Guidelines

Submission Guidelines

Contributors are asked to submit their manuscripts online. The manuscripts shall comply with the Author Guidelines mentioned below.

In order to upload your manuscript or to check the workflow status of your contribution, you should a) register and b) log in.

If you already have a created an account in the past, please click on ‘Login’ in the top right corner. 

If you have forgotten your password click on ‘Forgot your password?’.

Once you have logged in you will be forwarded to the backend of the EDeR Journal System and can hand in your work by selecting ‘New Submission’.

When you are logged in you can as well hand in a contribution or get to the workflow by navigating to the tab ‘Submissions’ on the homepage and click on the respective link mentioned in the tab.

In case you do not have registered yet, please select the tab ‘Submissions’ in the navigation and click on ‘Register’.

Please contact the journal management (see contact details) in case you have any further questions regarding the submission process or your account.

 

Author Guidelines

Originality

Submissions to EDeR must be original material that has not been published nor submitted for review elsewhere.

Core elements of contributions

EDeR elicits three types of contributions:

Academic Articles (word limit = 10 000 words)
Practice Illustrations (word limit = 6 000 words)
Discussion Articles (word limit = 6 000 words)

Authors should submit articles online, in the RTF format (which basically any word-processor can produce). Authors should retain a copy of their articles. Submissions should be typed in single spacing (including all quotations, notes, and references), using a 12pt font.

Your contribution should generally contain the following elements:

0. Title Page

The Title Page should contain the following details:
(a) type of contribution (Acadmic Article, Practice Illustration, etc.),
(b) title of contribution
(c) author details (each author’s name, affiliation, and e-mail address),
(d) corresponding author, in case of multiple authors (i.e., name of the author to whom all correspondence must be sent),
(e) number of words in the entire document
(f) date of submission.

The Title Page will be removed before the article is sent for peer review in Phase II of EDeR’s review process and workflow. The author’s name or identifying details should not appear in the remaining text to facilitate blind review. In case items relating to the author are referenced, delete these items from your reference list, and add “Some items have been removed for review” at the top of the reference section of your article. Where these items are cited within the article, replace them with “(Author)”.

The article itself should start on the second page with the article title, followed by…

1. Abstract (150-250 words, describing the problem, method(s) basic findings and insights, conclusions, and possibly recommendations);

2. Keywords (4 to 6 keywords that describe your contribution)

3. Introduction (what is the problem? what is the question?)

4. Main body of text
– make use of no more than 3 levels of structure/headlines
– number the headlines according to their level: 1, 1.1, 1.1.1

5. Analysis and how your results impact theory and practice;

6. Conclusion

7. References

Language and Style

All submissions to EDeR must be in English or German. British or American English spelling is acceptable, as long as the spelling is consistent throughout. Please, spell-check your texts prior to submission.

For guidance on expression and style (including punctuation, capitalisation, headings, and so forth.), please refer to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed., 2010).

The name of organisations or agencies should be abbreviated in capitals only. Do not use any periods (e.g., EC). For first occurrence, provide the full name with the abbreviation in parentheses. For example: Hamburg Center for University Teaching and Learning (HUL). Then use the abbreviation consistently throughout the remaining text.

For identifying and emphasising special terms use italics. Use this type of formatting sparingly throughout the text.

Citations and references

Contributions to EDeR must conform to the APA standard. Please, consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed., 2010) for details.

APA follows the author-date method of in-text-citations.
Make sure you provide page numbers for all quotes.
The reference list has to be unnumbered and in alphabetical order by author.
When there is more than one article by the same author(s), list the most recent publication first.
References should include the names of all contributing authors.
Ensure that all cited references are accurate and included in the reference section of your text.

For more information on citing sources, visit APA Style Help.

Review criteria

We strongly recommend reviewing EDeR’s Evaluator Guidelines for orientation.

Copyright Notice

Authors contributing to EDeR agree to publish their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.


This license allows:
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
for any purpose, even commercially.


