Guidelines for Authors

Here are a few reasons why we think publishing in IA might be good for you and your research. The journal has a very broad remit and wide-ranging Editorial Policy. There is no target length for an article in IA. We will publish data papers and methodologies through to research articles and e-monographs. Our straight-forward submission process is outlined below.

Step 1: Submit a Proposal

Submit your article proposal to editor@intarch.ac.uk using the sections listed below. We do also consider proposals for themed issues. Do not send a draft of your article unless it has been explicitly requested by the Editor.

I: About you

• Your Name
• Your Email Address
• ORCID identifier if you have one
• Address or Institutional affiliation
• Relevant and/or recent publications by the principle author(s)

II: About the content

• Title of Proposal
• Proposal summary
• Outline and structure (contents outline, suggested sections etc.)
• Estimated extent / word length
• Target readership
• Keywords (maximum of 10)
• Projected draft submission date
• Reasons for publishing

III: Technical details

• Number of images (include range of file formats e.g. GIF, JPEG, TIF, PNG)
• Other elements and formats for inclusion e.g. video, VR, panoramas, animations, GIS, database (please refer to the ADS preferred data formats list)
• Any other technical requirements e.g. clickable maps, 'zoomable' images, searchable database (such features are what IA can add to your article and we do not expect you to submit these as working examples. Please add any other ideas about how you envisage the article here)
• Related digital archive?
  Where you have primary research data or a larger related dataset that complements the IA submission, then IA strongly advises that you deposit this with a digital archive e.g. the Archaeology Data Service as a separate collection (fully curated, archived and publically available). Your IA article can link to such resources at collection or individual record level as required. Linking to related data holdings will enhance your article and the integration of resources provides a benefit to the user not possible in most other publications.

IV: IA Open Access option

• Are you able to apply/have you applied for funding to cover publication costs?
  The decision to publish an article in Internet Archaeology is wholly independent of payment or ability to pay, and is based solely on the quality of the proposal. However it is journal policy that when IA's article development costs are covered, that content will be made OA.
  There is no fixed OA fee as articles can really vary (e.g. length, technical requirements etc.). An estimate can be worked out from a fully formed proposal so the more detail you can provide, the better. Costs can often be covered by your research grant, a departmental research award, or via institutional block grant for APCs (Author Processing Charges).
  If you are at a very early stage and applying for research funding, then OA charges could be included in your application for funding (and is the main reason we ask you to consider the finance issue at the proposal stage). However all proposals are assessed purely on their academic quality, and if you have no access to funding, then this is not an obstacle to publication in IA.

The Editor will assess the proposal and the submitted details may also be circulated to the Editorial Advisory committee for further comment. Proposals are either delcined or accepted in principle and you will receive a response from the Editor within 10 working days (but usually much quicker than that).

Step 2: Write!

As you write, think about your article structure and how to use the linking benefits of the medium. Try to think beyond a linear text with supplementary images. A web document doesn't necessarily have a beginning, middle and end. It might help to think in visual terms about the final structure e.g. writing hierarchically means important detail can be included `lower down' in the article (after all, depth and the building up of layers and meaning are concepts that every archaeologist is familiar with!). A summary or series of summary sections may be helpful. Alternatively consider a 'wheel' arrangement, with a central hub [main argument] and spokes [supporting data/discussion] radiating outwards. It may also help to draw out or 'storyboard' your main sections to aid planning.

General guidelines

• Keep your language simple wherever possible. The Economist style guide puts it best and should be read by everyone!
• Use the Harvard referencing system.
• Ensure that all bibliographic references, images and tables are actually cited in your text.
• Do not use footnotes. Create a new section for any substantial 'asides'.
• Filenames should be in lower case and that they contain NO spaces
• Files should be consistently and meaningfully named and easily identified e.g. figure3.jpg, interview2.mpg, section3.docx etc.
• Figures should be numbered sequentially (Figure 1, Figure 2 etc.) as opposed to by section (Figure 2.1, Figure 2.2) and should be numbered in the order they appear in the text. It is not IA housestyle to distinguish between figures, maps and plates. All are Figures.
• Image captions must be clear and distinct.
• Obtain permission from all other copyright holders at the earliest opportunity to reproduce their work in your article. Give full attribution in the List of Figures/Tables. All 3rd party content (i.e. that which is NOT covered by the CC BY 3.0 licence) should be clearly marked (e.g. Figure X ©Institution Y. 2013. Used with permission / Figure Z ©Susan Brown. 2013. CC BY-NC-SA 3.0). It is your responsibility to deal with any requests for reproduction fees.

