Author Guidelines
General guidelines
Authors interested in submitting manuscripts to Impact should first consult the Editorial Policies section of this Web site to learn more about the journal's focus and scope, including topics of interest and types of articles accepted. A large proportion of submissions to the journal are rejected outright without undergoing peer review due to issues with scope.
In addition, authors should note that Impact caters to a broad, international readership. Submissions are welcomed from authors across the globe, and contributors are strongly encouraged to approach their chosen topics with an international perspective. However, authors whose first language is not English should have their manuscripts reviewed by English-speaking colleagues prior to submission.
In addition to the guidelines on this page, authors considering submitting case study articles to the journal should refer to the specific Advice to authors of case study articles (PDF document).
Manuscript text formatting and style guidelines
- The usual length of an Impact article is 4000-7000 words, including the abstract (100-200 words), tables and references. Manuscripts that exceed 8000 words in length are unlikely to be accepted.
- The preferred spelling standard is Australian English, ie as per The Macquarie Dictionary.
- Before submitting, the authors must ensure that the manuscript is free from typographical errors, spelling mistakes, etc. This necessitates manual proofreading - simply relying on automatic, software-based spell checkers is insufficient.
- If the manuscript is being submitted to a refereed/peer-reviewed section of the journal, the authors should ensure that they have followed the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review.
- The manuscript should be formatted as follows:
° Page setup: Page size = A4; Orientation = Portrait; All margins = 2.5 cm.
° Manuscript title: Arial, 16-point, bold, left aligned, sentence case (initial caps and essentials only), followed by one blank line.
° Abstract: Start the abstract with the sequence "Abstract: " (without the quotes, in 10-point bold face), followed by a 100 to 200-word abstract that contains a concise summary of the article, including its motivation/rationale, problem/s addressed, approach, results and findings/conclusions. The purpose of the abstract is to entice potential readers into reading the full article. The text in the abstract must not be replicated anywhere in the main body of the manuscript. Indent the abstract 1.0 cm from left and right margins. Leave two blank lines before and one after abstract (all 10 point), but do not insert any line breaks immediately after the "Abstract:" sequence.
° Keywords: Include the sequence "Keywords: " (without the quotes, in 10-point bold face), followed by up to six terms (separated by semicolons) that will assist users of search engines and/or online databases in locating your article. As with the abstract, apply indentation of 1.0 cm from left and right margins. Leave a blank line before the keywords list and two after it, but do not insert any line breaks immediately after the "Keywords:" sequence.
° First-level heading: Arial, 12 point, bold, followed by one blank line, left aligned, sentence case. No numbering.
° Second-level heading: Arial, 10 point, bold, followed by one blank line, left aligned, sentence case. No numbering.
° Third-level heading: Arial, 10 point, italics, not followed by a blank line, left aligned, sentence case. No numbering.
° Running (body) text: Arial, 10 point, left aligned, single spaced. Blank lines before and after headings and paragraphs are to be sized the same as text lines, ie. 10 point (Arial). Insert a blank line after each paragraph. The use of "spacing before" and "spacing after" paragraphs should be avoided. - Italics (not bold or underline) should be used to emphasise text. Such text emphases should be used sparingly, and preferably only where expected by convention, such as in the case of titles of books and journals and for proprietary names (eg of software packages like Excel).
- Where bulleted and numbered lists are used, the text therein should be in Arial, 10 point, left aligned, single spaced, no indents except a hanging indent of 0.5 cm. Leave a 10-point blank line immediately before the start of the list (ie after the lead-in colon).
- Unless readers are being directed to an entire Web site (eg the top level/home page of a company, institution, government or project site), Web addresses (URLs) should not be embedded into the text of the manuscript. URLs pointing to individual Web pages or other files should be included in reference list entries in accordance with APA guidelines (see the referencing guidelines below). A corresponding author-date citation should be inserted at the appropriate point within the text.
- Footnotes and endnotes should not be used under any circumstances. If a point is worth making, it should be included in the main text of the manuscript.
- Do not place anything in the document's header or footer, other than page numbers (10-point Arial, on the bottom-right of each page), which will be changed accordingly during layout editing/production if the manuscript is accepted for publication.
