New Manuscript Submission

This document discusses the process for submitting a manuscript.  Potential authors should be familiar with the Ethics Statement for Authors.

Papers are published on a rolling basis, and are published immediately after successfully passing through the refereeing and copy editing processes.  New volumes are generated annually on January 1 and manuscripts that have completed the process will be published immediately under the volume current at the time the process is completed.

Before beginning the submission process, authors are encouraged to gather necessary information; please refer to the Submission Checklist.  Manuscripts can be submitted using the "Submit" button on the TISE landing page. Upon selecting the Submit button, you will be required to login to your account.  Those without an account should select "Create an eScholarship Account", located just below the login form.  A link is provided for those who have forgotten their password.

During the on-line submission process, you will be required to acknowledge that your submission is original and unpublished.  Published papers include those in conference proceedings if they have been peer reviewed. Papers published as technical reports are not prior publications, as long as the submitted manuscript is not identical to the technical report. Papers posted on personal websites are not considered prior publications, nor are papers written by the submission author and previously published in a language other than English.

TISE follows a double-blind review process, which can be challenging in an environment in which anyone can perform an internet search on a few key words and turn up information that might potentially destroy the blind.  TISE asks all reviewers to promise that they will not use any information beyond the submitted manuscript and supplementary files in making their decision, and will ask that they do not attempt to break the blind by engaging in searches that might identify the authors.  If the reviewer suspects plagiarism, please contact the editor who will carry out an internet search.

At the same time, if the manuscript is based on work presented at conferences or technical reports, or if pre-prints are available online, then the author and co-authors should be aware that the blind could be broken.  In these situations, during the submission process we ask authors to acknowledge that they are aware their identity is discoverable.

Submitted manuscripts must also conform to the TISE style guidelines. When submitting the manuscript you will be asked to acknowledge that you have followed these guidelines. 

You will also need to provide several other pieces of information during the submission process:

•  Full names, emails, institutional and departmental affiliations of all authors. One author must be identified as the corresponding author.
• The section of the journal to which the manuscript is to be submitted (Statistical Investigations, Statistical Thinking, Technology Innovations, or Notes.) Please refer to the Aims and Scope for a description of these sections.
• A cover letter.  Please also state the journal section to which you are submitting the manuscript within the cover letter and acknowledge any concerns regarding potential breaks of the blind that may occur if the manuscript is available online, as discussed in the previous paragraphs.
• A blinded version of the manuscript. Note that authors are responsible for ensuring that their manuscript has been properly blinded.
• The title, abstract, and keywords
• The academic discipline most relevant for the submission. (Selected from a forced-choice menu.)
• Acknowledgements (optional)

While you will have the opportunity to save your work and continue later, if necessary, we recommend you have this information ready before beginning the submission process.

If you have questions or concerns about this license, please contact the Editor.

Categories of Submission

TISE publishes papers in four general categories, and authors are asked to select a category upon submitting their manuscript.  These categories are Statistical Investigations, Statistical Thinkings, Technology Innovations, and Notes.

Statistical Investigations are research papers, a category that includes empirical studies or conceptual/theoretical articles. Empirical studies might contribute to a theory of learning or a design of technology; or address the effectiveness of a particular technological tool or design feature for teaching or learning statistics and/or data science. Empirical studies use appropriate, well-documented research methods and data analyses (whether qualitative or quantitative) that support sound conclusions. An investigation of whether alternative methods of teaching of statistical tools lead to better results than another such method without a connection to theory and/or previous research would not generally be acceptable. Papers should include a discussion of the broad impact of the research. Quantitative measurements of student outcomes should be aligned with the theoretical foundations of the study and evidence given as to their reliability and validity. Student performance on a final exam or end of course grade would not generally pass these tests. 

Statistical Thinking papers are opinion pieces which describe a timely issue in learning or teaching statistics or data science with or about technology and propose novel solutions or perspectives. Issues discussed should be of interest to a broad audience. Ideally, manuscripts will include a discussion of and comparison with alternative solutions and propose a solution that is feasible in a variety of settings. For example, a position paper might argue that changes in technology require a change in the curriculum, either to remove or add topics. Or one might argue that new technology allows a new and better approach to teaching fundamental concepts. Position papers may be published with discussion at the editors' prerogative.

Technology Innovations are of two types: discussions of new technology created by the author(s) or case studies of innovative uses of existing technology. New Technologies should solve educational problems, provide infrastructure to assist statistics educators, or provide infrastructure to assist developers of statistics education technology. New Technology manuscripts should provide (at a minimum) a pedagogical context for the technology that includes a discussion of how the technology is meant to be used, who the intended users are, and what skills or concepts it is meant to help students learn. Manuscripts should provide a high-level description of the technology that includes discussing features of the design. Manuscripts must include a comparison and contrast with competing technologies, as appropriate. Authors should explain why the technology is innovative. Examples of New Technologies might include, but certainly not be limited to, web-based statistical software, applets designed to teach statistical concepts, or technology that harvests data for classroom use. 

