International Journal of Digital Content Management (IJDCM)

Guide for Authors

International Journal of Digital Content Management (IJDCM) is an open-access, double-blind, peer-reviewed journal published by Allameh Tabataba’i University, the leading university in Humanities and Social Sciences in Iran.
To allow for easy and worldwide access to the most updated research findings, the journal is set to be an open-access journal. Yet, the journal does not charge any fee for reviewing, processing, and publishing research papers from the authors or the research institutes and organizations. All the mentioned processes for paper publication are sponsored by Allameh Tabataba’i University. 

Fee: The journal charges two million Rials to compensate a part of the arbitration fee, and if the article is accepted, additionally four million Rials will be charged from the authors for a part of the costs of processing the articles, the rest of the costs will be financially supported by Allameh Tabatabai University. Non-Iranian authors are free of mentioned charges.

The Authors are required to Complete and Submit the Conflict of Interest Disclosure and Copyright Transfer forms Below.

Link:  The Letter of Commitment

Link:  Template structure of journal articles

Link:  Conflict of Interest Form

Authors are required to include an English abstract.

In-text reference:

The basics of an in-text reference in APA:

• Include author or authors and year of publication.
• Use round brackets.

Example: (Smith & Bruce, 2018)

If you quote directly from an author, you need to include the page or paragraph number of the quote in your in-text reference. Include author or authors, year of publication, and page or paragraph number of your quote.

• Use round brackets.

Example: (Smith & Bruce, 2018, pp. 25-26)

The Reference List

All in-text references should be listed in the reference list at the end of your document. The purpose of the reference list entry is to contain all the information that a reader of your work needs to follow up on your sources. An important principle in referencing is to be consistent.

When compiling your APA Reference List, you should:

• List references on a new page with a centered heading titled: References.
• Include all your references, regardless of format, e.g. books, journal articles, online sources, in one alphabetical listing from A - Z.
• Order entries alphabetically by surname of the author(s).
• List works with no author under the first significant word of the title.
• Indent second and subsequent lines of each entry (5-7 spaces).
• Use double spacing.
• Note that all references in APA end with a full stop except when the reference ends with a URL or a DOI.

Journal article

A basic reference list entry for a journal article in APA must include:

Example: 

Ruxton, C. (2016). Tea: Hydration and other health benefits. Primary Health Care, 26(8), 34-42. https://doi.org/10.7748/phc.2016.e1162

Book

Example: Arnott, G. D. (2017). The disability support worker (2nd ed.). Cengage Learning. 

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is when you are summarizing the words or expressing the ideas of the author(s) in your own words. When paraphrasing you must acknowledge the original source in the text of your writing. Include the author's surname and year of publication in round brackets, or if including the author(s) name anywhere in the sentence, place the year of publication in round brackets next to the author's name.

(Leskowitz, 2017)

OR

Leskowitz (2017)

When paraphrasing there is more than one way to place the citation within your text.

Citation at the beginning

Leskowitz (2017) describes the transcendent states that athletes experience …

Citation in the middle

… sport is viewed as a spiritual path (Leskowitz, 2017), and one that is frequently followed in the west.

Citation at the end

… athletes using techniques adapted from holistic and complementary medicine (Leskowitz, 2017).

Different referencing methods may highlight the importance of the author, or give more weighting to the information.

Author-prominent citations

In his research, Leskowitz (2017) explores mindfulness, biofeedback …

Information-prominent citations

… applying for up-to-the-minute advances in holistic and complementary medicine (Leskowitz, 2017).

Including page numbers in a paraphrase citation

Although APA 7th does not require page numbers when paraphrasing another's work, you may choose to include page numbers, particularly when dealing with a lengthy or complex document.

A number of holistic practices and dispositions can be applied when training or coaching athletes to increase the likelihood of athletes getting into 'the Zone' (Leskowitz, 2017, p. 324).

Direct quotes

For direct quotes of less than 40 words, incorporate them into the text and enclose the quote with double quotation marks, e.g.

Narrative quote (where the authors are named in your sentence):

Webber (2018) concludes that “addressing the issue of school dropout not only affects the education system, but may also serve as a prevention effort for the welfare, mental health, and corrections systems” (p. 82).

Parenthetical quote (where the citation details are presented in parentheses following the quote):

"Addressing the issue of school dropout not only affects the education system, but may also serve as a prevention effort for the welfare, mental health, and corrections systems" (Webber, 2018, p. 82).

For direct quotes of 40 or more words start on a new line and indent the whole block ~1cm from the left, do not add any additional space before or after the quote. The entire quote should be double-spaced. Quotation marks are not required e.g.:

     Citing tables and figures

• Figures include graphs, charts, maps, drawings, and photographs.
• Tables are numerical values or text displayed in rows and columns.

