For Authors

The Author Information Center provides details on submitting manuscripts to the Journal of Social Media for Organizations (JSMO).

General Policies

• By submitting a manuscript, the author accepts full responsibility for having obtained their organization’s permission or release to publish their work.  Authors whose submissions have been accepted will be asked to sign a form stating this.
• By submitting a manuscript, the author accepts the responsibility that all authors have agreed to be so listed and have seen and approved the manuscript, its content, and its submission to us.  Any changes in authorship must be approved in writing by all of the original authors.
• Materials published in the Journal are copyrighted using the “Attribution – No Derivatives 3.0 Unported Creative Commons” license.
• Any reasonable request for materials, methods, or data necessary to verify the conclusions of the experiments reported must be honored by the author.

Submission Types

JSMO accepts three types of submissions: articles, perspectives, and notes. 

Articles are full-length manuscripts that document completed research efforts (usually between 10,000 and 17,000 words in length).

Perspectives are mid-size manuscripts (usually between 5,000 and 10,000 words in length, but may be longer) that analyze how specific aspects or types of social media for organizations have evolved (and will likely continue to evolve) over time or how specific organizational behaviors have changed (and will likely continue to change) due to social media. Such perspectives are analyses across the past, present, and/or future and should be based on formal or informal evidence collected from the field by practitioners or researchers. Authors of perspectives should use the article template but specify, when submitting the document, that it was written as a perspective.

Notes are short manuscripts (no more than 5,000 words in length) that document work-in-progress or book reviews. Authors of notes should use the article template but specify, when submitting the document, that it was written as a note.

Articles and perspectives will receive a full peer review by multiple reviewers. Notes will be reviewed by at least one reviewer under editor supervision.

Submission Requirements

Concurrent Submission: We do NOT consider manuscripts that have been submitted to more than one publication at the same time. If we determine that a manuscript has been submitted to another publication before the JSMO review process is completed, or is still under consideration by another publication when submitted to JSMO, we will automatically reject that manuscript.

Preliminary/Conference Version(s):  Submissions presented in previous technical meetings or conferences may be considered for publication in JSMO. Any such submissions should present material of lasting interest, describing an original contribution to the field. The submission(s) should emphasize advancements in knowledge rather than specific products or systems.  The reviewer(s) will check the submission to determine whether a sufficient amount of new material (approximately 25% as a minimum) has been added to warrant publication in JSMO.  New results are not required, but the submission should contain expansions of key ideas, examples, elaborations, etc., of the previous version.

Template

All submissions must be Microsoft Word documents with 1" margins in Times New Roman fonts with headers in Ariel.  All files will be converted to a PDF prior to publication.  Authors should use the JSMO submission template provided on this web site. 

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Contact Information

Email is our primary means of communication, so you should verify that all information is correct and up-to-date. Emailed communications should be sent to jsmo-editors-list@lists.mitre.org.

Contributing Authors

When multiple authors are responsible for generating a written submission, the primary author should be listed first, with subsequent authors being listed by the significance of their contribution to the completed work.  For articles with multiple authors, please designate one person as the Point of Contact (POC).  A member of the Editorial Review Board will communicate with the POC throughout the review/publication process. The POC is responsible for passing on any information to the other authors. 

Abstract

The abstract should be no more than 250 words and should describe the manuscript's overall focus.

Illustrations

All illustrations must be cited in the text, numbered, and have descriptive captions. Authors are responsible for securing permission to use any and all figures.

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Submission ID

A unique tracking number, Submission ID, will be assigned to your submission and must be used for all future correspondence. 

Text Formatting Requirements

The following section describes the JSMO requirements for both the form and content of all submissions. Please review them carefully prior to submission. 

1. All submissions should use the submission template that is available though this website.
2. All submissions must include a title, author’s full name and organization, an abstract (not to exceed 250 words), main text, and list of references.
3. Each submission should have a title page containing the article’s title and the names, affiliations, and contact information for all coauthors. 
4. Do not number headings. Use no more than two heading levels (level one: bold; level two: italics).
5. Provide captions for all figures and tables.
6. Provide an abbreviated title, to appear as a running header, of no more than 35 characters and spaces.
7. Place all text in a single column. 
8. All references and in-text citations should follow the American Psychological Association 6th Edition format.  
9. When reporting analyses and experiments or any statistical results, make sure that these data analyses are described (central tendency, distribution, number of cases in the analysis, confidence intervals, etc.) in the body or in an appendix. When reporting experiment results, you must provide sufficient information such that the experiment could be replicated, as per accepted scientific studies. This means providing an overview of the experimental design (within-subject, between-subject, Latin square, etc.), plus a description of the statistical processing methods used (analysis of variance (ANOVA), Regression Analysis, etc.), the measure of statistical validity for any conclusions you draw, and the implications of your conclusions.  Authors are urged to make raw data available so that others can build upon and extend the body of knowledge.
10. If acronyms must be used, each one should be defined on its first appearance.

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Submission Review Criteria

Submissions will be judged on the originality and quality of the argument or discussion, the relevance and timeliness of the topic, and on quality of the writing style. The Reviewers and Editors will be evaluating your submission(s) based on the following criteria:

• Is the topic appropriate for JSMO?
• Is the submission intellectually stimulating?
• Is the literature review adequate/appropriate?
• Is the research design adequate/appropriate?
• Is the data analysis adequate/appropriate?
• Are the conclusions reasonable?
• Does the submission contain novel contributions that advance the state of knowledge?
• Is the submission logical and consistent?
• Is the submission’s argument persuasive?
• Is the writing clear and readable?