- An Acknowledgements section may optionally be included to record appreciation to individuals and/or organisations for assisting or supporting the authors' work. If needed, this section should be placed after the main text and before the references. It should begin with a first-level heading that reads "Acknowledgements" (without the quotes).
- The following style conventions should be adhered to throughout the text:
° et al (in italics, no full stop)
° eg
° ie
° N.B.
° etc
° v (not vs or vs.)
° Dr Mr Mrs Ms Prof St Jr (no full stop)
° no. (for number)
° p. and pp. (followed by a space, eg pp. 7–9)
° vol. and vols (note: no full stop after the plural form)
° para. and paras (followed by a space, eg paras 1-2, note: no full stop after the plural form. Do not use the paragraph mark or pilcrow ¶)
° email (in sentences) and Email (at the start of sentences)
° e-learning (and also e-business, e-commerce, m-learning, e-portfolio, etc) in sentences; at the start of sentences (and when using title case): E-learning (and E-business, E-commerce, etc)
° Web site, Web page (N.B. two words, 'W' in 'Web' is capitalised)
° program (not programme)
° focused, focusing (not focussed, focussing)
° inquire, inquiry (not enquire, enquiry)
° Quotation marks: Double quotes, single within
° Hypens and dashes: Use a hyphen (-) to link words in instances where two separate concepts are linked, but produce a new or adapted meaning overall (e.g. worker-learner, cross-country, Pan-European). Use en dash (–) to link two concepts that remain distinct in their meaning (eg teacher–student dialogue, human–computer interaction), or to denote ranges (eg pp. 7–9, 21–25 October, 2008–2009). Use an em dash with spaces on either side – like so – and not the longer em dash—like so—for dashes in running text.
° Ellipsis: eg Count Dracula never drinks... wine. (N.B. no space before, but space after ellipsis) Or at the end of a sentence: Count Dracula never drinks... .
° Lists in running text: Where lists of items appear in the running text, with commas delimiting the items, do not add a comma before the "and" preceding the last item of the list, except in cases where there are multiple "and's" within the individual list items, and the final comma is necessary for clarity. (eg apples, pears and oranges – no comma before "oranges")
° Dates: eg 2 March 2009 (not '2nd March 2009' or 'March 2, 2009'. Spell out the name of the month in full.) Or without the year: 2 March
° Numbers: Except when used as part of a date, numbers less than 10 should be spelt out (eg On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me... two turtle doves, and partridge in a pear tree.) Arabic numbers should be used for other values (eg 12th day of Christmas, 99 bottles of beer on the wall. Note that the 'th' in '12'th is not in supersript.) An exception is when the number appears at the start of the sentence, in which case it should always be spelt out.
° Percentages: In general, the rules for numbers apply to percentage values. The percentage symbol % is to be used when the value is less than ten, while 'per cent' (two words) is to be spelt out for other values (eg seven per cent, 18%). When percentages appear at the start of a sentence, they should be spelt out (eg Twenty-two per cent of participants responded positively... ).
Guidelines for tables and figures
- All illustrations, figures/diagrams and tables are placed within the running text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
- All figures/diagrams should be centred, and diagrams should have a title or caption with consecutive numbering (eg Figure 1: Caption for the figure/diagram), Arial, 10 point, bold, using sentence case, centred, and located below the figure or diagram. Do not include a full stop at the end of the caption. Use brief captions, preferably one line not exceeding the width of the figure.
- Like figures/digrams, tables should be centred and have a title with consecutive numbering (eg Table 1: Title of the table), Arial, 10 point, bold, using sentence case, centred, however this should be located at the top of the table. Do not include a full stop at the end of the caption. Use brief titles, preferably one line not exceeding the width of the table.
- Arial, 10 point and other body text specifications should be used for all text within a table, though 9 point may be used as required for narrow columns. If possible, diagrams that contain text should use 10-point Arial font as well.
- Select appropriate widths for the table and for each column, using percentages. Use of borders for all cells ('All', with style '1/2 point') is recommended as these are helpful for on-screen reading. In columns of numbers, use centring or decimal point alignment. For headings within tables, use sentence case, bold, centred, and shade the cells in Light Orange (#FF9900).