Including figures or tables in your work

When including figures or tables in your work, please note:

• All figures and tables must be referred to in the main body of the text.
• Number all figures and tables in the order they first appear in the text.
• Refer to them in the text by their number. For example:

As shown in Table 4...

OR

As illustrated in Figure 3...

Example of an in-text Figure

Each figure should be accompanied by a concise title that provides a brief but clear explanation of its contents, this is presented directly below the figure number and above the figure itself. The title is given in Title Case and Italics.

Figure 3

Figure or Table Title

• When reproducing a figure or table from another source you must also include an attribution (Creative Commons or copyright), presented in a Note directly below the figure/table.  The attribution will follow any explanatory notes required for the figure.
• Attribution for a figure reproduced from an Open Access journal article with a Creative Commons license must include:
• 'From' when reprinting the figure or 'Adapted from' when adapting
• Title of article, in Title Case and double quotation marks " "
• by Author(s). The first initial(s) followed by the surname
• Year of publication
• Journal title, in Title Case and italics
• Volume (in italics) and issue number in (round brackets)
• Page number of the original figure. (Where there are no page numbers use Section headings and paragraph numbers)
• DOI or URL, in (round brackets)
• Creative Commons license

Example:

Note. (A) Expression Recognition & (B) Expression Detection (A = Anger; D = Disgust; F = Fear; H = Happy; Su. = Surprise; Sa. = Sad). (C) Full confusion matrices underlying performance at each eccentricity for the Emotion Recognition Task (rows = expression presented; columns = response chosen). From "Identifying and Detecting Facial Expressions of Emotion in Peripheral Vision," by F. W. Smith and S. Rossit, 2018, PloS ONE, 13(5), Results section, Figure 1 (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197160). CC BY.

IMPORTANT: If a figure is not Open Access or Creative Commons, you may need to obtain written permission from the copyright holder to reproduce or adapt a figure or table. The copyright permission statement should be included at the end of the Note. See the APA Publication Manual pp. 389-391 for advice on copyright permission statements.

• You must also list the figure in your Reference list. Notice that the order of the citation elements and capitalization differs slightly in the figure note compared to the reference list:

Smith, F. W., & Rossit, S. (2018). Identifying and detecting facial expressions of emotion in peripheral vision. PLoS ONE, 13(5), Article e0197160. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197160

Discussion of a figure in another source

Follow a discussion of a figure viewed in another source (but not reproduced) with an in-text citation for the published source. Include the figure number as it appears in the published source. Cite the source in full in your reference list:

On analyzing the recognition of different facial expressions at different degrees of eccentricity, Smith, and Rossit (2018, Results section, Figure 1) found …

Reference List:

Smith, F. W., & Rossit, S. (2018). Identifying and detecting facial expressions of emotion in peripheral vision. PLoS ONE, 13(5), Article e0197160. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197160

Secondary sources

APA discourages the use of secondary sources unless the original work is unavailable. If you read an article or book which references some information that you also want to reference and you have been unable to locate the source, cite the source you have read in the Reference list; in text, name the original work and give the citation for the source where you found the information.  Where the year of publication for the original work is known, include it. For example:

Sue reads an article by Chris Brown in the Journal of Library Administration in which he cites or refers to statements made by Ulrich Boser in his 2017 book ‘Learn Better’. Sue wants to refer to Boser’s statement in her assignment.

Sue would acknowledge Boser in her text but her reference is to the source where she saw the information. Sue might write as her in-text reference:

... (Boser, 2017, as cited in Brown, 2018)
                        OR 
Boser (2017, as cited in Brown, 2018) states ...

In her reference list, Sue would write a reference for Brown's article because that's where she sourced the information. The entry in her References would be:

Brown, C. (2018). Creating better learners through learning science: A sample of methods. Journal of Library Administration, 58(4), 375-

381. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2018.1448652

III. Manuscript Style

Manuscripts submitted to the International Journal of Digital Content Management (IJDCM) should be based on empirical or data-based, not review, studies and should not be under consideration by any other journal. Neither should it have been published in full or partial form in any other journal or full-length conference proceedings. Exceptions to this rule are conference presentations and books of abstracts. The letter accompanying the submission of a manuscript should contain a clear statement to this effect, i.e. the manuscript has not been published and is not under review by any other journals.

Submissions should be produced using a standard word processing program, such as MS Word. Figures or artwork should be supplied in a finished form, suitable for reproduction, as these cannot be redrawn by the journal. Footnotes/Endnotes should be avoided.

Please ensure that the files are saved as Word files. Any consistent spelling style is acceptable. Use double quotation and use single quotation marks within double if needed.

Typing: Manuscripts submitted for publication should be word-processed and single-spaced throughout.

Length: The length should be 6000-9000 words, including references and appendices, with an abstract of 200-250 words and up to 5 keywords. Manuscripts not observing this length will not be reviewed for publication.

