Submissions

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Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
  • Submission: The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • Format: The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF, document file format.
  • References - Full list of references being provided for all citations at the end of the work, in alphabetical order.
    Use APA style, for guidance see: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/style/reference/tf_APA.pdf.
    Please ensure any hyperlinks included in the text and referencing list have been recently tested and are up to date. Any source you use must be accessible to all.
  • Layout - Please format your submissions:
    • In Arial 12 point
    • Single line spacing
    • Justified to the left margin
    • Section headings should be emboldened (Arial 12)
    • Sub-section headings should be italicised (Arial 12)
    • Single line break between paragraphs, do not indent text
    • Do not use bold, italics or underlining in the main text
    • Quotes- if less than one line use double quotation marks. If longer than one line the quote should be separated by a line break, in italics, and use an indentation of 0.6cm from the left margin. Please put page number from source.
    • No footnotes.
    • Endnotes are permitted but do keep brief and avoid too many.
    • Tables and figures should be inserted into the position preferred by the author.
    • Insert page numbers. Bottom of the page, right (Plain no 3 in Microsoft Word)
  • We seek submissions which consider an international audience and our wide constituency of all involved in Higher/Tertiary Education.  So do be mindful of the audience. This includes the usage of terms that may not be understood outside of any national context in HE or constituency of roles (including, but not limited to, the use of; years 4/5/6 in place of first year, second year or final year etc ). It is also important to remember to give further explanation of description of nation based organisations (such as, Ofsted, Office of Learning and Teaching), this may be done as an endnote.  

  • If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, ensure that you provide a version marked 'for review' which is fully anonymised.

Author Guidelines

See Focus and Scope Section for the type of submissions accepted.

Ways of submitting

If you would like to check if your submission idea is likely to fit with the journal in terms of focus and quality, please submit a proposal of your intended submission (in the order of 300 words) before writing and submitting the full piece..

If you are new or fairly new to writing for publication you may opt for the Developmental Route. The editors may also recommend this route after receiving a proposal from you. This entails submitting a draft submission clearly stating that you wish to exercise this option. There is an option to choose this on submission The editors will decide if they consider the submission suitable for SEHEJ. If they do, you will be allocated a mentor. The role of the mentor is to support you redraft the submission up to the standard required for publication. When the mentor agrees that the submission is ready, this is submitted in the usual way to the Direct Route, below. 

 For more experienced authors, a Direct Route is offered. Please submit a paper or case study/practice piece to the appropriate section of the journal via the SEHEJ website. Ensure that the submission:

  • Fully complies with submission and editorial guidelines and policies.
  • If not using the house templates*, you must adhere fully to all format and layout rules.
  • Is submitted in two forms; with full author details clearly marked ‘not for review’; and in anonymised form with all author and institutional identifiers removed, marked ‘for review’.

The editorial team will acknowledge receipt and will check compliance as above. Non-compliant submissions will be returned and not accepted for review. The editorial team will decide if the submission is suitable for SEHEJ. If deemed so, the submission will be reviewed by at least two referees and a decision returned to the lead author normally within three months. Reviewers consider:

The criteria are:

  1. Relevance to the journal theme: any aspect of student engagement
  2. Quality of submission  (argument, scholarship, research rigour, contribution to knowledge as appropriate)
  3. Interest to members of RAISE and the wider HE community

 The editor will decide between four possibilities on the basis of reviews received:

  1. Accept as is
  2. Minor revisions – on the basis that corrections can be undertaken requiring only a couple of work
  3. Major revisions – requiring substantial reconsideration by the authors
  4. Reject

For revision, and resubmission, authors must resubmit normally within 6 months. They complete a pro-forma to demonstrate how they have addressed the requirements and suggestions made. 

