Submissions

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Author Guidelines

Thank you for considering the Journal of Behavioral Data Science as a potential outlet for your research. To ensure that your paper moves smoothly through the peer review, production, and publication process, we kindly request that you follow the instructions outlined below. Taking the time to carefully read and adhere to these guidelines will help ensure that your paper meets the journal's requirements.

About the journal

The Journal of Behavioral Data Science is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal that aims to provide a free-of-charge-to-publish platform for researchers and practitioners in the area of data science and data analytics. The journal is committed to making high-quality research freely accessible to authors and readers. Publishing in the journal and accessing its content are completely free for both authors and readers. This allows for the widest possible dissemination of research, and promotes interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation in the field of behavioral data science. Please see the journal’s Aims & Scope for information about its focus. Please note that the journal only publishes manuscripts in English.

All accepted papers are published for free and are openly accessible online through the Journal of Behavioral Data Science website. Additionally, authors have the option to order a paper copy of the journal if desired.

Peer review

At the Journal of Behavioral Data Science, we prioritize maintaining the highest standards of peer-review integrity. As such, we have implemented an open review process that enables authors to recommend two potential guest editors and five potential reviewers who are well-versed in the topic of their paper. An associate editor will then make the final decision on selecting a guest editor, who will in turn select at least two reviewers to evaluate the manuscript. Based on the reviews received, the guest editor will recommend acceptance, revision and resubmission, or rejection of the manuscript. The associate editor will then make the final decision on whether to accept or decline the manuscript.

To expedite the review process, a guest editor or associate editor may recommend acceptance or rejection of a paper at any stage of the review process. For instance, if the guest editor or associate editor deems a paper to be of excellent quality, they may recommend acceptance for publication, along with a comprehensive justification/review.


Preparing your paper

Our associate editors, guest editors, and reviewers dedicate a significant amount of time and effort to ensure the publication of high-quality research in our journal. As there are no publication charges, we kindly request that authors carefully adhere to our submission guidelines to minimize any potential delays in the review and publication process. By doing so, authors can help us maintain the integrity and excellence of our journal, and facilitate a seamless publication process for their research.

Page limits

A standard article for the Journal of Behavioral Data Science should ideally not exceed 20 single-spaced pages or 40 double-spaced pages. Nevertheless, we welcome manuscripts that are shorter or longer, depending on the content and research complexity.

Formatting and templates

We accept manuscripts prepared using various formats such as Microsoft Word, which should be converted to PDF before submission. However, please note that the final version must be prepared using LaTeX. To assist you in preparing your paper, we provide a LaTeX template for you to use. If your manuscript is accepted for publication, we can assist you in converting it from other formats to LaTeX for a fee. For more information, please refer to the "Publication charges" section.

References

Please use the APA style for your references when preparing your paper.

Submitting your paper

To ensure a smooth and efficient submission process, we use the Open Journal System to manage the peer-review process. If you are submitting to our journal for the first time, you will need to register for an account.

A submission requires two parts of information: manuscript information and review information.

Manuscript information

This part requires you to input the basic information of your paper.

  • Provide a list of authors of your paper, including yourself. 
  • Provide email address for each author
  • Provide the institution information, e.g., university or company name, for each author.
  • Upload your manuscript in PDF format.

Review information

You will be asked to recommend one associate editor, two guest editors, and 5 reviewers. You can specify your recommendation in your cover letter. Although it is OK to recommend a former coauthor and colleague, reasonable consideration should be given on conflict of interest.

  • Select an associate editor from the dropdown list. For a list of current associate editors, see our editorial board.
  • Please recommend two guest editors who know your research well. For a list of current guest editors, see our editorial board.
  • Please recommend five reviewers who know your research well.

Publication charges

There are NO submission fees or page charges for this journal in the electric format. The printed journal is available for order and subscription by the authors and library if needed. If a submission is prepared according to our guidelines, no fee in whatever way should be incurred. However, we DO charge for significant formatting and copyediting of a manuscript. Please read the following carefully.

  • Light copyediting (fewer than 4 corrections a double-spaced page) and formatting (conversion from other LaTeX style to JBDS style with 30 minutes of work) are free.
  • Convert from Word or other format to LaTeX: $10 a page (text only, double-spaced, additional $5 with ¼ or less formulas, additional $10 with more than ¼ formulas); $5 a table or a figure. The author will be informed and provided a bill in advance and the option to do the conversion themselves.
  • Heavy copyediting such as rewriting and significant grammatical error correction is charged for $30 a page (around 500 words a page). The author will be informed and provided a bill on the service in advance.
  • All fees will only occur after a manuscript is accepted but before publication.

Please contact editing@isdsa.org for more information.

The authors reserve the copyright to the accepted papers. However, every paper is published as open access under the license of Creative Commons. 

Publication Agreement

By submitting the manuscript to Journal of Behavioral Data Science, the author (You) certifies that:

  • You are authorized by your co-authors to enter into this agreement.
  • All authors have made substantive contributions to the submitted work in the form of: 1) Conception and design, and/or acquisition of data; 2) Drafting the article and/or revising it critically for important intellectual content.
  • You have received proper clearance from your organization for review and publication of the manuscript (mentioned below).
  • The article is original and has not been published in any other journal or is not under consideration by any other journal.
  • The article does not infringe any existing copyright or any other third party rights.
  • You have disclosed all and any actual or potential conflicts of Interest with the work.
  • The article, if accepted for publication, shall be licensed under the Creative commons Attribution License 4.0. The authors keep the copyright of the article.
  • All statements, formulas, tables and figures contained in the article are true and if followed accurately, will not cause any damage or illness or injury to the user.
  • All authors have taken into consideration the national and international ethical, legal and regulatory norms and standards for research on humans and animals.
  • The author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship, as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.
  • Publication in the journal is in general free and open access but might incur certain costs as described in Publication charges.

Questions

Should you have any questions, please contact us at jbds@isdsa.org.

Updated August 2021

Submission Preparation Checklist

All submissions must meet the following requirements.

  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • The submission file is in the PDF file format.
  • You will be asked to input information for each author listed on your manuscript.
  • You are encouraged to suggest two guest editors to handle your paper as an action editor and up to 5 reviewers who are familiar with your research.

Copyright Notice

  • The article, if accepted for publication, shall be licensed under the Creative commons Attribution License 4.0. The authors keep the copyright of the article.
  • The author(s) and copyright holder(s) grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship, as well as the right to make small numbers of printed copies for their personal use.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.