Policies

By submitting your work to the SRJ, you confirm that you agree to our policies.

Table of Contents

• Submitting to the Journal
• Peer review process and editorial decisions
• Publication and copyright
• Gender Neutral Language Policy
• Author Name Change Policy
• SRJ AI Policies
• General terms and conditions of use
• Open Access Information

Submitting to the journal

The SRJ accepts manuscripts and reviews from any current graduate student provided they are enrolled at the time of submission (authors will be asked during submission to declare their institutional affiliation). Manuscripts are accepted on a rolling basis and may be published according to the editorial schedule or at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.

For details on the types of manuscripts SRJ will consider, please review the Journal’s Aims & Scope

Authors submit manuscripts electronically and are asked to provide the following details for each submission:

• Keywords: 5-8 keywords that best describe your submission.
• Abstract: 150-250 words, content and style as per APA. (Note: No abstract is required for book reviews; See evidence summary guidelines for abstract requirements).
• Acknowledgement: Give credit to funding bodies, departments and individuals who have been of help during the writing of the submission – financial support or feedback on the manuscript during its composition and revision.
• Cover Letter (Optional): A separate cover letter to the Editor-in-Chief briefly stating the purpose of your submission and its expected contribution.

Peer review process and editorial decisions

Author manuscripts are received by the Editor-in-Chief who conducts a preliminary review of the work for adherence to general submission guidelines and relevance. As warranted, the submission may be discussed anonymously with a member of the Editorial Advisory Board with appropriate expertise for evaluating the manuscript. Once approved, the manuscript is sent to the Managing Editor who coordinates the peer review process. The Editor-in-Chief will advise authors of all manuscript decisions.

Manuscripts accepted for review will be submitted to at least two peer reviewers in a double-blind review system (meaning neither the reviewers nor the authors know each other’s identity). The SRJ editorial team function as reviewers for the Journal. Editors review the manuscript and return an evaluation with a recommendation of either:

• Accept: The paper is ready for publication. A decision to accept is the purview of the EIC, and will only be registered following complete content and copy revisions. At minimum, manuscripts have undergone one round of peer review, and one round of copy editing.
• Minor revisions: The manuscript is nearly publication ready, but requires some further editing in order to stay competitive for publication. Minor revisions may include: APA citation revisions, revision of headings, grammar or language, minor rewording of the thesis, or formatting in accordance with the Journal Style Guide. Unlike a decision of major revisions, minor revisions implies that the required revisions will not require a return to source material or significant rewriting.
• Major revisions: The manuscript shows strong promise and a solid foundation, but requires significant revision in order to stay competitive for publication. Major revisions may include: restructuring of major segments of the paper, further research requirements, rewriting in multiple sections, or reworking of the thesis or core research problem. Unlike a decision to reject, major revisions seem salvageable with a reasonable amount of work by the author. The scope of the revisions should be feasible within current or next production cycle.
• Reject: The paper is not judged acceptable for publication. The reviewing editors feel that, even with major revisions, the content, the writing, or the quality of research is not appropriate for the Journal. Or, the author has re-submitted but not addressed the issues from the previous CRR.

For decisions of either minor or major revisions, authors are encouraged to revise their work according to the recommendations of the reviewers in order to stay competitive for publication. A decision of “accept” is typically reserved for manuscripts which have already undergone two or more rounds of review and revision. Authors can work on revisions after graduation as long as they submit their initial manuscript while they are still a student.

Editor evaluation of a submission takes around fourteen days, with the submission-to-decision timeline set at about two months in total, longer during the summer months.

Authors can check the status of their submissions by viewing the SRJ section under “My Account.” The title of the submission will be listed along with its status: “under review” means that it’s been submitted but no decision has been made. Once a decision has been made, the status will change to reflect to indicate that decision: “accepted,” “revisions required”, or “rejected.” Authors will also receive an email at each of these steps. Once an article had been published, the status here will say “published.”

Publication and copyright

Submitter must be the copyright owner of the work being submitted or authorized by the copyright owner or owners to submit the article. Authors are the initial owners of the copyrights to their works (an exception in the non-academic world to this might exist if the authors have, as a condition of employment, agreed to transfer copyright to their employer).If using copyrighted material (quotations, tables, illustrations, etc.), the author is responsible for obtaining permission from the copyright holder.Rights for authors

Submitted articles cannot have been previously published, nor be forthcoming in an archival journal or book (print or electronic). Please note: “Publication” in a working-paper series does not constitute prior publication. The copyright and publishing rights of an article, book review, or evidence summary published by the Student Research Journal will remain with its author(s). Due to the open-access nature and for the sake of the Journal’s open-access management records, the Journal can manage rights and permissions for other uses of the published work (such as its translation or reprint) if the relevant requests are made to the Journal, while the author(s) also can handle such cases by themselves in accordance with the open-access policy, provided that full reference is made to Student Research Journal as the original (English) medium of publication and that the case result is notified to the Journal. The digital articles published in the Journal can be used within the online environment. Institutions can preserve a second copy of articles published by their researchers in the institutional repository. Users have the right to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles in this journal, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose.Rights for SRJ

By submitting material to the School of Information Student Research Journal, the author is stipulating that the material is not currently under review at another journal (electronic or print) and that he or she will not submit the material to another journal (electronic or print) until the completion of the editorial decision process. When publishing works in the Journal, the author(s) agree to the published article, book review, or evidence summary being used and stored on the Journal website and used on other websites associated with the Journal. If you have concerns about the submission terms, please contact the Editor-in-Chief.