The editor may send resubmissions back to the reviewers (particularly in the case of major revision). The editor will then decide if the resubmission requires further revision, is acceptable or will be rejected

Editorial Guidelines – which apply to all submissions:

Manuscripts should be compiled in the following order:

  • Title
  • All authors of a manuscript should include their full names, affiliations/institutions and email addresses on the cover page of the manuscript. One author should be identified as the corresponding author. Please give the affiliation where the research was conducted. If any of the named co-authors moves affiliation during the peer review process, the new affiliation should be given in the biographical note. Please note that no changes to affiliation can be made after the manuscript is accepted.
  • All persons who have a reasonable claim to authorship must be named in the manuscript as co-authors; the corresponding author must be authorized by all co-authors to act as an agent on their behalf in all matters pertaining to publication of the manuscript, and the order of names should be agreed by all authors
  • Please supply a short biographical note for each author (max of 20 words per author or 30 words for a single author).
  • Please use section headings which should be concise (e.g. Introduction or Background; Methods: Findings; Discussion; Conclusions or Recommendations etc.)
  • For all manuscripts non-discriminatory language is mandatory. Sexist, racist, or homophobic terms must not be used.
  • When using a word which is or is asserted to be a proprietary term or trade mark, authors must use the symbol ® or TM.
  • Authors must not embed equations or image files within their manuscript.
  • Authors must not use any sort of endnote referencing tool to manage citations and references in the final version submitted.

 Layout

Please format your submissions:

  • In Arial 12 point
  • Single line spacing
  • Justified to the left margin
  • Section headings should be emboldened (Arial 12)
  • Sub-section headings should be italicised (Arial 12)
  • Single line break between paragraphs, do not indent text
  • Do not use bold, italics or underlining in the main text
  • Quotes- if less than one line use double quotation marks. If longer than one line the quote should be separated by a line break, in italics, and use an indentation of 0.6cm from the left margin. Please put page number from source.
  • No footnotes.
  • Endnotes are permitted but do keep brief and avoid too many.
  • Tables and figures should be inserted into the position preferred by the author.
  • Insert page numbers. Bottom of the page, right (Plain no 3 in Microsoft Word)

 We reserve the right to reformat and edit text appropriately to fit the format for the final published version.

 References

Full list of references being provided for all citations at the end of the work, in alphabetical order.

Use APA style, for guidance see: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/style/reference/tf_APA.pdf.

Please ensure any hyperlinks included in the text and referencing list have been recently tested and are up to date. Any source you use must be accessible to all.

Images

If you are submitting images submit them as .jpg files. Ensure that you obtain required permissions for reproduction and include this with the submission.

Each manuscript should have keywords. (we reserve the right to change these keywords to enable consistency)

Book Reviews

A critical review of a book related to student engagement (usually to a maximum of 1000 words)

Student voice

We encourage student contributions to the journal. Where possible, at least one other student will peer review your submission. 

If you are new to journal writing, then please conside using the proposal or developmental routes before your submit your piece for peer review.

Student voice pieces are usually based on personal experience of studying at university and are around 2000 words. If you have more to say, for instance reporting on an engagement initiative, then consider the case study section. A student voice piece might cover what engaged you with your studies, or what disengaged you? What helped you to build relationships in your university?  What advice would you give to your younger self? What a dvice would you give to your tutors, or university service managers? Tell us about how you felt about student engagement initiatives and how they impacted on your studying. 

You don't need to include references in a student voice piece, but of course you can if you like. Structure the piece so that it has a beginning, middle and end, telling your story in your own words. It can be useful to imagine writing for a colleague or peer who doesn't know much about the aspect of student engagement you are discussing. 

We love to receive student voice pieces, and we prefer to have at least one student as the reviewer, so if you are interested in reviewing, please do register. 

Case studies/Practice Pieces

These pieces are based on student engagement practices within the setting of the curriculum (learning, teaching and assessment in practice), extra-curricular activities or broader student experience initiatives. A case study should describe the context and a rationale for the work, a fairly brief review of the literature to contextualise the work, then a description of the implementation and an evaluation.