- If a diagram/figure or table requires explanatory text that is inappropriate for placing in the running text, it should be placed at the bottom of the table (above the caption), formatted to the same width as the diagram/figure or table.
Guidelines for in-text citations, quotations and references
Impact follows the in-text citation and reference list style detailed in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.).
In-text citations
The (Name, year) sequence should be inserted into the running text for a citation to a literature reference. Assuming the work being cited has only a single author, 'Name' refers to the last name of the author and 'year' refers to the year of publication. If the author's name already appears in the sentence, the year can simply be inserted in parentheses, immediately following the name.
For example:
... in accordance with this rule (Jones, 2002).
In his seminal work, Jones (2002) argues that...
To cite a work by two authors, join the individual authors' last names using the word 'and' or the ampersand symbol &, depending on the context. Specifically, if the citation appears in running text, the names should be joined by the word 'and'; in parenthetical material (as well as in tables and in the Reference List), an ampersand should be used.
For example:
... this view (Peabody & Smith, 2005) appears to be...
Peabody and Smith (2005) concur...
For multiple-author citations for which there are three to five authors, all last names should be cited in the first instance, eg Gray, Barnes and Adams, 2004, with subsequent occurrences cited as et al, eg Gray et al (2004) or (Gray et al, 2004). For six or more authors, the last name of the first author followed by et al should be used in all instances including the first instance. However, all authors should be listed in the Reference List.
The year in an in-text citation may have running lower case letters (a, b, c... ) appended if the manuscript references more than one source published in the same year by the same author/s (eg White, 1998a, White, 1998b, etc). Where more than one reference is used, the citations should be delimited with commas and/or semicolons as in the examples below:
... (Doolittle, 2000; Gao et al, 2003; Hanna, Lee & Wiley, 2005)...
... (White, 1998a, b; White & Jones, 2007)...
... (Matthews, 2003, 2004a, b)...
As per APA guidelines, avoid the use of ibid, op. cit. and loc. cit.
Direct quotations
Direct quotations, ie, verbatim (word-for-word) reproduction of excerpts of text from a source, should be used sparingly. Short quotations containing less than 40 words should be given with double quotation marks in the running text, whilst longer quotations should be formatted as a freestanding block with the following attributes: Arial, 10 point, left aligned, single spaced, indented 1.0 cm left and right, not italicised, without quote marks, one blank line before and after.
Referencing for the quotation may be given in the running text immediately before the quotation, or may be appended to the end of the quotation. In either case, the page number/s (for printed sources, eg books) or section name and paragraph number/s (for electronic sources, eg Web pages) must be specified. For example:
In the words of Lee (2009, p. 809):...
... (Lee, 2009, pp. 809–810).
McLoughlin (2009) expresses the following opinion:... (para. 7)
... (Smith, 2009, "Introduction", para. 2).
... According to Smith (2009):... ("Introduction", paras. 3–4)
Do not edit the spelling of text within a direct quotation for adherence to Australian spelling. For example, if the word "organization" appears in the a direct quotation, do not change it to "organisation", notwithstanding the journal's preference for Australian spelling.
Reference list entries
Full references should be given at the end of the article in alphabetical order by first author's last name, in a section titled "References" (formatted as a first-level heading, without the quotes). Once again, references should not be placed in footnotes or endnotes. References to unpublished material should be avoided.
Reference list entries should be in Arial, 10 point, left aligned, hanging indent 0.5 cm, with no blank lines in between. The following are examples of referencing for the main types of publications.
Authored book:
Salomon, G. (1993).
Distributed cognitions. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Edited book:
Salmon, G. & Edirisingha, P. (Eds.). (2008). Podcasting for learning in universities. London: McGraw-Hill.
Book chapter (or paper published in conference proceedings):
Lee, M.J.W. & Tynan, B. (2008). Podcasts and distance learning. In G. Salmon & P. Edirisingha (Eds.), Podcasting for learning in universities (pp. 92–102). London: McGraw-Hill.
Chan, A., Frydenberg, M. & Lee, M.J.W. (2007). Facilitating cross-cultural learning through collaborative Skypecasting. In J.J. Ekstrom (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2007 ACM Information Technology in Education Conference (pp. 59–66). New York: ACM.
