Call for Special Issues
Journal call for papers from The Learning Organization
The Learning Organization
The International Journal of Knowledge and Organizational Learning Management
Guidelines for Guest Editing a Special Issue
1. General Emerald Guidelines
1.1. How to be a Guest Editor
Most scholarly journals publish special issues from time to time – Emerald titles tend to feature at least one every volume. A special issue enables the journal to focus on a topic – often in a new or emerging area – allowing a more in-depth treatment, or exploring alternative perspectives.
A special issue is edited by a Guest Editor, a subject expert appointed by a Journal’s Special Issues Editor. Special issues allow Guest Editors to gain valuable first-hand experience of editing a publication and this provides a good trial run for those ambitious to edit their own journal one day. Producing a good special issue may also significantly enhance a Guest Editor's academic or professional standing.
1.2. What makes a good special issue?
One could simply say that a successful special issue is one that helps a journal maintain its reputation for academic rigour and cutting-edge research. But, in order to consider entries for the Literati Club Outstanding Special Issue Award, Emerald has attempted to quantify things a little. So what does make a good special issue?
· internationality in content and/or readership
· leading edge content and originality
· broad subject interest appeal
· a consistency in the papers through either a commonality of approach or theme, or their comparative nature
· the authors of the papers are some of the active and important figures in the field
· a well-written guest editorial which exhibits real understanding of the value and import of the issue
· Guest Editor(s) who have put a lot into the work involved in the commissioning and production of the issue.
1.3. The Guest Editor’s role
For the Special Issue the Guest Editor undertakes the following responsibilities:
· Sourcing, reviewing and providing appropriate content for the Special Issue
· Appointing and reviewing the list of reviewers
· Arranging and managing the peer review system
· Maintaining and developing the quality of the content
· Promoting the issue at relevant conferences and to interested colleagues, where appropriate
· Meeting the deadlines for delivery of the manuscripts to Emerald
· Ensuring that each manuscript adheres to a Journal’s author guidelines and wider Emerald guidelines to ensure smooth progress through the production process.
· Emerald requires that all lead authors sign a copyright form that clearly states that their submitted work has not been published before. If elements of a work have been previously published in another publication, including an Emerald publication, the author is required to acknowledge the earlier work and indicate how the subsequent work differs and builds upon the research and conclusions contained in the previous work. Verbatim copying of an author’s own work and paraphrasing is not acceptable and we recommend that research should only be reused to support new conclusions. We recommend that authors cite all previous stages of publication and presentation of their ideas that have culminated in the final work, including conference papers, workshop presentations and listserv communications. This will ensure that a complete record of all communication relating to the work is documented.
1.4. Editorial relationships
Whether the special issue was the original idea of the Guest Editor or was commissioned by any of a Journal’s Editors, the Special Issues Editor will still retain some involvement. How much will depend on the individual but it is important to agree this clearly at an early stage! At the very least, the Special Issues Editor should see full versions of the articles well before the issue deadline.
The Managing Editor, based at Emerald, shares ultimate responsibility for a Journal’s content with a Journal’s Special Issues Editor. It will be the job of the Managing Editor to provide publisher support to enable the Guest Editor to fulfil their role as outlined above.
1.5. Planning the issue
The first step is for the Guest Editor and Journal Special Issues Editor to agree the scope of the issue, the likely publication date and the Guest Editor's final copy deadline. Armed with this information, the Guest Editor should be able to create a Call for Papers and to draw up a project schedule which allows sufficient time for authors to submit papers, for referees to review contributions, for papers to be returned to authors and revisions made, and for the Guest Editor to compile the final issue ready for the due copy date.
This is also the time for the Guest Editor to:
- Familiarise him or herself with a Journal’s 'Author Guidelines'. These indicate the required length of manuscripts and the format in which they should be submitted. These are the standard requirements for the journal and should be adhered to, unless the Guest Editor has agreed different specifications with a Journal’s Special Issues Editor and Emerald
- Take note of the journal's peer review process. Most Emerald journals employ a peer review process of some kind - for scholarly journals, it is usually double blind. Special issues are expected to employ a review process of equivalent rigour – again, any change to the process must be agreed with a Journal’s Special Issues Editor.
- Read the guidelines on defamatory material provided by Emerald. The Guest Editor is responsible, along with the author and publisher for ensuring that no article accepted for the special issue contains material which might fall foul of current libel law. It is worth noting that libel law in the UK, where Emerald is based, is generally more restrictive than in the US.
- Ensure that any special issue will be able to give copyright to Emerald – we do not generally wish to republish papers that have been published previously (for example, in copyrighted conference proceedings).
