Submissions

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Author Guidelines

1. Overview

The Journal of Pathways Education and Research (JPER) is a peer-reviewed, open-access publication dedicated to advancing critical scholarship in pathways, Enabling, vocational, and higher education.

All submissions are first screened by an editor to confirm they meet the aims, scope, and scholarly standards of the journal. Suitable manuscripts are sent for double-blind peer review by at least two independent reviewers. Based on reviewer reports, papers will be accepted, invited for revision, or declined.

2. Author Responsibilities

Before submission, authors must ensure that:

  • Permissions: Written permission has been obtained for any third-party materials (e.g. figures, tables, photos, datasets, or excerpts).
  • Authorship: All listed authors have made substantial intellectual contributions, approve the final version, and consent to being identified as authors.
  • Ethics: Research involving human participants or data has received ethics approval from a recognised committee in accordance with institutional and national requirements. The approval statement or reference number should appear in the manuscript.
  • Originality: The submission has not been published previously and is not under review elsewhere.
  • Data integrity: All data, quotations, and references are accurate and verifiable.
  • Peer review contribution: To support a timely and rigorous peer review process, submitting authors may be added to the journal’s reviewer pool and may be invited to review one or two manuscripts within the 12 months following submission, where requests align with their expertise. Invitations may be declined where there is a conflict of interest or genuine capacity constraints; however, authors are expected to make a reasonable reciprocal contribution to peer review as members of the journal’s scholarly community.

Submissions that do not meet these requirements may be returned without review.

3. Double-Blind Submission Requirements

JPER operates a double-blind peer-review process. Authors must upload two files:

1. Full Version (for editors)

  • Includes the title page with author names, institutional affiliations, ORCID iDs, acknowledgements, funding details, and ethics statement.
  • Used only by the editorial team for communication and production.

2. De-identified Manuscript (for reviewers)

  • Must remove all author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, and self-identifying phrases (e.g. “as we have argued previously”).
  • Remove identifying information from file properties and metadata (see guidance here for de-identifying a Word document).
  • Replace institution names or identifiers with placeholders (e.g., University X).
  • Ethics approvals and funding may be referenced generically (e.g., “approved by a university ethics committee”).

Submissions without an anonymised version will not proceed to review.

4. Editorial Screening

An editor may desk-reject a submission if it falls outside the journal’s scope or does not meet baseline scholarly quality.

Before submitting, ensure that:

  • The research design or conceptual argument is clearly articulated.
  • The title is concise and informative.
  • The abstract (150–250 words) accurately reflects the study and can stand alone.
  • The manuscript demonstrates critical engagement, theoretical insight, and original contribution.

Strong, well-prepared submissions increase the likelihood of successful peer review.

5. Types of Submissions

Type of Paper Description Word Limit (including references)
Research Papers Showcase original and theoretically informed research into any aspect of pathways education and/or widening participation. Papers should be methodologically rigorous, engage critically with relevant literature, and make a substantive contribution to knowledge, theory, or practice. 7,000
Critical Analyses of Policy, Practice, or Theory Critically interrogate existing policy, practice, or theoretical frameworks in pathways education and/or widening participation. May propose new conceptual approaches, reforms, or challenge established assumptions. 7,000
Practice Reports Present and analyse aspects of teaching, curriculum, or professional practice in enabling, vocational, or higher education contexts. Reports must go beyond description, drawing on theory, evidence, and reflection to identify implications for wider practice or policy. 4,000
Book and Resource Reviews Provide critical evaluations of recent books, pedagogical tools, or digital resources relevant to pathways education, enabling pedagogy, or widening participation. Reviews should summarise key ideas and assess their scholarly contribution. 1,000

 

6. Manuscript Preparation

Formatting

  • Use Times New Roman, 12-point font, 1.5 line spacing, and standard margins.
  • Number all pages consecutively.
  • Submit both the Full Version and De-identified Manuscript as Word files (.docx).
  • Figures and tables may be embedded after first mention or appended at the end.

Structure

Each manuscript should include:

  • Title Page (Full Version only) – title, author names, affiliations, ORCID iDs, funding, acknowledgements, ethics statement, and corresponding author contact details.
  • Abstract (150–250 words) and up to five keywords.
  • Main Text – structured logically (e.g. Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Results, Discussion, Conclusion).
  • References – formatted in APA 7th edition.
  • Appendices (if relevant).