Step 3: Submit Your Draft

The editorial workflow will run smoothest if your text files are in a common word processing format (e.g. MS Word not PDF). HTML is also accepted but please inform the editor beforehand and use minimal formatting (no CSS), validate to HTML 5 or XHTML 1 (strict).

Language Editing

Particularly if English is not your first language, before submitting your manuscript you may wish to have it edited for language. This is not a mandatory step, but it does help to ensure that the academic content is clear and fully understood by both the journal editor and the referee. Language editing does not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted for publication. There are specialist language editing companies that offer such services but note that authors are liable for all costs associated with such services.

Ready to submit? Do you have...

• An abstract, including your title, all author(s) and their affiliations, a list of keywords and email address(es) and funding statement
• A table of contents
• A list of figures (with full attribution for any 3rd party content used)
• A list of tables
• Article text (either as a single file or as a series of files). Where it is not obvious, you may insert cues in [square brackets] indicating where you would like links to other files/elements to be inserted.
• A bibliography. Include DOIs where possible. See examples.
• Acknowledgements
• Image files. GIF, JPG, PNG, TIF all acceptable formats.
• Other files e.g. data, GIS, video, audio etc. Please contact the editor prior to submission for specific guidance regarding multimedia. IA adheres to the ADS guidelines on preferred formats for archaeological data.
• N.B. After submission, you may be asked to supply additional files and information (metadata) beyond what will appear in the published article. This is to aid preservation of the content which will be fully archived by the Archaeology Data Service. You may also be asked to supply details of the funding that supported your research (if any), and a statement on how the underlying research materials can be accessed.

Articles can be submitted as email attachments for shorter contributions, but we prefer to use the University of York's Drop-Off system and access is arranged by the Editor once you are ready to submit. All submissions will be acknowledged by email as soon as possible after receipt.

Step 4: Refereeing

IA intends to pass back refereeing comments on submissions well within 2 months (and certainly no longer than 4), and we will contact you if the refereeing process takes longer than this. A set of guidelines for referees has been complied and potential authors might also find it useful to read through this advice before submission.

The editor will liaise with you over any revisions that have to be made arising from refereeing and will arrange a suitable deadline for the submission of the revised draft.

Copyright

IA disseminates content under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC-BY 3.0) licence. Under this license, authors do not assign their copyright to Internet Archaeology but instead retain ownership of the copyright for their content, and allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy the content as long as the original authors and the source are cited, but users must make clear the license terms under which the work was published.

Authors will 'sign' a digital licence indicating these terms (triggered once a revised draft has been submitted). Only one digital licence is required per article (usually by the main corresponding author who signs on behalf of all other contributors).

Authors should note that the CC-BY licence does not affect any content that the author does not own or control e.g. content created by a 3rd party. The licence covers only the rights held by the author(s). All 3rd party content (which is not covered under the CC licence) should be clearly attributed and labelled (e.g. Figure X ©Institution Y. 2013 or Figure Z ©Institution Y. 2013. CC BY-NC-SA 3.0).

Internet Archaeology Open Access Option

IA authors have the option to publish their article under Open Access (OA) where, for a charge, an article will be made freely available online immediately upon publication (Gold Open Access). If you do not/are not able to opt for the IA Open Access option, your article will still be published under our standard low-cost subscription-based access and you will not be charged. Internet Archaeology is compliant with RCUK and other funding bodies' Open Access policies.

There is no fixed OA fee as the content and technical requirements for each article varies considerably. Instead the Editor can provide you with a customised charge based on the requirements of your article. Waivers and discounted fees for authors from developing countries are available and will be negotiated individually with the corresponding author.

Your final draft must include a funding statement. Either "This work was supported by the xxxxxxx [grant number xxxx]" or where work was not funded by any specific project grant, please use the following "This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors."

Author Self-Archiving/Public Access Policy

Internet Archaeology is a RoMEO Green publisher.

Post-publication Access (when an article is not Open Access)

The author access details you will use as your article develops prior to publication, will continue to be active after publication. These details become the journal's way of providing you with an 'off-print'. Access is online only and is the only sure way we can provide you with complete and full access to the complete and original published version and all its elements (incl. interactive/data components). We will not provide a PDF file (which in many cases cannot be the complete article).

The only condition we place is that these access details should be used reasonably i.e. it is reasonable to pass the details to individuals on request or to selected individuals as you would a paper off-print, but they are not for re-posting on a public website or circulated via email lists etc. Internet Archaeology reserves the right to re-issue different details should unusual activity using such details (in the web logs) be detected.

Authors can contact the editor at any time to request a reminder or to re-set their access details.

Editorial correspondence

All editorial correspondence should be addressed to:

The Editor
Internet Archaeology
http://intarch.ac.uk/
Department of Archaeology
University of York
YO1 7EP
editor@intarch.ac.uk

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