Guide for Authors
Contact Details for Submission
Authors are
requested to submit their papers electronically by using
The Internet and Higher Education's online submission and review web
site (
http://ees.elsevier.com/inthig ). 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.
Ethics in publishing
For information on Ethics
in publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication see
http://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics and
http://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.
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.
Submission declaration
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carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any
other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.
Changes to authorship
This policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:
Before
the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names,
must be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name
should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they
agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the
author being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the
corresponding author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors
of any such requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed.
After
the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published
in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.
Copyright
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete 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 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.
Retained author 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 article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement
then this should be stated. Please see
http://www.elsevier.com/funding.
Open access
This journal offers you the option of making your article freely available to all via the ScienceDirect platform.
To prevent any conflict of interest, you can only make this choice after receiving notification that your article has been accepted for
publication. The fee of $3,000 excludes taxes and other potential author fees such as color charges. In some cases, institutions and
funding bodies have entered into agreement with Elsevier to meet these fees on behalf of their authors. Details of these agreements are
available at
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies. Authors of accepted articles, who wish to take advantage of this option,
should complete and submit the order form (available at
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/openaccessform.pdf). Whatever access
option you choose, you retain many rights as an author, including the right to post a revised personal version of your article on your
own website. More information can be found here:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Language and language services
Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted,
but not a mixture of these). Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission
please visit
http://webshop.elsevier.com/languageservices
or our customer support site at
http://support.elsevier.com
for more information.
Use of word processing software
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 Electronic illustrations.
To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the
"spell-check" and "grammar-check" functions of your wordprocessor.
Review Policy
As this journal has adopted a double blind
reviewing policy,
please remove all identifying features from the paper itself by ensuring that no author's name appears in the
main text, in-text citations or reference list. The cover page will be detached and the anonymous manuscript will be used in the peer
review process and sent to reviewers who will themselves remain anonymous.
Subdivision
- numbered sections
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.
Material 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.
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 on. Similarly for
tables and figures: Table A.1; Fig. A.1, etc.
Essential title page information
•
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 will 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. Contact details must be kept up to date by the corresponding author.
•
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, of between
100-150 words. The abstract
should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately
from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, References should be avoided, but if essential, then cite the author(s)
and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention
in the abstract itself.
Highlights
Highlights are mandatory for this journal.
They consist of a short collection of bullet points that convey the core findings of the article and should be submitted in a separate
file in the online submission system. Please use 'Highlights' in the file name and include 3 to 5 bullet points (maximum 85 characters,
including spaces, per bullet point). See
http://www.elsevier.com/highlights for examples.
Keywords
Immediately after the abstract, provide a list of keywords, avoiding general and plural terms
and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, "and", "of"). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly established in the
field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.
Abbreviations
Define abbreviations that are not standard in this field in a footnote to be placed on the first page of the article. Such abbreviations
that are unavoidable in the abstract must be defined at their first mention there, as well as in the footnote. Ensure consistency of
abbreviations throughout the article.
Acknowledgements
Collate acknowledgements
in a separate section at the end of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote
to the title or otherwise. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing
assistance or proof reading the article, etc.).
Also include information on grants in this section.
Math Formulae
Present simple formulae in the line of normal text where possible. In principle, variabhles
are to be presented in italics. Use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line,
e.g., X p/Y m rather than
X p
Y m.
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).
Footnotes
This journal
does not publish footnotes, therefore none should be used.
Artwork
Electronic artwork
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, Times, Symbol.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
• Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
•
Produce images near to the desired size of the printed version.
• Submit each figure as a separate file.
A detailed guide
on electronic artwork is available on our website:
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions
You are urged
to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.
Figure
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.
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.
References
Citation in 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.
Web references
As a minimum,
the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. 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.
Reference style
Text: Citations in the text should follow the referencing style used by the American Psychological
Association. You are referred to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition, ISBN 978-1-4338-0561-5,
copies of which may be ordered from
http://books.apa.org/books.cfm?id=4200067 or APA Order Dept., P.O.B. 2710, Hyattsville,
MD 20784, USA or APA, 3 Henrietta Street, London, WC3E 8LU, UK. Details concerning this referencing style can also be found at
http://linguistics.byu.edu/faculty/henrichsenl/apa/apa01.html.
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:
Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J. A. J., & Lupton, R.
A. (2010). The art of writing a scientific article.
Journal of Scientific Communications, 163, 51–59.
Reference
to a book:
Strunk, W., Jr., & White, E. B. (1979).
The elements of style. (4th ed.). New York: Longman, (Chapter 4).
Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
Mettam, G. R., & Adams, L. B. (2009). How to prepare an electronic version of your
article. In B. S. Jones, & R. Z. Smith (Eds.),
Introduction to the electronic age (pp. 281–304). New York: E-Publishing
Inc.
Video data
Elsevier accepts video material and animation sequences
to support and enhance your scientific research. Authors who have video or animation files that they wish to submit with their article
are strongly encouraged to include these within the body of the article. This can be done in the same way as a figure or table by referring
to the video or animation content and noting in the body text where it should be placed. All submitted files should be properly labeled
so that they directly relate to the video file's content. In order to ensure that your video or animation material is directly usable,
please provide the files in one of our recommended file formats with a preferred maximum size of 50 MB. Video and animation files supplied
will be published online in the electronic version of your article in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect:
http://www.sciencedirect.com.
Please supply 'stills' with your files: you can choose any frame from the video or animation or make a separate image. These will be
used instead of standard icons and will personalize the link to your video data. For more detailed instructions please visit our video
instruction pages at
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions. Note: since video and animation cannot be embedded in
the print version of the journal, please provide text for both the electronic and the print version for the portions of the article that
refer to this content.
Supplementary data
Elsevier accepts electronic
supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the author additional possibilities
to publish supporting applications, 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 provide the data 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.
Use of the Digital Object Identifier
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.2010.09.059
When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, the DOIs are
guaranteed never to change.
Proofs
One set of page proofs (as PDF files)
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) or, a
link will be provided in the e-mail so that authors can download the files themselves. Elsevier now provides authors with PDF proofs
which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 (or higher) available free from
http://get.adobe.com/reader.
Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs (also given online). The exact system requirements are given at the
Adobe site:
http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/tech-specs.html.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function,
you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return them 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 Editor. We will do everything possible to get
your article published quickly and accurately – please let us have all your corrections within 48 hours. It is important to ensure
that all 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. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of
your article if no response is received.
Offprints
The corresponding author,
at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. For an extra charge, paper offprints can be ordered via the offprint
order form which is sent once the article is accepted for publication. 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.
For inquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission)
please visit this journal's homepage. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating
to proofs, will be provided by the publisher. You can track accepted articles at
http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle. You
can also check our Author FAQs (
http://www.elsevier.com/authorFAQ) and/or contact Customer Support via
http://support.elsevier.com.