Submission will not be accepted if:

• Topics stray from the conceptual focus of the JSMO.
• Attempts are made to promote or sell specific goods and/or services.
• Claims are unsubstantiated or facts are inaccurate.
• Scientific merit is lacking.
• Writing or explanations are poor.
• The authors do not complete the requested revisions, based on the outcome of both the peer and editorial review process.

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Journal Scope

JSMO focuses on publishing original manuscripts that communicate new conceptual insights, design approaches, observations from case studies, and experimental findings regarding the use (implementation, successes, failures) of social media within the context of organizations.  Submissions highlighting technological aspects of social media in the enterprise will be considered, but the emphasis of JSMO is on how social media are used by people to change the way people work and communicate within the context of the organization. In using the term organization, JSMO does not limit its focus to a single corporate or government entity, but rather any group that self-identifies as having specific organizational goals and/or a common purpose and uses social media to attempt to achieve said goals or purposes.  Accordingly, JSMO recognizes the importance of scholarship in academic fields such as management, organizational studies, sociology, cognitive psychology, cultural anthropology, behavioral decision making, change management, human-computer interaction, strategy and others.  Indeed, because the study of social media and its uses is inherently multidisciplinary, JSMO welcomes contributions that cross, blend, and integrate various interdisciplinary threads. Further, the journal recognizes that a variety of research methods offer potential to contribute new knowledge to our understanding of social media. It welcomes both theoretical and empirical research, using accepted and applicable analytical, computational, laboratory, and field research methods.

Intended Audience

The intended readership of JMSO consists of academic, government, and corporate researchers; designers of social media systems; and information technology decision-makers who want to enhance their organizations’ use of social media. 

JSMO welcomes contributions from academic, government, and corporate researchers and anyone who has thoroughly analyzed and cogently described their organization’s experiences with using social media.  Articles and perspectives submitted to JSMO should advance understanding regarding the role of social media in the workplace and its appropriate application. 

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Topics of Interest

JSMO seeks manuscripts across the following types of topics:

• Theory and concepts, introducing new ideas and approaches regarding the use of social media to enhance communications between team members and/or to change or improve work practice for the purpose of accomplishing enterprise goals.  
• Systems design and development, providing guidance and lessons learned on how to implement and successfully deploy social media technologies within a group or organization.
• Experimentation and assessment that documents any substantial study conducted in the laboratory or the field, yielding qualitative and/or quantitative insights that would benefit the community. This would include significant findings from exercises or real-world uses of enterprise social media.
• State of the science, art, and practice of Social Media for organizations.
• Analysis, Tools, and Methods to study the use and efficacy of social media as a change-agent in the workplace.
• Cogently argued retrospectives or roadmaps for future research in social media for organizations (perspectives).

Examples of specific topics that may be appropriate are the following:

• Social media strategies for strengthening organizations’ internal collaboration and cohesion
• Adoption of social media in the organization
• Enhancing social media literacy among the organization’s population
• Effects of different social media approaches on the organization
• Measuring the effect of enterprise social media on the organization’s performance
• Best practices for social media usage based on organizational type
• Models, taxonomies, or theories for social media for the organization
• Approaches for managing social media communities in the organization
• Perceptions of organizational social media
• Sustaining social media participation in the organization after the initial rollout period
• Handling the demands of initial participation when it is much greater than expected
• Novel organizational social media tools
• Organizational social media and identity, privacy, safety, and security
• Using social media to break down organizational silos or fiefdoms
• Generating external awareness of the organization via social media
• Using social media in crisis communication
• Learning from customers via social media
• Measuring social media content quality and its effects on the organization
• Integrating or choosing among the large variety of social media options for the organization
• Designing social media approaches for multi-generational organizations
• Social media policies as set by organizations: what rules should there be?

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Review Process

All articles and perspectives submitted for publication in the JSMO will be subjected to rigorous peer review by at least two professionals who have been approved by the Editorial Board. Authors will receive a confirmation notice verifying that their submission meets the JSMO’s requirements and has been sent out for an initial review. After review, the reviewers’ comments will be provided to the authors.  While reviews are used as the basis for acceptance and content revisions, editorial board members of the JSMO and the Editors-in-Chief make the final decision regarding publication. 

Submissions identified as "notes" (work-in-progress documentation or book reviews) will be reviewed by at least one reviewer under editor supervision.

Editing

After a submission is accepted for publication, it may be edited for layout purposes. Depending on the article’s length, clarity and technical content, the editing process sometimes includes revisions. The process is iterative to ensure technical accuracy, but it is designed to increase every manuscript’s appeal and readability. Your accepted submission will be published as soon as possible once you complete any requested revisions and approve the final PDF proof. 

Copyright

By submitting a manuscript, the author certifies that the manuscript is not copyrighted except under the Creative Commons license.  The articles published in JSMO are copyrighted under the “Attribution – No Derivatives 3.0 Unported Creative Commons” license.  The publisher does not hold any rights over these materials.

Reproducing Journal Content

Reproduction of JSMO content must be accompanied by an acknowledgement and/or link to the JSMO and the content’s Creative Commons copyright notice.

ISSN

The ISSN of the Journal of Social Media for Organizations is ISSN 2471-8351.

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Last updated: 07/07/2016