1.6. Finding papers
The Guest Editor is responsible for ensuring there will be sufficient material in the special issue. It may be that the issue was planned with specific contributions in mind (conference papers, for instance), or the Guest Editor is sufficiently well connected, or even that there is a sufficient number of Guest Editors to mean that this will be effectively taken care of.
If this is not the case, it will be necessary to promote the issue with a call for papers. Guest Editors should distribute this as widely as possible within their own networks and at events they attend. Emerald can circulate the call for papers, publish them in the journal, on the website and send the Guest Editor a quantity for distribution. Emerald can also send it to the Guest Editor’s own mailing lists if these are supplied.
1.7. Handling submissions and managing the peer review process
The Guest Editor is responsible for providing clear and timely feedback throughout the editing process to authors who submit papers to the special issue. The receipt of manuscripts should be acknowledged and authors should be given an indication of when they will hear of major decisions on their papers. Special issues can often take 12-18 months to come to fruition, which is a long time for an author keen to be published to wait.
Guest Editors manage the peer review process for the special issue and, whilst a Journal’s Special Issues Editor may be able to help, the Guest Editor is essentially responsible for gathering together a team of suitably expert referees. The peer review is by far and away the most time-consuming part of the special issue editing process. It is also the most important part of the process as an effective and thorough peer review is essential for ensuring the quality of the papers accepted for publication.
When sending papers out for review, the Guest Editor should provide reviewers with clear instructions on the criteria against which papers should be assessed. This is most easily done by sending referees a standard review report form. The [anonymous] comments on the completed review form may then be passed back to the author. Guest Editors must ensure that authors address all the concerns raised by referees and modify their papers accordingly. Once authors have completed their revisions, the Guest Editor may choose to return papers to the original referees for a final check but this further stage may be dependent on time.
In order to ensure that the integrity of the review process is maintained, the following specific points should be considered:
- If the Guest Editor is planning to include a paper of their own, they should send it to a Journal’s Special Issues Editor to have it independently reviewed by the regular Editorial Advisory or Review Board.
- For further independence and transparency the Guest Editor should provide a list of reviewers used for the Special Issue - these reviewers should be different from the list of authors included in the Special Issue.
- When submitting a final Special Issue package, a note of when articles were received, revised and accepted for publication should be included because the dates will be published with the papers.
Once papers have been reviewed, revised and accepted for publication, the special issue is almost complete. The Guest Editor will have a few remaining loose ends to tie before submitting the special issue copy to a Journal’s Special Issues Editor and Emerald and these will invariably include:
- Writing an Editorial or Introduction to the special issue. This may either be a brief overview of the papers to be published or it may be a longer, more thematically-based piece. This latter type of Editorial/Introduction may be published in the journal as an article if 75% or more of its content is devoted to discussion of general themes rather than discussion of the specific articles
- Collecting Journal Article Record forms from authors. A Journal’s Article Record form assigns copyright to the publisher and gives Emerald the necessary permission to disseminate the article in print and electronic form on a global basis. Emerald will not publish any paper which is not accompanied by a Journal Article Record form. Blank forms may be obtained from a Journal’s Special Issues Editor, the Managing Editor or downloaded direct from the Emerald Literati Club website (see www.emeraldinsight.com/literaticlub/jarform.htm) Again, ensure that the copyright is the author’s to give.
- Checking that final versions of papers are complete, free of errors (to the author’s best knowledge) and conform to the journal’s housestyle requirements, that full author affiliations and contact details have been supplied, and that the author has provided an electronic version of the paper on disk or as an email attachment. There is a useful checklist on the Emerald Literati Club website.
1.9. Post-editing and post-publication
The journal’s Managing Editor works with the production team to ensure that the issue is published accurately and to schedule when the copy for the special issue is received at Emerald. It is at this stage that the Guest Editor, or authors of papers within the issue, may be contacted either by the Managing Editor or a Quality Assurance Executive with editorial queries.
Guest Editors usually receive five complimentary copies of their special issue. Further copies of the issue may be available at extra cost or at the discretion of the Managing Editor but such requests should be discussed in advance so they can be built in to the normal print run.
Emerald seeks to promote and distribute special issues as widely as possible. Guest Editors or even authors may be asked for background and biographical information to help with this. Emerald may assign ISBN numbers to individual special issues to help bring them to new markets and new readers.
And finally, the issue may be short listed for Outstanding Special Issue in the prestigious Emerald Literati Club Awards for Excellence. Good Luck!
2. Detailed Guidelines for SI Guest Editors of The Learning Organization
The Special Issue (SI) Editor for The Learning Organization (TLO) is responsible for opening up the journal’s SI process by inviting or receiving SI proposals from “Guest Editors” within the community.