McLoughlin, C. & Lee, M.J.W. (2007). Social software and participatory learning: extending pedagogical choices with technology affordances in the Web 2.0 era. In R. Atkinson & C. McBeath (Eds.), ICT: Providing choices for learners and learning. Proceedings of the 24th ASCILITE Conference (pp. 664–675). Singapore: Nanyang Technological University. http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/procs/mcloughlin.pdf
Conference paper:
McLoughlin, C., Brady, J., Lee, M.J.W. & Russell, R. (2007). Peer-to-peer: an e-mentoring approach to facilitating reflection on professional experience for novice teachers. Paper presented at the 2007 Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) Conference. Fremantle, WA, 25–29 November.
(N.B. Please use the book chapter style instead if the paper has been published in conference proceedings.)
Journal article:
Lee, M.J.W., McLoughlin, C. & Chan, A. (2008). Talk the talk: learner-generated podcasts as catalysts for knowledge creation. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(3), 501–521. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2007.00746.x
Lee, M.J.W., Eustace, K., Fellows, G., Bytheway, A. & Irving, L. (2005). Rochester Castle MMORPG: instructional gaming and collaborative learning at a Western Australian school. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 21(4), 446–469. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet21/lee.html
Web site or Web only publication:
Impact: Journal of Applied Research in Workplace E-learning. (n.d.). Submissions. Retrieved 10 March 2009, from http://journal.elnet.com.au/index.php/impact/about/submissions [Archived at http://www.webcitation.org/5f9AyVkgi].
Other guidelines relating to reference list entries are as follows:
- No spaces in between an author's initials (eg "Lee, M.J.W.", not "Lee, M. J. W.")
- When specifying ranges (of page numbers, dates, etc) en dashes (–) should be used, not hyphens
- Page numbers and years should be specified in full. Do not shorten "324–326" to "324–6"; similarly use "2005–2006", not "2005–6"
- Use "Ed." and "Eds." for editor/s, not "Ed" and "Eds"
- Use "ed." for edition
- Book, chapter and article/paper titles should have first letter capitalised, the rest in lowercase. Journal titles should be in title case.
- For books, chapters and articles/papers, no initial caps for subtitles (ie after colons). Eg: "E-learning in a large organization: a study of the critical role of information sharing", not "E-learning in a large organisation: A study of the critical role of information sharing"
- For journal articles, journal volume and issue number should always be specified (not just volume number), whenever and wherever possible. The journal title, comma (followed by a space) and volume number should be italicised, but not the issue number (in parentheses). There should be no space between the volume number and the opening parenthesis of the issue number.
- For all articles/papers published in online, open access journals or conference proceedings, the URL must be provided; however, if the paper/article is not free/open access or is otherwise password protected, do not include the URL. Do not insert a full stop at the end of the URL.
- Do not edit the spelling of a publication's title for adherence to Australian spelling. For example, if the word "organization" appears in the original title, do not change it to "organisation".
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Impact is a member of CrossRef, which enables it to assign unique Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to each article it publishes.
All CrossRef members are obliged to perform outbound linking of their journal references. Therefore, where a reference list item has a corresponding DOI, it must be specified, as per the examples above.
WebCite®
Due to the dynamic nature of the World Wide Web, cited URLs tend to disappear, sometimes in a matter of a few days or weeks after publication of an article. Impact therefore requires authors to use WebCite® to archive cited Web references, with the exception of journal and proceedings URLs considered to be of high reliability. The WebCite® system preserves a snapshot of a Web page so that future readers can view same page in the form it was cited.
The archiving process is simple: follow the instructions provided at WebCite's archiving page. Please note that WebCite will archive only single pages; in the case of articles that appear over several pages, look for a "printer-friendly" or PDF version to archive. If no single-page formats are available, do not archive the reference.
Also note that not every Web page is archivable; if archiving fails, insert a parenthetical note after the reference list entry to notify the Editorial Team that archiving was attempted. Example: "(WebCite archiving failed.)"
Archived URLs should be appended to standard reference list entries, as per the examples above.
