Policies
Contents
- Philosophy of The Qualitative Report
- Who Can Submit?
- General Submission Rules
- Manuscript Review and Production Process
- Article Processing Charge
- Formatting Requirements
- Rights for Authors and NSUWorks
Philosophy of The Qualitative Report
For more information, please see The Qualitative Report Aims and Scope page.
Who Can Submit?
Anyone may submit an original article to be considered for publication in The Qualitative Report provided he or she owns the copyright to the work being submitted or is 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).
General Submission Rules
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. In addition, by submitting material to The Qualitative Report, 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 at The Qualitative Report. If you have concerns about the submission terms for The Qualitative Report, please contact the editors.
Manuscript Review and Production Process
At The Qualitative Report (TQR) we use an open peer review system to evaluate manuscripts and to nurture authors. Throughout the process the identities of the authors, peer reviewers and editors are known to all involved parties.
The editor-in-chief starts the process by conducting a preliminary review of the author’s initial submission to assess the paper’s editorial fit, originality, and, quality. If the editor-in-chief decides the paper is of sufficient originality, quality, and fit, then he assigns the paper to a peer reviewer, typically a member of the TQR Editorial Board, and a TQR editor. If the editor-in-chief decides the paper is lacking in fit, originality, or quality, then he notifies the authors that the paper has been rejected.
The peer reviewer conducts a full review of the manuscript by embedding comments, changes, and suggestions into the manuscript by utilizing Microsoft Word review tools; and offers a recommendation as to the paper’s disposition. The editor reviews the manuscript that includes the peer reviewer’s review and editorial recommendation. The editor adds comments, changes, and suggestions via the Microsoft Word reviewing tools to create a composite review and submits the review along with a recommended editorial decision to the editor-in-chief. The editor-in-chief reviews the composite review and editorial recommendations adding new comments, changes, and suggestions via the Microsoft Word reviewing tools to create a final composite review which reflects the perspectives of the peer reviewer, editor, and editor-in-chief. The editor-in-chief then renders a final editorial decision (i.e., accept, accept with minor changes, revise and resubmit, or reject) and sends the editorial decision and review to the author.
If the editorial decision is accept or accept with minor changes, the editor-in-chief will review any revised submissions returned by the author. If the editorial decision is revise and resubmit, the editor-in-chief will re-assign the manuscript to the editor who may also re-assign the paper to the peer reviewer or may decide to conduct the subsequent reviews alone. The process of editor and/or peer reviewers’ reviews of revised manuscripts is the same as described above for initial review. For each review cycle the editor-in-chief makes the final editorial decision and submits the decision and review to the author.
Once a paper is accepted, the editor-in-chief notifies the author of the decision, assigns the paper to a TQR issue, and transfers the paper to the TQR production team for copyediting and TQRformatting. Prior to the publication date, the editor-in-chief sends the formatted version of the article to the author for a final perusal and minor edits. After the author returns the proofed article, the editor-in-chief posts the paper online for publication and notifies the author.
Article Processing Charge
All articles published in The Qualitative Report (TQR) are open access and freely available online, immediately upon publication. This is made possible by an article-processing charge (APC) or as some call a “production fee.” Our article process charge is $500. We charge the APC only once upon final editorial acceptance of your manuscript. We provide discounts for papers whose corresponding authors are based in HINARI countries (the world's lowest income countries as defined by the World Bank). Discounts are also provided to members of the TQR Editorial Board.
Formatting Requirements
Given the ways in which a style guide can shape the writing choices made by an author, we want to assist you as you prepare your submissions by letting you know that we use The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA; 7th ed.) as a guide for contributors to The Qualitative Report. This means that we ask authors to look to APA recommendations regarding the title, abstract, and headings used in the paper, as well as the format of references and citations within the text. We also request some writing practices we think improve the reporting of qualitative research methods and results, such as the use of active voice and the inclusion of the researcher's context as it relates to the topic under study.
It is ultimately the responsibility of the author to produce an electronic version of the article as a high-quality PDF (Adobe's Portable Document Format) file, or a Microsoft Word, WordPerfect or RTF file that can be converted to a PDF file.
It is understood that the current state of technology of Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF) is such that there are no, and can be no, guarantees that documents in PDF will work perfectly with all possible hardware and software configurations that readers may have.
Rights for Authors and NSUWorks
As further described in our submission agreement (the Submission Agreement), in consideration for publication of the article, the authors agree to licensing their work under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA). This means that others are allowed to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as they credit the author(s) and The Qualitative Report and license their new creations under the identical terms.
Attribution and Usage Policies
Noncommercial reproduction, posting, transmission or other distribution or use of the article or any material therein is permitted under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA) license. Credit to NSUWorks and the author(s) as copyright holders is required (e.g., Ron Chenail and NSUWorks © 2016).
People seeking an exception, or who have questions about use, should contact the editors.
General Terms and Conditions of Use
Users of the NSUWorks website and/or software agree not to misuse the NSUWorks service or software in any way.
The failure of NSUWorks 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 NSUWorks and the Author(s) regarding submission of the Article.