Spacing and paragraphing: All paragraphs should be indented except those immediately following headings. All paragraphs should be justified and no additional, i.e. space after, is needed between paragraphs.

Titles: Titles and section headings should be clear and brief. A manuscript should strictly follow the section structure below:

Introduction

Literature Review

Purpose of the Study

Method

Results

Discussion

Conclusions and Implications  

Acknowledgment

 This section should acknowledge anyone who contributed to the research or the writing of the article but who does not qualify as an author please clearly state how they contributed. Authors should obtain permission to include the name and affiliation, from all those mentioned in the Acknowledgments section. Please note that grant funding should not be listed here. 

We are using the CRediT Taxonomy. CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) is a high-level taxonomy, including 14 roles, that can be used to represent the roles typically played by contributors to scientific scholarly output. The roles describe each contributor’s specific contribution to the scholarly output.

Quotations: Lengthy quotations (over 40 words) should be indented in the text without quotation marks. Short quotations in the text itself should be marked as such with “double quotation marks.”

Language and Spelling: Only papers in English are published. Quotations of text fragments in other languages should be translated.

Tables and Figures: Tables and figures should be numbered and have descriptive titles. Gray-scale or line art images are acceptable. The journal will not print color images. Number tables consecutively following their appearance in the text. Place captions to tables above the table body (e.g. Table 1: One-way ANOVA for the effect of gender on the performance on the groups) and footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules and lines. For figures place both captions and footnotes below the figure. The font size for tables, figures, and their captions must be 11, and the style must be Times New Roman. Tables and figures should be supplied in the actual place in the text.

Cover sheets: The paper should have a cover sheet with the following information: Title of the paper, name of the author(s); institutional affiliation (department, university, city, country), a biographical note of no more than 80 words, email and postal addresses; and telephone no, and word counts for the manuscript and the abstract. Give the names of all contributing authors in the order you wish them to appear in the published article. The cover sheet should be part of the same file as the paper.

The subject of the submission email should be “Manuscript Submission.”

Font: Times New Roman, 12 point. Use margins of 2.5 cm (1 inch).

Title: Use bold for your article title, with an initial capital letter for any proper nouns and font 16 point.

Abstract: Indicate the abstract paragraph with a heading or by reducing the font size to 11 point.  The abstract should have five sections/moves: background, purpose, method, results, conclusions/implications. 

Headings: Please indicate the level of the section headings in your article:

•  First-level headings (e.g. INTRODUCTION, CONCLUSION) should be in bold, with a capital letter for all words and font 14 point.

•  Second-level headings (e.g. Data Collection Procedure) should be in bold, with an initial capital letter for any proper nouns and font 14 point.

•  Third-level headings (e.g. The Proficiency Test) should be in bold italics, with an initial capital letter for any proper nouns and font 12 point.

•  fourth-level headings should also be in bold italics, at the beginning of a paragraph, with an initial capital letter for any proper nouns and font 12  point, and the text must follow immediately after a colon.

*All headings should be justified left.*

Running heads are not required when submitting a manuscript for review.

IV. Journal Ethics and Principles

Plagiarism: A manuscript is not further processed if any instance of plagiarism is discovered at any phase before its publication. As a manuscript will be reviewed for instances of plagiarism even after the issuance of an acceptance letter, the journal will reserve the right not to publish a manuscript once the occurrence of plagiarism becomes evident and will not accept submissions from such authors for a minimum of two years.

Supervisors’ names: All manuscripts primarily based on theses and dissertations should include the supervisor’s name irrespective of the time lapse between the defense session and submission of the manuscript unless the supervisor sends an email or letter to the journal stating his/her decision as to not being willing to be named as an author. The journal’s definite preference is the inclusion of the supervisor as the first author. The author submitting the manuscript, either the supervisor or the co-author, is considered to be the corresponding author unless otherwise indicated.

Revision: When a paper is returned to the author for revision, depending on the scope of the revision, the author needs to revise the paper within 2-3 weeks. Returning a paper to the author for revision does not amount to its final acceptance unless the reviewers approve the application of their comments.

Review policies and decisions:  The review process normally takes three months. Papers submitted to the journal are first screened through in-house review to ensure that submission guidelines have been largely observed and to determine whether the paper merits further independent review. Next, they undergo rigorous peer review. This involves anonymized reviewing by two anonymous reviewers and where there is a split decision by a third reviewer. A manuscript may be accepted without revision, with minor revision without being returned to the reviewers after modification, with major revision, or rejected. In case a manuscript requires revision, reviewers’ comments will be sent to the author. For manuscripts rejected after in-house review, the author will not receive any detailed comments. 

Note:  Some of the points in the above Guide for Authors are taken from Taylor & Francis and APA style sheets directly or with modifications.

For consistency purposes, please use the article model provided by ATU Press.