Language and Style

  • Use Australian/British English (e.g. “organisation,” “labour”).
  • Maintain a clear, academic tone and inclusive, non-discriminatory language.
  • Disclose any use of generative AI (for non-substantive tasks such as grammar checking) in the acknowledgements.

7. Referencing

  • Follow APA 7th edition style.
  • Include DOIs or URLs for online sources where available.
  • Ensure every in-text citation appears in the reference list and vice versa.

8. Ethics and Integrity

JPER adheres to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) standards. Authors must:

  • Avoid plagiarism, duplication, or data fabrication.
  • Acknowledge all funding sources and institutional support.
  • Declare any conflicts of interest (financial, institutional, or personal).
  • Obtain informed consent where required and maintain participant confidentiality.

Editors may request supporting documentation such as ethics approval letters.

9. Review and Revision

  • Each manuscript is reviewed by two independent experts under double-blind conditions.
  • Reviewers assess originality, rigour, theoretical engagement, and contribution to the field.
  • Authors usually receive feedback within 8–10 weeks.
  • When revisions are requested, submit:
    • a clean revised version, and
    • a response-to-reviewers document explaining changes made.
  • Revised manuscripts are typically due within 4–6 weeks.

10. After Acceptance

  • Accepted papers undergo copyediting, typesetting, and proofing.
  • Authors review proofs before publication.
  • Articles are published open access under a Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence.
  • Authors retain copyright and may archive the final version in institutional repositories.

11. Contact

For enquiries about submissions, ethics, or formatting, please contact:

Editorial Manager: Julia.Goodman@unisq.edu.au

Editor-in-Chief: Jonathan.Green@unisq.edu.au

Submission Preparation Checklist

Check that the following requirements are met:


☐ This submission meets all requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
☐ This submission has not been previously published, nor is it under consideration by another journal.
☐ All authors have approved the submission and are correctly listed as contributors.
☐ I understand that submitting authors may be invited to review up to two manuscripts within 12 months of submission.
☐ Ethics approval details have been included, where relevant.
☐ Permission has been obtained to publish all photos, datasets, and other third-party material.
☐ Both a full version and a de-identified manuscript have been provided for double-blind review.
☐ All references have been checked for accuracy, completeness, and correct formatting.
☐ All tables and figures have been numbered and labelled appropriately.
☐ The manuscript adheres to APA 7th edition style and referencing.
☐ The title is concise and informative, and the abstract can stand alone.
☐ The submission fits the aims and scope of the Journal of Pathways Education and Research (JPER).
☐ The submission demonstrates theoretical, conceptual, or empirical rigour.

Articles

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Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
1.   Authors retain copyright and grant the Journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution - No Derivatives 4.0 International Licence (CC BY ND). This Licence allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2.   Authors have obtained all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any third-party copyright materials included in submissions.
3.   Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their unmodified work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. This can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.

 

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Personal information (as that term is defined in the Information Privacy Act 2009) collected by the journal will be used exclusively for publication purposes and unless required by law, will not be shared with any other party. The data collected from registered and non-registered users of this journal falls within the scope of the standard functioning of peer-reviewed journals. It includes information that makes communication possible for the editorial process; it is used to inform readers about the authorship and editing of content; it enables collecting aggregated data on readership behaviors, as well as tracking geopolitical and social elements of scholarly communication.  

This journal’s editorial team uses this data to guide its work in publishing and improving this journal. Data that will assist in developing this publishing platform may be shared with its developer Public Knowledge Project in an anonymized and aggregated form, with appropriate exceptions such as article metrics. The data will not be sold by this journal or PKP nor will it be used for purposes other than those stated here. The authors published in this journal are responsible for the human subject data that figures in the research reported here.

Those involved in editing this journal seek to be compliant with industry standards for data privacy, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provision for “data subject rights” that include (a) breach notification; (b) right of access; (c) the right to be forgotten; (d) data portability; and (e) privacy by design. The GDPR also allows for the recognition of “the public interest in the availability of the data,” which has a particular saliency for those involved in maintaining, with the greatest integrity possible, the public record of scholarly publishing.