Format

Article files should be provided in Microsoft Word format. Please use single line spacing to conserve paper during the review and production processes. The author(s) should be shown and their details must be printed on a separate cover sheet. The author(s) should not be identified anywhere else in the article.

Manuscripts may be submitted in English.

An electronic copy of the paper should be submitted through Open Journal System. To log in, please use the instruction which can be downloaded .

While you are welcome to submit a PDF of the document alongside the Word file, PDFs alone are not acceptable. LaTeX files can also be used but only if an accompanying PDF document is provided. Acceptable figure file types are listed further below.

Article length / word count

Articles should be normally between 4000  and 8000 words (20,000 and 45,000 characters with spaces) in length. This includes all text, for example, the structured abstract, references, all text in tables, and figures and appendices. 

Please allow 280 words for each figure or table.

Article title

A concisely worded title, which accurately describes the contents of your manuscript should be provided.

Author details

The names of all contributing authors should be added to the OpenJournalSystem submission; please list them in the order in which you’d like them to be published. Each contributing author must provide the following details:

·     Author ORCID number.

·     Author email address (institutional preferred).

·     Author name. We will reproduce it exactly, so any middle names and/or initials they want featured must be included.

·     Author affiliation. This should be where they were based when the research for the paper was conducted.

Information about the author(s) should appear on the first, separate page of the manuscript, including all the above information (please check the Template file).

Research funding

In the acknowledgements section of your article, you must list all sources of external research funding. You should explain the funder's or financial sponsor's role throughout the research process, from study design to submission.

Structured abstract

All submissions must include a structured abstract, following the format outlined below. It must set out under 4-7 sub-headings and their accompanying explanations must always be included:

·     Purpose

·     Design/methodology/approach

·     Findings

·     Implications/limitations (for future research as well as practical or social implications)

·     Originality/value of the paper

The maximum length of your abstract should be 250 words in total, including keywords and article classification (see the sections below).

Keywords

Please provide up to 6 appropriate and short keywords that encapsulate the principal topics of the paper.

Article classification

During the submission process, you will be asked to select a category for your paper. The options for this are listed below. If you don’t see an exact match, please choose the best fit. Categorize your paper under one of these classifications:

·     Research Paper: reports the results of original primary research, including quantitative and qualitative studies, methods and software studies, systematic reviews, and other work; it reports the methods and results of an original study performed by the authors.  The kind of study may vary (i.e. experiment, survey, interview), but in all cases, raw data has been collected and analyzed by the authors with conclusions drawn from the results of that analysis.

·     Practitioner Paper: frequently is based on real-life experiences or observations and is primarily written by a professional in a given field to support colleagues in a variety of ways including advising, establishing best practices, and noting trends.

·     Viewpoint article: is an invited contribution that conveys new ideas or controversial perspectives on cutting edge topics; it gives the author’s perspective on a particular issue, backed up by the literature; it covers any paper where content is dependent on the author's opinion and interpretation.

·     Technical paper: describes and evaluates technical products, processes or services.

·     Conceptual paper: it thought provoking paper that challenge current thinking and practice and propose new approaches and models for application; it provides readers with new and innovative perspectives on timely and relevant topics for public and higher education educators; it provides both philosophical and conceptual works and includes comprehensive literature reviews; it focuses on developing hypotheses and is usually discursive.

·     Case study: is a detailed study of a specific subject, such as a person, group, place, event, organization, or phenomenon; usually involves qualitative methods, but quantitative methods are sometimes also used. Case studies are good for describing, comparing, evaluating and understanding different aspects of a research problem.

·     Literature review article: it is a secondary source and is written about other articles, and does not report original research of its own. This category should only be used if the main purpose of the paper is to annotate and/or critique the literature in a particular field. It could be a selective bibliography providing advice on information sources, or the paper may aim to cover the main contributors to the development of a topic and explore their different views. Review articles are very important, as they draw upon the articles that they review to suggest new research directions, to strengthen support for existing theories and/or identify patterns among existing research studies.  For student researchers, review articles provide a great overview of the existing literature on a topic. 

·     General review: it provides an overview or historical examination of some concept, technique or phenomenon. Papers are likely to be more descriptive or instructional (‘how to’ papers) than discursive.

Suggested manuscript structure

The standard structure of the body of research articles (after the Title and Abstract) is:

• Introduction
• Literature review/Theoretical background and hypothesis development
• Methodology
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusion
• Limitations and future research

The article structure:

• Gives a logical flow to the content
• Makes journal manuscripts predictable and easy to read
• Provides a "map" so that readers can quickly find content of interest in any manuscript
• Reminds authors what content should be included

Headings

Headings must be concise, with a clear indication of the required hierarchy. 
The preferred format is for first level headings to be in bold, and subsequent sub-headings to be in medium italics.

Notes/endnotes

Notes or endnotes should only be used if absolutely necessary. They should be identified in the text by consecutive numbers enclosed in square brackets. These numbers should then be listed, and explained, at the end of the article.

Figures and plates

All figures (charts, diagrams, line drawings, webpages/screenshots, and photographic images) should be submitted electronically. Both color and black and white files are accepted. Figure captions must be inserted in the text of the manuscript, immediately following the paragraph in which the figure is first cited.

There are a few other important points to note:

·     All figures should be supplied at the highest resolution/quality possible with numbers and text clearly legible.

·     Figures created in MS Word, MS PowerPoint, MS Excel and Illustrator (CorelDRAW) should be saved in their native formats

·     For figures which cannot be supplied in MS formats acceptable formats are .pdf, .qi, .wmf, .eps, .jpeg, .bmp, and .tif at a resolution of at least 300 dpi and at least 10 cm wide.

·     Electronic figures created in other applications should be supplied in their original formats and should also be either copied and pasted into a blank MS Word document, or submitted as a PDF file.

·     All figures should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals and have clear captions.

·     For photographic images (plates) good quality original photographs should be submitted. If supplied electronically they should be saved as .tif or .jpeg files at a resolution of at least 300dpi and at least 10cm wide. Digital camera settings should be set at the highest possible resolution/quality. All photographs should be numbered as Plate 1, 2, 3, etc. and have clear captions.

Tables

Tables should also be typed and submitted as a part of the manuscript. The position of each table should be clearly labelled in the main body of the article with corresponding labels clearly shown in the table file. Tables should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals (e.g. Table 1, Table 2, etc.). Tables require a label (e.g., “Table 1”) and brief descriptive title to be placed above the table. Place legends, footnotes, and other text below the table.

Tables should not be submitted as graphic elements, they should be typed. Ensure that any superscripts or asterisks are shown next to the relevant items and have explanations displayed as footnotes to the table, figure or plate.

References

All references in your manuscript must be formatted using APA7 style. See reference formatting examples and additional instructions here. In case of the publications with the digital object identifier (DOI) assigned, their DOI should be also included in the references.