Gender Neutral Language Policy

SRJ requires the use of gender-neutral language for communication among the editorial team, between the editorial team and submitting authors, and in its publications. Editorial team members should use the identified pronouns, the names, or the pronouns “they/theirs” when communicating with their colleagues. In CRRs and rubrics, editorial team members should use the pronouns “they/theirs,” or say “the author” or “the reviewer” (for book reviews) when discussing the author or their work. The content of manuscripts should be reviewed against the APA’s publication manual (2010) guidelines for gender-neutral language discussed in chapter five, section five.

Author Name Change Policy

In cases where authors wish to change their name following publication, the Student Research Journal will update and re-publish the paper and associated metadata that we have control of. Concerning external systems, media announcements, and other areas where an author’s name may appear which are outside of our control, the journal fully supports name changes and will strive to work with external parties to make the process as seamless as possible for authors.

To protect the author’s privacy, we will not publish a correction notice anywhere; please keep in mind that our publishing system may automatically notify any co-authors of republication of the piece but will not specify the change(s) made. Authors should contact the journal’s Editor-in-Chief with their name change request. We ask that authors include the volume number, issue number, and title of your published work in the body of the email and “Author Name Change” in the subject line.

SRJ AI Policies

Last reviewed March 2024

SRJ prides itself on advancing intellectual inquiry and fostering student participation in scholarly publication. We work to promote best practices in scholarship and academic publication, including maintaining integrity in the publication and peer review process. Our AI Policies are intended to support the emerging practice of responsible artificial intelligence (AI) usage in scholarship and normalize disclosure of AI usage as a necessary part of the scholarly publication process.

1. Disclosure of AI Tool usage in manuscripts, book reviews, and evidence summaries submitted to the SRJ

To ensure transparency and accountability in the scholarly publication process, submitting authors must disclose the use of any generative AI text or image tools (AI Tools) in the creation of their scholarly work.

AI Tools may include, but are not limited to:

• ChatGPT;
• GPT-4 or subsequent versions; or
• Bard/Gemini.

How should submitting authors disclose the use of AI Tools in the creation of their scholarly work?

AI Tools can be utilized in a variety of scholarly writing contexts. Depending on how an author used AI Tools in the creation of their submission, the author will be required to disclose such usage in one or more of the following ways:

1. Methodology
2. References
3. Appendix

• Methodology

In the methodology section of your scholarly work, provide a description of why the AI tool was used, what function it served in your research approach, and how its usage influenced the creation of your scholarship.

• References

• Appendix

The exact prompt provided to the AI tool and the response must be included as supplemental material in an appendix. Ensure that the formatting of the appendix is APA 7 compliant (see APA 7: 2.14 Appendices).

Submitting authors can refer to the chart below to determine where they must disclose the use of AI Tools in their submission.

How was the AI tool used?	Where is disclosure required?
Reviewing text and making grammatical recommendations	Methodology
Drafting new text	Methodology; References; and Appendix
Generating analytical work	Methodology; References; and Appendix
Reporting data results in the form of a figure, table, or other illustrative manner	Methodology; References; and Appendix
Writing computer codes	Methodology; References; and Appendix
Generating images from a textual prompt	Methodology; References; and Appendix

If you have any questions about responsibly incorporating AI into your submission or the proper disclosure elements outlined here, we encourage you to contact the Editor-in-Chief.

2. Compliance with these AI Policies

To ensure compliance with these AI Policies, the SRJ Editorial Team has implemented the following measures:Authors will review these AI Policies when submitting scholarly works for publication Future authors submitting to the SRJ will be required to review these AI Policies and check a box verifying at the time of submission that they have reviewed and are in full compliance with these AI Policies.
Editorial review The SRJ Editorial Team has been trained to identify common indicators of AI usage in submissions. If a member of the SRJ Editorial Team believes that AI Tools were utilized in a submitted scholarly work and were not disclosed in accordance with these AI Policies, the Editor-In-Chief of the SRJ may reach out to the submitting author to discuss this matter.

Encouraging Responsible AI Use

While these AI Policies are intended to support and guide submitting authors on responsible use of AI tools, failure to abide by these AI Policies may result in the following:

• A submitting author’s publication timeline may be delayed while we work with the author to address and remedy any improper AI use or lack of disclosure.
• If improper AI use is not disclosed and remedied during the publication process and is discovered after publication, we may choose to remove the published scholarly work from the journal’s issue. We may also determine that the SRJ will no longer accept future submissions from the author.

If you have any questions about responsibly incorporating AI into your submission or the proper disclosure of AI usage, please feel free to contact the Editor-in-Chief.

3. Periodic review of the SRJ AI Policies

Any policy to address AI must possess resilience and flexibility to withstand the evolution of new technologies while meeting the needs and concerns of our editors and authors. To ensure our processes are up-to-date, the SRJ Editorial Team will review these AI Policies at least once every semester, and make updates and modifications as appropriate.

Disclosure policies are an emerging trend amongst scholarly publications and the SRJ is committed to maintaining an open dialogue on the intents and impacts of these AI Policies. If you would like to engage with the journal concerning our AI Policies or proper AI usage and disclosure in scholarship, we encourage you to contact the Editor-in-Chief.

General terms and conditions of use

Users of the SJSU ScholarWorks website and/or software agree not to misuse the SJSU ScholarWorks service or software in any way.

The failure of SJSU ScholarWorks to exercise or enforce any right or provision in the policies or the Submission Agreement does not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. If any term of the Submission Agreement or these policies is found to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor to give effect to the parties’ intentions as reflected in the provision, and the other provisions of the Submission Agreement and these policies remain in full force and effect. These policies and the Submission Agreement constitute the entire agreement between SJSU ScholarWorks and the Author(s) regarding submission of the Article.

Open Access Information