Peer-Reviewed Article / Essay Publication Guidelines

The HELLO Community web site is not a formal online journal. Our intent is to share quality articles / essays written by our members using a relatively simple peer-review process with fast turnaround. The peer review process is intended to provide constructive feedback and ensure that the article is well written and clear. While references are helpful we do not expect an extensive bibliography – tell our audience about projects you have completed to improve higher education, what worked and what did not.

Our Audience

Members of the HELLO Community are generally in leadership roles in higher education. They include Presidents, Vice Presidents and Provosts, Deans, Department Chairs, Office Directors, etc. You can categorize your article by interest group so that people in a particular operational area can filter the list of articles for their interests. However, all articles are accessible to all members.

The types of articles / essays we are looking for

Articles / essays should be practical and not theoretical in nature, although potential and not yet operationalized application of theory is acceptable. The article / essay must be written in English, however our site can be translated into many languages using the Google Translate tool located in the footer. Ideally, the articles / essays should be associated with useful documents that the community could use to help implement the solution or approach, such as spreadsheets, job descriptions, policies, work flows, etc. Articles / essays are meant to inform the community about leadership and management approaches which are effective and suggest avenues of further exploration. Articles / essays can cover a diverse set of topics such as building a World class faculty, student recruitment and retention, institutional effectiveness, managing facilities, budget models, strategic planning, data based decision making and so on.

Submission and screening Process

Any member or group of members may pitch an idea for an article / essay using our online submission form. Pitches will be screened by the Editor for appropriateness and author credibility. If the Editor believes the proposed article /essay provides a unique and valuable perspective on an issue of interest to our audience and the author(s) have the professional experience to be credible, the article will be approved. Please be sure that each author has enough information in their HELLO profile, ideally a link to on online portfolio such as Academic Measures or a shared C.V., so the Editor can determine if you or your team have the credibility to author the proposed article. We will respond to pitches as quickly as possible. Any indication of initial interest based on a pitch should not be taken as a sign of commitment to publish. Once your article / essay is approved you will be given authoring rights to a page on the HELLO Community web site in which you can author your draft.

The Authoring Process

Articles / essays that you have (co)authored or are assigned to write will appear on the list of articles assigned to you in the Journal menu. This menu item is only visible to authors who have been assigned or published at least one article / essay. Select the article / essay you wish to work on from the list and it will appear in an online editor. The online editor page has a black menu on the left showing other items that you can create or edit on the site. The central body of the page contains:

The title of the article / essay. This can be changed but should not substantially deviate from the original approved intent of the article.
A WYSIWYG editor where you can enter the article / essay content.
A Field Group for Peer Reviewed Articles where you can change the status of your article / essay.
Revisions – lists each saved version of the draft. You can click and revert to an old draft.
Excerpt – the abstract for the article / essay which will be displayed in summary lists, etc.
Editorial comments – this is where members of the Editorial Board will post their comments about your article / essay and where you can respond. Please indicate in your responses how you have incorporated their input into the article / essay and in cases where you disagree with the input, state why.
License – please choose the creative commons license conditions under which you are publishing this article / essay and any additional terms and conditions.
Authors – assign additional members who will have authoring and attribution rights to the article.
Metadata – information on the expectations of the article set by the Editor.

The column on the right side of the page contains:

A checklist of the tasks that need to be completed before submitting the article / essay for review. Please click on each to change its status to complete.
The Publish box in which you can save the document and change its status. Note the Publish button is replaced by a red exclamation button and disabled until the review process is complete and all checklist items have been completed.
The Categories that you can assign to the article / essay. These are the HELLO Community affiliation groups. You can check as many of these groups as you feel would have interest in the article / essay.
Tags – assign the topics that your article / essay addressed. Please use the [Choose from the most used tags] link to see tags previously assigned to articles before creating new ones.
Featured image – upload an image that is representative of the article / essay that will appear next to it in our lists and at the top of the article / essay.

Please review the content of the Metadata . If you accept the writing assignment change the article’s status to in-progress or draft (if you have entered content) in the Publish box and save the page. When authoring the article please use appropriate headings (paragraph box in the WYSIWYG menu), lists, tables and add appropriate media to the content. Please also insert appropriate page breaks (shift+alt+p) in long articles. This will cause the article to paginate when published. When you feel the article is ready for review simple change its status to Pending Review in the Publish box and save the document. This will inform the Editorial Board that it is ready for their comments.

Linking to resource files

Authors are highly encouraged to embed links to resource files within their articles / essays. These files should help readers operationalize the activities addressed in the article / essay. The best approach to embedding files is as follows-

Upload your file to the shared file repository. Please ensure the title accurately reflects what the file is.
- Within the description you may want to add a cross reference back to the article which the file supports using the link tool. If you have your draft article open in a separate browser window you can copy its URL from the Permalink located directly under the article title.
- When the file upload process has completed you will see a confirmation box with a “View >>” link. Click on this link and copy the URL from the browser address window.
Return to your article editing page and highlight the text that will anchor your link.
Click on the link tool in the editing menu and paste the copied URL into it and click on the return button. You should now have an active link to the resource file in your article.

Referencing/footnotes

References are not required but would be appreciated. To add a reference simply enclose your reference text with double “(” at the beginning and double “)” at its end. Our software with replace this with a superscripted number which links to the reference material at the bottom of the page. The following is an example of a reference ⁽¹⁾the reference material. If your reference material is available online please include the URL in the reference text. Your reference format should conform to APA standards as outlined in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th edition).

Excerpt/Abstract

An excerpt/abstract is required and should be no more that 200 words long. This will appear in place of the full article on lists and featured articles.

Peer-Review Process

The software we use to manage the peer-review process is not yet a robust system for journal publishing and as such does not provide for blind peer-review. Both the reviewers and authors will be aware of each others identities. The HELLO Community peer review process involves suggestive feedback from at least three members of our Editorial Board. We do not assign reviewers but instead ask that members of the board review at least three articles annually. They are free to choose the articles that they review based on their own interest level and expertise. This means you may get more than three reviews. Once the threshold of three is reached the third reviewer will change the article status to Reviews Received. The author should then address all of the reviews and, once changes are complete, change the status to “Ed Input Incorp”. The Editor will then review the article and its comments, ensure feedback has been addressed to an adequate degree, ensure all requirements are met, and then publish the article. The author(s) will receive an email whenever a comment is submitted or a review is received.

Post Publication

Once the article has been published by the Editor it becomes visible to all members and open to public comment and discussion. Author(s) are encourage to respond to these comments and in fact to modify the article, mentioning sources of input, over time. You can reference a community member anywhere in your text by inserting the @username, for example @gglynn. This username can be found in the title bar of each member’s profile. Authors can choose to receive an email whenever comments are received, or to receive daily or weekly digests.