The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Authors retain copyright of their work. They are permitted and encouraged to post items submitted to EDeR on personal or institutional websites and repositories, prior to and after publication (while providing the bibliographic details of that publication).

Top of page >

 

Mentor Guidelines

If you are asked to be a Peer Mentor for a contribution to EDeR, you should carefully review the proposed text (or its expose/extended abstract). You should also consider the author’s experience and academic/professional background. You should only agree to function as a Peer Mentor for a particular text, if you are convinced of its (potential) quality, originality, and general fit within the publishing scope of EDeR.

Before you agree to mentor a particular text, you should familiarise yourself with the criteria (see our Evaluator Guidelines) that are used to evaluate all contributions during Phase II (blind peer review) of EDeR’s overall workflow. You should remind the author(s) your are mentoring of these criteria right at the beginning, and possibly during the overall process of working together on the text.

Inform the EDeR editor-in-chief, together with the autor(s) you are mentoring, that you are collaborating on a contribution for EDeR. This doesn’t constitute any obligation on your side to finally submit a contribution. However, it allows our editorial board to gain and maintain some overview of potential contributions currently in progress.

You should execute your Peer-Mentoring role mainly through reviewing and commenting the text, or text versions. This requires your general willingness to engage in two (or more) cycles of review and feedback, with the aim of supporting the qualitative development of the text.

You decide on the extent and level of your support during the Peer-Mentoring-process. Should the mentoring relationship develop into a more thorough form of co-authorship, you and the mentored author(s) can also mutually agree to appear as (co-)authors on the final text.

Should you come to the justified conclusion that the text isn’t reaching an appropriate level of quality during the mentoring-process, notify the author(s) and terminate the mentoring-relationship for this particular text. In this case, kindly inform EDeR’s editor-in-chief, too.

Top of page >

 

Evaluator Guidelines

Matching the publication scope of EDeR
Evaluate if a particular submission matches the overall publishing scope of EDeR. A contribution should fit one, or a number, of the following descriptions: (a) a theoretical or methodological contribution to Design-Based Research, (b) a conceptualisation of a Design-Based Research project, (c) results from various phases of a Design-Based Research project, (d) an account of a complete project of Design-Based Research.

Originality
Evaluate the scientific and/or practical relevance, the novelty and individuality of the text, and its objective(s) or research questions/problems. Please, consider what type of contribution (as outlined above) you have under review.

DBR-specific characteristics and elements
Evaluate how well the contribution explicates core characteristics of DBR. Are there adequate descriptions of: (a) exploration and analysis of the initial problem, (b) design and construction of an intervention, (c) reflexion and evaluation, (d) and implementation and dissemination. Please, consider the objective(s) of a particular contribution (for example, the objective to limit a contribution to a particular DBR-phase).

Theoretical foundation
Take a stand on terms, concepts and theories referenced in the text in relation to its stated objective(s). Differentiate your evaluation in relation to the particular type of contribution under review.

Methodic approach
Evaluate the selection and application of methods in relation to (practical, theoretical, and/or empirical) insights and knowledge claims. You should consider a variety of knowledge interests depending on the type of contribution.

Language and style
Please, evaluate the overall comprehensibility of the text and the appropriateness of the style in relation to the character and purpose of the contribution. You should also consider the structure of argumentation and the choice of illustrative elements.

Formalities
If necessary, please highlight examples of formal deficiencies, such as errors of spelling and punctuation, irregular citations and references, ambiguous visualisations and tables, and so forth.

Top of page >

 

Discussant Guidelines

You should take into account that EDeR treats Discussion Articles as a separate, substantive type of contribution. While a Discussion Article always relates to a particular Academic Article that has been accepted for publication in EDeR, it should not be limited to evaluation or commentary alone. Instead, Discussion Articles should open up a wider discourse horizon.

Your Discussion Article should serve one, or a number, of the following purposes:
– to think beyond and elaborate the Academic Article under review
– to disagree and/or provide an alternative position
– to critically discuss the pros and cons of the original contribution

In general, Discussion Articles should remain within a 6 000 words limit, including additional references introduced by their author (Discussant).

Top of page >