Submissions
This page is designed to help you ensure your submission is ready for and fits the scope of the journal.
Before submitting you should read over the guidelines here, then register an account (or login if you have an existing account).
Focus and Scope
- Articles or reports of about 3000 to 5000 words. (Longer pieces may be considered subject to prior consultation with the Editor)
- Shorter pieces of up to 1000 words that might include items of information, notes on innovative digital learning practice and discussion points (including those arising from previous articles).
- Reviews of between 500 and 1000 words on a range of digital learning tools, publications, research, resources, etc
Additional categories (please contact the Editors for further information and how to submit your proposal)
- Audiovisual and other multimodal submissions, subject to prior consultation with the Editor.
- Podcasts in the form of individual or panel interviews.
Author Guidelines
Formatting your submission
All manuscript text should be Times New Roman 12-point font and be double spaced.
Versions for peer review
The journal operates double-blind peer review, in which authors and reviewers are anonymised to keep their identity hidden from each other. Authors should submit two versions of the manuscript:
- The complete manuscript not blinded, as a Word file (.doc/.docx, etc.). Please include the following biographical information: full names of contributing authors including their institutions/affiliation and address, their institutional email address, and their ORCiDs. The corresponding author should be identified.
- An anonymous PDF version of the manuscript, stripped of all identifying references to the author(s) for peer review (anonymisation includes biographical information, acknowledgements, self references, electronic author identification and all publication references). Manuscripts will be returned before peer review if manuscripts are not blinded.
Article content
Please prepare your manuscript under the following headings, and in the order given.
1) Title
Your title should succinctly reflect the article’s content, using key words that are most likely to draw interested readers to the content through a search engine. Titles that accurately communicate article content in a few careful words are more effective than catchy phrases that require a subtitle for explanation. Please use the guidelines below as closely as possible. You may be asked to rework you title if it does not follow them effectively.
Titles should be accessible for all - Be direct, transparent and use keywords so your content is more likely to be found and read by a range of readers.
Titles should fill less than 2 of manuscript.
Use a single-sentence title, where possible – A clear, succinct description that does not require an explanatory subtitle is the best option.
Where ‘Title: subtitle’ is unavoidable:
The main title (text before colon) will be used for the running head throughout the paper - consider length and whether the title can be understood alone.
Avoid using a quote in/for the main heading – these always need explanation in the subtitle and will not be understood in the running head.
If the main title is too long or opaque, the explanatory subtitle may be used as a running head.
2) Biographical information (Word document only): See point 1 above.
3) Abstract
Present an abstract of 150 to 200 words. This should reflect the entire content of the submission. It should cover the key steps in your article, probably including the genesis of your project/research/theorising, research questions/hypotheses, the research design and methods, findings and outcomes, a discussion of these including limitations, and any indications offered for future action or research. Your abstract will ultimately be used by search engines, and it will form part of the meta-data that will be seen first by people searching your article.
4) Keywords
List up to 10 keyword terms that accurately reflect the article.
5) Article text
Please refer to the ‘General notes for submission’ at the top of this page and to the article type descriptions above when preparing the main body of text.
6) Abbreviations
If any abbreviations have been used, please define and list them accordingly under this heading.
7) Funding
Any sources of funding for the research reported should be declared, including any project codes.
8) Acknowledgements
Mention everyone whose contribution to the work you wish to recognise in this section. Those that contributed to the paper but are not listed as authors can be acknowledged here.
9) Declarations and conflict of interests
Include the following statements that are relevant for type of paper you are submitting and for your work. Where there are bulleted choices, please include the one that is appropriate to you and provide any information required:
10) Research ethics statement (for articles reporting on original research with human participants; choose the correct statement where appropriate, and provide any additional information required)
The author/s declare/s that research ethics approval for this article was provided by ___________________ ethics board. /
The author/s declare/s that research ethics approval for this article was waivered by ____________________ ethics board. /
The author/s conducted the research reported in this article in accordance with _________________ standards.
11) Consent for publication statement (for articles reporting on original research or any activity involving human participants)
The author declares that research participants’ informed consent to publication of findings – including photos, videos and any personal or identifiable information – was secured prior to publication.
12) Conflict of interest statement (for all articles; delete as appropriate)
The author/s declare/s no conflict of interest with this work.
The author/s declare/s the following interests: ___________________________
All efforts to sufficiently blind the author during peer review of this article have been made. The author declares no further conflicts with this article.
13) References
A full reference list should contain all the sources cited in the text. Any source not cited in text should not be included. The journal uses an author, date style of referencing. Please refer to this guide.
Note on appendices
Please do not include any appendices, footnotes, endnotes or any illustrative matter in your submission - this should be included in the body of the text or as a table/figure.
Preparing tables and figures
Authors are responsible for determining the copyright status of illustrations or other material they wish to reproduce in their article and, if necessary, obtaining permission to reproduce it. This applies both to direct reproduction and to ‘derivative reproduction’ (where authors create a new figure or table which derives substantially from a copyrighted source). By including such material in their submission, authors warrant that it may be reproduced or adapted under the terms of the CC BY licence in the same way as their own work. Please note that short extracts of copyright text (excluding poetry and song lyrics) for the purposes of criticism, discussion, or review may be reproduced without formal permission assuming that the quotation is reproduced accurately and full attribution is given.
All tables and figures should be numbered sequentially (Table 1, Table 2, etc) and have a short, clear title or caption. Each one should be tagged in the correct place in the manuscript, e.g. <Insert Table 1 near here>, even if the table or illustration has been placed in the manuscript in its final position.
All tables and figures should cite a source. Where the source is the author, please add ‘Source: Author’ at the end of the caption.
Tables and author-generated line diagrams
These should be incorporated into the text at their final position. Please supply tables formatted in Word.
Graphs
Please submit these as separate, editable documents accompanied by the original Excel spreadsheet from which they were generated.
Illustrations, photographs
Please submit images both within the article text and as separate image files (jpg, tiff, eps)
Revisions
Should your manuscript need revision to meet the journal’s requirements, or following peer review, please attend to the following points when revising your manuscript.
- Provide your timely revisions along with a response letter to any reviewer reports, within the specified revision period to the handling editor.
- Clearly show and/or highlight the revisions you have made in the text. This can be accommodated by making use of either a different colour text, highlighting the text, or by using Microsoft Word's Track Changes function.
- In your response letter, address all points raised by the editor and reviewers, preferably sequentially and in a bullet point list.
- Outline the revisions you have made to your manuscript.
- Where applicable, perform any additional analyses or experiments the reviewers recommend (unless you feel that they would not make your paper better; if this is the case, explain why in your response letter).
- Provide a polite objective rebuttal to any points or comments you disagree with.
Referencing style
Please use APA style.
Peer Review
Reflecting Digital Learning operates double blind peer review, where both the reviewers and authors are anonymised during review. Authors should submit an anonymous version of the manuscript, stripped of all identifying references to the author(s) for peer review.
Further information regarding peer review can be found on the UCL Open Access Student Journal Editorial Policy pages.
Licences
Reflecting Digital Learning allows the following licences for submission:
- CC BY 4.0
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Publication Fees
All UCL Open Access Student Journals do not charge an Article-Processing Charge (APC) for submission or publication. UCL Open Access Student Journal authors of accepted papers will not be required to make an APC payment for submission or publication before publication of their article.