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line,
e.g., Xp/Ym
rather than
Xp Ym
Powers of e are often more conveniently
denoted by exp. Number consecutively any equations that have to be displayed separate from the text (if referred to explicitly in
the text).
Other symbols. Greek letters and unusual symbols should be identified in the margin. Distinction should be made
between capital and lower case letters; between the letter O and zero; between the letter I, the number one and prime; between k and
kappa. A vector will be printed bold face and to indicate this the letter should be underscored with a single wavy line. The numbers
identifying mathematical expressions should be placed in parentheses.
Units and Symbols. Because of the international character
of the journal, no rigid rules concerning notation or abbreviation need be observed by the authors but each paper should be self-consistent
as to symbols and units which should all be properly defined.
Footnotes. Footnotes should be used sparingly. Number them
consecutively throughout the article, using superscript Arabic numbers. Many wordprocessors build footnotes into the text, and this feature
may be used. Should this not be the case, indicate the position of footnotes in the text and present the footnotes themselves on a separate
sheet at the end of the article. Do not include footnotes in the Reference list.
Table footnotes. Indicate each footnote
in a table with a superscript lowercase letter.
Tables. Number tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance
in the text. Place footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules.
Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.
Preparation of supplementary data. Elsevier accepts supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research.
Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution
images, background datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version
of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com. In order to ensure that
your submitted material is directly usable, please ensure that data is provided in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should
submit the material in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file. For more
detailed instructions please visit our artwork instruction pages at: http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
References Responsibility for the accuracy of bibliographic citations lies entirely with the authors.
Citations in the text: Please
ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any references cited in the abstract
must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned
in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference style of the journal and
should include a substitution of the publication date with either "Unpublished results" or "Personal communication" Citation of a reference
as "in press" implies that the item has been accepted for publication.
Citing and listing of Web references. As a minimum,
the full URL should be given. Any further information, if known (DOI, author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.),
should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired,
or can be included in the reference list.
Text: All citations in the text should refer to: 1. Single author:
the author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity) and the year of publication; 2. Two to six authors: at
first citation, list all authors' names with "&" separating the last two authors and the year of publication; in subsequent citations
for three or more authors, use author et al. in the text; 3. More than six authors: at first citation list the first six
authors followed by et al. and the year of publication. In subsequent citations use author et al.
Citations may be made directly (or
parenthetically). Groups of references should be listed first alphabetically, then chronologically.
List: References should
be arranged first alphabetically and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s)
in the same year must be identified by the letters "a", "b", "c", etc., placed after the year of publication.
Examples: Reference to a journal publication: Wilson, V. (1997). Focus groups: a useful qualitative method for educational research? British Educational Research Journal, 23(2), 209-224.
Reference to a book: Street, R.B. (1984). Literacy
in theory and practice (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Reference to a chapter in an edited book: Burton,
R.R. (1982). Diagnosing bugs in a simple procedure skill. In D.H. Sleeman, & J.S. Brown, Intelligent tutoring systems (pp.
120-135). London: Academic Press.
The digital object identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI
consists of a unique alpha-numeric character string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication.
The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore, it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly 'Articles in press' because they
have not yet received their full bibliographic information.
The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows (example taken
from a document in the journal Physics Letters B):
doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2003.10.071
When you use the DOI to create
URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they are guaranteed never to change.
Preparation of illustrations
Preparation
of electronic illustrations
General points - Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original
artwork. - Save text in illustrations as "graphics" or enclose the font. - Only use the following fonts in your illustrations:
Arial, Courier, Helvetica, Times, Symbol. - Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text. - Use a logical
naming convention for your artwork files. - Provide all illustrations as separate files. - Provide captions to illustrations
separately. - Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.
Please
do not: - Supply embedded graphics in your wordprocessor (spreadsheet, presentation) document; - Supply files that are optimised
for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low; - Supply files that are too low in resolution; - Submit
graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.
Captions Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply
captions separately, not attached to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description
of the illustration. Keep text in the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.
Line
drawings The lettering and symbols, as well as other details, should have proportionate dimensions, so as not to become illegible
or unclear after possible reduction; in general, the figures should be designed for a reduction factor of two to three. The degree of
reduction will be determined by the Publisher. Illustrations will not be enlarged. Consider the page format of the journal when designing
the illustrations.
Do not use any type of shading on computer-generated illustrations.
Photographs (halftones) Remove
non-essential areas of a photograph. Do not mount photographs unless they form part of a composite figure. Where necessary, insert a
scale bar in the illustration (not below it), as opposed to giving a magnification factor in the caption.
Colour illustrations Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If,
together with your accepted article, you submit usable colour figures then Elsevier will ensure that these figures will appear in colour
on the Web for free (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour
in the printed version. For colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt
of your accepted article. Please indicate your preference for colour in print or on the Web only. For further information on the preparation
of electronic artwork, please see: http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Please note: Because of technical complications
which can arise by converting colour figures to "grey scale" (for the printed version should you not opt for colour in print) please
submit in addition usable black and white versions of all the colour illustrations.
Proofs One set of page proofs in PDF
format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post).
Elsevier now sends PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 available free from:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs.
The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrsystemreqs.html#70win.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return
to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections
and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail,
or by post.
Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and
figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the
Editors. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Therefore, it is important to ensure that
all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent
corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Proofs should be returned within 48 hours of receipt.
Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article if no response is received.
Author Benefits
Offprints
(e-offprints) The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail or, alternatively,
25 free paper offprints. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover
image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use. Additional paper offprints can be ordered by the authors. An order
form with prices will be sent to the corresponding author.
Author discount Authors are entitled to a 30% discount on
Elsevier books (excluding major reference works).
Fast electronic publication Once the article has been proofed by the
author, it will be published immediately on the journal's 'Articles in Press' section on ScienceDirect, thus making it available to subscribers
to read and cite. For more information, visit: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03601315.
Author enquiries For enquiries relating to the submission of articles, please visit the journal's homepage at: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu.
From here you can also track your accepted articles (http://authors.elsevier.com/TrackPaper.html) and set up e-mail alerts
to inform you of when an article's status has changed, as well as viewing detailed artwork guidelines, copyright information, frequently
asked questions and more. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs,
are provided after registration of an article for publication.