You will need to include an abstract and a reference list. Reference to your ethics approval is required for all research articles and case studies where an institution would feasibly require it. We know there is some variation between countries but we expect to see approval for any study which reports on staff or student experiences in any way. Email us if you need to discuss this. 

Case studies are usually around 3000 words. 

Articles

Research articles should report on substantive qualitative or quantitative studies (or mixed methods) about student engagement.  They will usually be  be approximately 6-8000 words in length (inclusive of all texts, bios, abstracts, references, tables and figures). However, if your paper is considered suitable for review but is over the word limit it you will be asked to shorten it on return of reviewer comments and revision. If your paper is considerably over the word limit, it will be returned to you without being checked and we will ask you to resubmit a shortened version.

Abstracts of between 150-250 words are required for all manuscripts submitted. The paper should be based on ongoing or completed research and should provide a clear rationale for the study, a literature review, an overview of the research methodology adopted (we welcome both qualitative and quantitative research), presentation of findings and a discussion of those findings in relation to existing knowledge (a maximum of 8000 words).  You can adapt these headings to your own needs and style, but some form of each of these sections is likely to be necessary to ensure that the work is well situated in the literature on student engagement and that the narrative is clear to readers. Reference to your ethics approval is required for all research articles and case studies where an institution would feasibly require it. We know there is some variation between countries but we expect to see approval for any study which reports on staff or student experiences in any way. Email us if you need to discuss this. 

Each manuscript should include keywords. (we may suggest changes to these to enable consistency). 

Opinion Piece

These are fairly short contributions based on the perspective of the writer. These will be informed opinions which may reference scholarship but are not expected to be rigorous as papers. They will usually be a maximum of 2000 words and related to a topical issue in student engagement. 

Proposal

Please use this article type if you would like the editorial board to consider a proposal of up to 500 words. This should be based on the abstract alone, and you can add in some key references, comments on methodology or ethics, or further explanations if you  think they are necessary. We will then let you know if we think it is suitable for the journal. For this  to be the case, it should be in scope, novel, and have a clear interest for our readers. 

Developmental

This section is for authors seeking developmental feedback on their articles before peer review.  As a network of educators and students committed to engagement and inclusion, this is a service we offer to novice authors.  Please remember that this is a time-consuming process, and the editorial board are all volunteers, so please use your judgement in choosing to use this route.  We expect to see fully worked submissions. If you have a proposal, please use the 'proposal' route.

The developmental process is as follows: 

  1. Submit your article to the journal, choosing 'developmental' for the article type.  
  2. Your article will be reviewed by a member of the editorial board who will give you feedback on the suitability of the article for the journal and what kinds of edits might be required before it goes to peer review, or confirms that it is ready for peer review.  The feedback will be general; we are not editing your work here, but giving you some advice on making it publication-ready if it is not already. 
  3. You edit the article if needed, and resubmit, choosing the correct article type (eg article, case study), and including a short summary of the changes you have made at the beginning of the document, or as a separate document. The editor will look at these before deciding whether to send to peer review. As part of this process they may consult with the rest of the editorial board.  
  4. If it is suitable for peer review, it will go directly to two independent reviewers. If not, the article will be returned to you as not suitable for our journal.  

Note: Editors will not be able to give a second round of developmental feedback, although they will provide explanation if anything is unclear. We are unable to provide developmental feedback to the same authors more than once, unless there are exceptional circumstances.  

Other formats

Non-text submissions – this would include short films, animations, audio files/podcasts or other forms of media that can be shared on-line and are accessible to our readers. Contact the editorial team to ensure that the submission is in a suitable format for the journal.

Creativity special issue

No longer active

Special Edition Abstracts

This section is no longer active, please do not submit to it. 

Special Interest Groups Special Edition

This section is for invited papers for outputs from the RAISE Joint Special Interest Groups (Early Careers Researcher and Research and Evaluation) Collaborative Writing Project.

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

a.  Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

b.  Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

c.  Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).