To submit an article online, and to check the status of your submission, you need to have an account with Citizen Science: Theory and Practice
Don't have an account? Register Here.
Start SubmissionSubmissions should be made electronically through this website. Once submitted, the author can track the submission and communicate with the editors via the online journal management system. Please note, on submissions with multiple authors only the submitting author will be able to do this.
Please ensure that you follow the Author Guidelines when preparing your manuscript. We update our Author Guidelines periodically, so please make sure you are using the latest version of this document. These Guidelines were updated in July 2022 to reflect the change to a standard Harvard-style reference system more readily available in authors' reference managers. For a quick reference guide to some of our most important instructions, please see our Quick Reference for Author Guidelines.
Manuscripts that do not follow our formatting and other guidelines will not be reviewed. Manuscripts that exceed the maximum length may encounter delays and require major revision to fit the manuscript to the required limits. If an author believes that their manuscript requires a word count beyond the listed maximum, they should contact the journal to discuss this prior to publication. Only in rare and unusual circumstances will longer manuscripts be approved, and should one be permitted, an additional processing fee may be applied, on top of the standard Article Processing Charge (APC) listed here. (note that the APC for all manuscripts submitted on or after March 1 2023 will be $1600). This will be agreed with the author in advance of being sent for review. All author affiliations need to be listed correctly and in full (e.g. full name, department, university name, etc.) in the initial metadata submission entry as this information will be published along with your paper if your paper is accepted.
When communicating with journal editors about your paper, please always reference the 3-digit number assigned to your paper at the time of submission. You can find this when you log into the journal website and visit your submission record. It is the submission ID (far left corner of the record).
All word limits include the Abstract, the References section, tables, author statements, and figure captions (i.e., anything that will be typeset, or anything other than Supplementary Files). Figures do not contribute to the word count; however, figures and tables should not total significantly more than three pages when typeset. Supplementary Files do not count toward the word count and may include figures, tables, text, and appendices.
As part of our efforts to internationalize citizen science and foster inclusivity across the discipline, Citizen Science: Theory and Practice is pleased to now be able to publish your article in your native language, if your native language is not English. It will publish as a Supplemental File to the English-language article, with its own DOI. As with all Supplemental Files, the translation will not be copy edited, and the accuracy of the content/translation rests solely with the author(s). To submit an article in translation, please:
Please be aware that translations cannot be added or updated after publication. There can be no exceptions.
All papers submitted for inclusion in special collections undergo the same peer review process as regular submissions. If you wish to propose a special collection for which you would serve as a Visiting Editor, please reference our proposal template and sample so that you know what should be included in your submission, which should be sent to Caren Cooper, Associate Editor for Special Collections. Proposals will be reviewed and commented on by the AESC, the EiC, the AEiC, and the Editorial Board, after which proposal decisions will be finalized by the EiC and AEiC.
If your proposal is accepted, you will be expected to
The spreadsheet link should be shared with the EiC and ME as well as all Editors of your collection, and Editors should be consistent and diligent about updating it.
Editors of special collections will also be expected to write an editorial to accompany their collection. Please refer to the editorial description for details.
All upcoming special collections will be announced on the CSA blog (https://www.citizenscience.org/category/csa-blog/) and elsewhere. Following a call for papers for a special collection, authors can submit abstracts directly to the editorial team using the instructions provided in the call. The authors of accepted abstracts will then be invited to submit a full paper. If you require a waiver, our ability to grant it will be dependent on the number of papers published in the collection and so will be considered only for collections with 15 or more accepted abstracts. Please include this information in your proposal. Before submitting, please ensure that your paper conforms to the guidelines we've set forth in our author guidelines (we update our Author Guidelines periodically, so please make sure you are using the latest version of this document), then submit your paper and figures to the journal through our journal management system (JMS) to begin the process of peer review.
For your paper to be considered for a special collection, you must indicate the intended collection in the title of your paper upon submission. Your title should read: SC: Abbreviated Title of Special Collection: Your Working Title. For example, SC: Higher Ed: Drivers of Participation in Citizen Science Among Secondary Students Considering Dropout. If your paper is accepted, the title will be edited for publication in the paper and in the article metadata at the copy editing stage. Special collections will be published in one batch with a final publication date to be determined collaboratively with collection editors, the journal editorial team, and Ubiquity Press on the basis of your review timeline.
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
Please provide, in addition to the individual figure files in the JMS and your list of figure captions within the manuscript, a single file that contains all figures with their corresponding captions (e.g., Figure 1; the caption for Figure 1; Figure 2; the caption for Figure 2, etc.). Upload this to the JMS Supplemental Files as you would any figure. Once you've completed the submission process, go to the Summary tab of your paper and click on each Supplemental File to give them clear, descriptive titles. In this case, title the file "Figure File for Review," and it will be made available to reviewers and editors for ease of reference.
Keywords (up to 6) and Abstract (where required, and no more than 250 words) have been uploaded to the metadata.
Optional Elements
Figures are submitted separately, following a text document with corresponding figure captions.
Any tables should appear in the main text.
Supplemental materials have been proofread. I understand that they will be published exactly as they are submitted.
Any keywords have been provided following the Abstract.
Acknowledgments and ethics statements have been provided, as needed.
Twitter handle and any other relevant social media information has been provided.
If your abstract has been accepted for publication within a special collection, your paper title must reflect the following convention to ensure that the collection's editorial team has access to it: SC:Collection Title Abbreviation: Paper Title
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms. If a submission is rejected or withdrawn prior to publication, all rights return to the author(s):
Submitting to the journal implicitly confirms that all named authors and rights holders have agreed to the above terms of publication. It is the submitting author's responsibility to ensure all authors and relevant institutional bodies have given their agreement at the point of submission.
Note: some institutions require authors to seek written approval in relation to the terms of publication. Should this be required, authors can request a separate licence agreement document from the editorial team (e.g. authors who are Crown employees).
The authors agree to the above payment terms, which will apply to this submission if and when it is published by this journal (comments or questions to the editor can be added prior to submission). We offer a discount of 20% to papers submitted by FIRST and/or CORRESPONDING authors who are members of CSA.
Publication fees payable are those advertised at the point of manuscript submission. For manuscripts submitted on or after March 1, 2023, publication fees (APC) will be $1600 (note the pricing currency is now USD rather than GBP). This APC covers increased publication fees charged by our publisher, salaries/support for our Managing Editor and social media staff, and nominal compensation for editors including the Editor-in-Chief. In line with the values of the CSA, our goals are to be self-sustaining, advance inclusion, and provide cost-efficient, open access at a rate below other journals.
If you do not have funds available to pay the APC (e.g., because your institution/funder will not cover the fee) then we may be able to offer a discount or full waiver. Please note that these are available on an extremely limited basis. Please ensure that you contact the editor at the time of submission should you need to discuss full or partial waiver options or the APC in general. Editorial decisions are made independently from the ability to pay the APC, and waivers will not be granted until after a paper has been accepted for publication.