For each proposal submitted by the Guest SI Editor(s), the SI Editor will review the merits of the topic and the ability of the Guest Editor(s) to pull off the proposed special issue. Next, the SI Editor will determine a timeline for the SI with the Guest Editor.
There are typically three potential routes (which may be combined) for an SI proposal based on either:
¨ Call for papers (CFP)
¨ Conference proceedings
¨ Invited papers
Re: Call for Papers, the Guest Editor(s) will show the SI Editor the CFP proposed, and if approved, the Guest Editor(s) will then advertise the SI and the CFP. TLO will help out here by posting the SI CFP on the Emerald website. The Guest Editor(s) will then receive the submitted articles and arrange for a 2-person double blind review of each submitted article, though the Guest Editor(s) will also have the right to reject a paper outright as being outside of the scope of the SI. A generic sample CFP is provided on page 2. On submitting the proposed CFP for review by the SI Editor, the names of individuals who may form the editorial review panel must be provided. This is a preliminary list and need not be firmed up until the CFP is issued; it is prudent to include as wide an international representation on the panel as possible. A sample SI CFP is provided in the APPENDIX at the end of these SI Guidelines.
Re: Conference proceedings, the Guest Editor(s) will show the SI Editor details of the conference topic, themes etc., and if approved, the Guest Editor(s) may then advertise the SI as a part of the conference. TLO will help out here by posting the SI details on the Emerald website. The Guest Editor(s) will then receive articles for the conference and if not already part of the conference procedure, will arrange for a 2-person double blind review of each submitted article they feel has potential for SI publication. On submitting the SI proposal for review, the Guest Editor(s) must provide the names of individuals who may form the editorial review panel; it is prudent to include as wide an international representation on the panel as possible. An appropriate timeline for development of the SI may be set up based on the CFP model provided in the APPENDIX at the end of these SI Guidelines.
Re: Invited Papers, the Guest Editor(s) will show the SI Editor details of the proposed topic and the names of authorities who will be invited by the Guest Editor(s) to submit papers. If approved, the Guest Editor(s) will then carry out the process of inviting papers, discussing topic guidelines with authors etc. Depending on the degree of acceptance of the invitations to submit an article, there may be further dialog between the Guest Editor(s) and the SI Editor. The Guest Editor(s) will then receive the submitted articles, personally review each submitted article; the Guest Editor(s) will also arrange for a single-blind review of each submitted article. The Guest Editor(s) as necessary have the right to reject a paper outright as being outside of the scope of the SI. On submitting the original SI proposal for review by the SI Editor, the names of individuals who may form the editorial review panel must be provided - it is prudent to include as wide an international representation on the panel as possible. An appropriate timeline for development of the SI may be set up based on the CFP model provided in the APPENDIX at the end of these SI Guidelines.
Typically an SI will support the acceptance of 6 papers, and the Guest Editor(s) will have an opportunity to write an introductory editorial for the SI. Once the review process and acceptance of 5-6 articles is completed by Guest Editor(s), these articles and the guest editorial will be submitted to the SI Editor who reviews the issue to make sure it conforms with a Journal’s quality standards. This last step may require some revisions by the Guest Editor(s) and/or accepted authors, but should proceed smoothly. With regard to an SI developed via a CFP or Conference Proceedings, papers which receive favorable reviews but cannot be accepted due to space limitations will be passed by the SI Editor to the TLO Editor for consideration to be published in a future issue of the TLO itself.
APPENDIX
SAMPLE CALL FOR PAPERS
The Learning Organisation
The International Journal of Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning Management
Special Issue: “xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx”
Guest Editor(s): xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxx Paragraph setting out the topic etc. of the SI xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In this special issue, we are keen to examine and extend our audience’s understanding of:
¨ Individual elements, themes etc.
¨ ….
We are particularly interested to hear about authors’ research and their experiences of xxxxx within their own or other researched organisations. Papers that report and critically examine xxxxx within established academic frameworks, or can provide examples of innovative and diverse approaches across a range of organisations are most welcome.
Guidelines:
Articles should submitted and adhere to the usual presentation format (see http://www.emeraldinsight.com). Articles received will be submitted to a 2-person double blind review.
Timescale (To be defined - Typical example showing elapsed time):
15 August 20XX Full paper submission
15 November 20XX Notification to authors
2 January 20XX Final version of papers due TLO’s SI Editor
July 20XX Special Interest Edition published
If you would like to discuss your ideas before submission, please contact xxxxxxxx who would be happy to provide comments on your suggestions.
Full papers should be submitted to: xxxxxxxxxxxxx