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Policies

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Philosophy of El Camino

A differentiating goal of El Camino is to enable a wide variety of publication formats. These options are meant to spur meaningful conversations on innovation and exploration in the sciences, arts, culture, history, and more.

Acceptable publication formats:

Opinion Pieces

These articles (not exceeding 4,000 words) describe opinions, directions of innovation, policies, strategies, etc. Opinion pieces must stem from well-thought out positions regarding a well-defined area. These articles should take a specific position, citing and incorporating evidence while making a clear argument.

El Camino will print these opinion pieces with the inclusion of a disclaimer indicating that the piece is not the position of El Camino, but rather that of the author.

Back Story

These articles (not exceeding 4,000 words) describe the action "behind the scenes". These are especially important to young people as they struggle to develop an understanding of how research is done. These will put in perspective the actual problems, thoughts, insecurities, and/or politics of those that carried out the effort. Readers, particularly young readers, will learn that the process of innovation, like any human endeavor, is nonlinear, often messy, and uncertain in its outcomes.

Letters

Letters (not exceeding 1,800 words) are short and concise research reports providing important details surrounding a research effort. These are characterized by a short introduction, few (up to 30) references, four (4) or fewer graphs, charts, or tables, and a research report.

Progress Reports

These are reports (not exceeding 2,500 words) of on-going research. They should indicate the current state of the art in the field, the study's scope and goals, work completed thus far, and any significant results obtained thus far. The progress report should also indicate planned future work and the expected time of completion.

Research Paper

This is a comprehensive report of a completed research study (not exceeding 10,000 words). Following the format and standards of academic journal articles, it provides a thorough description of how this project fits in to current trends in the field and future research directions. The paper discusses a specific set of activities or arguments, laying out enough detail to enable a reader who is well versed in the field to reproduce these activities or arguments. The paper should present the results of the activities and analysis of them. Appropriate citations should tie the current research to work done previously.

Literature Review Paper

This is an analysis of prior published work in the area of research. It should not only discuss the varied viewpoints, experiments (when appropriate), studies, and syntheses, but also connect them to create an overview of the field as it currently stands. It should contain a visual representation of the connectivity of the papers reviewed, which may be a knowledge map, a table, or some other device. The paper should not exceed 10,000 words and must review no fewer than 50 papers.

Dead Ending Papers

These papers report on research efforts that end this particular line of questioning, disproving a hypothesis or showing it is unable to be fully addressed. They may take the form of a letter or research report. The paper should describe, in detail, the background of the field that led the researcher to the study that was undertaken, its procedures or activities, the assumptions or hopes about the outcomes, what data and analysis the research produced, and conclusions about how this knowledge impacts the field.

Other

Research outputs that do not fit under the above categories – such as creative writing, artworks, or digital projects – may still be submitted for peer review and publication. Contact the appropriate editor to discuss your work and specific needs.

For more information, please see El Camino Aims and Scope page.

Who Can Submit?

Anyone may submit an original article to be considered for publication in El Camino 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).

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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 El Camino, 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 El Camino. If you have concerns about the submission terms for El Camino, please contact the editors.

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Formatting Requirements

El Camino has no general rules about the formatting of articles upon initial submission. There are, however, rules governing the formatting of the final submission. See Final Manuscript Preparation Guidelines for details. Although bepress can provide limited technical support, 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.

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Rights for Authors and DigitalCommons@IMSA

As further described in our submission agreement (the Submission Agreement), in consideration for publication of the article, the authors assign to DigitalCommons@IMSA all copyright in the article, subject to the expansive personal--use exceptions described below.

Attribution and Usage Policies

Reproduction, posting, transmission or other distribution or use of the article or any material therein, in any medium as permitted by a personal-use exemption or by written agreement of DigitalCommons@IMSA, requires credit to DigitalCommons@IMSA as copyright holder (e.g., DigitalCommons@IMSA © 2019).

Personal-use Exceptions

The following uses are always permitted to the author(s) and do not require further permission from DigitalCommons@IMSA provided the author does not alter the format or content of the articles, including the copyright notification:

  • Storage and back-up of the article on the author's computer(s) and digital media (e.g., diskettes, back-up servers, Zip disks, etc.), provided that the article stored on these computers and media is not readily accessible by persons other than the author(s);
  • Posting of the article on the author(s) personal website, provided that the website is non-commercial;
  • Posting of the article on the internet as part of a non-commercial open access institutional repository or other non-commercial open access publication site affiliated with the author(s)'s place of employment (e.g., a Phrenology professor at the University of Southern North Dakota can have her article appear in the University of Southern North Dakota's Department of Phrenology online publication series); and
  • Posting of the article on a non-commercial course website for a course being taught by the author at the university or college employing the author.

People seeking an exception, or who have questions about use, should contact the editors.

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General Terms and Conditions of Use

Users of the DigitalCommons@IMSA website and/or software agree not to misuse the DigitalCommons@IMSA service or software in any way.

The failure of DigitalCommons@IMSA 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 DigitalCommons@IMSA and the Author(s) regarding submission of the Article.

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