Technology Case Studies are descriptions of particular innovative uses of existing technology to improve statistics education or are descriptions of methods for teaching the use of technology to solve problems of general statistical interest. Technology case studies should be feasible in a variety of settings, and authors should discuss implementation and access issues (e.g., cost, maintenance). Authors must provide a pedagogical context that includes a description of the problem solved by the use of technology and, more particularly, a description of the setting in which the authors implemented the technology. Examples might include descriptions of using data collection problems to collect "live" data, an example of using XML for data exchange, or demonstrations of teaching technologies that allow students to access unusual or complex data formats.

Notes is a broad category to include submissions which do not fit neatly into the above a categories and are generally less formal than papers in the above categories.  Papers submitted as "Notes" may be of wide variety and are published at the editor's discretion.  Typically, they will be reviewed by a single referee. Guidelines for review will be determined by the editor, often with consultation with the authors.  

Style Guide

This is a general overview.  An example of the appropriate formats for documents prepared by a word processor is provided here [link in process]. A separate guide is provided for LaTeX documents [link in process].  For any items not covered in this overview, please refer to the American Statistical Association Style Guide.

The manuscript should be in English and should be prepared using 8 1/2 x 11-inch pages, single spaced, including keywords and references, with margins of at least one inch around all four edges. 

Font should be Times or Times New Roman. 12 pt font should be used for the body of text and all other sections unless otherwise noted.

Title should be 20 pt, font title case, centered.  Two blank lines should follow the title.

Following the title are author names, centered and bolded. Superscripts may be used, as appropriate, to point to affiliations when the author list includes multiple affiliations.  The next line should include affiliated institutions (not bolded).  (Note that the affiliated departments for all authors will also be required by the web portal while submitting the manuscript.) Two blank lines should follow the last affiliation.

All articles must include a short (one paragraph) abstract and a list of keywords. The abstract should be left-justified and preceded by one blank line after the title "Abstract", which is centered. The keywords list follows the abstract after a blank line and begins with "Keywords:" in italics and left justified. The actual keywords are not italicized.

Level 1 section headers are centered, upper case, 16 pt, numbered, and followed by one blank line.

Level 2 headers are left-justified, mixed case, 14 pt, numbered with a decimal, and followed by one blank line. 

Level 3 headers are left-justified, mixed case, 12 pt, italics, and are not numbered.  No blank line follows.  

Authors may submit in LaTeX, Word, pdf, or Quarto. Submissions in LaTeX, pdf, or Quarto must also include all files used to generate output so that the editors can re-compile if needed. In the case of LaTeX, this should include necessary style files.

Figure Captions: Captions should begin "Figure x:" where x is a consecutive number. Captions are 10 pt. Captions appear below the figure, centered.

Table captions: Captions for tables should begin "Table x:" where x is a consecutive number.  Captions are 10 pt and centered above the table.

Authors are responsible for providing publication quality graphics. Authors are reminded that if readers choose to print papers, colors may not appear.  Graphics should be centered within a text and contain captions.  All figures should be referred to within the body of the text.

Authors must also submit a "blinded" copy of the manuscript, which will be distributed to the reviewers. Authors are responsible for removing any identifying information.

Note that your name, affiliation, acknowledgements, abstract, and keywords are requested during the submission process and can be edited later (and should be edited if changes are required.)

References: Each reference must include author(s), date of publication, title, and publication information, including a DOI if it exists. The format follows that used by the American Statistical Association (ASA). Please consult the ASA Style Guide. 

Note to LaTeX Users

Manuscripts prepared using LaTeX must use the TISE style guide, available here. BibTeX may be used, but should be configured to produce reference lists that match the style described below. Although officially authors submit the pdf output, they are also required to supply editors with the .tex files as well as any supporting files (e.g., .bib files, .jpg) needed to reproduce the pdf output.

Supplemental Materials

Where appropriate, authors are encouraged to submit explicit programs or subprograms, coded in a programming language, as supporting materials to their articles. The code should be self-contained so that readers can use it directly, or if not self-contained it should be clear that it provides the best way to describe the method that it implements. Authors who include code in their papers should make every effort to use a programming language generally available to readers of TISE. Authors may include hyperlinks and should indicate the URL of the text in braces, e.g. {https://www.pstat.ucsb.edu/}. Authors are responsible for checking that links are active at the time of submission.

Authors may submit supporting materials that do not appear in the paper itself (e.g., video, audio, images). (These materials will be listed on the cover page along the paper title, and readers must click on the list item by item to view.) Authors are encouraged to keep supporting files reasonably small so that readers will not spend too much time downloading these files. The manuscript should very clearly refer to these supporting materials by name so that readers can easily choose to view the correct file.  

About

TISE welcomes papers that advance our understanding of how to better teach statistics and data science using technology or how to better teach technology to future data scientists and statisticians. "Statistics" and "Data Science" should be understood to include the broader category of data literacy, data fluency, data acumen, and all other incarnations that apply to the preK-12, undergraduate, graduate, and professional educational contexts. 

Focus and Scope

Submission Checklist

Submission Checklist

During the online submission process (which you access by hitting the "Submit" button), you will be asked to confirm each of the following: 

• The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in the cover letter to the editor).
• The submission file is in LaTeX, Word, pdf, or Quarto. Submissions in LaTeX, pdf, or Quarto must also include all files used to generate output so that the editors can re-compile if needed. In the case of LaTeX, this should include necessary style files.
• Where available, DOIs and URLs for references have been provided UNLESS they break the blind, in which case they should be replaced with a note indicating the omission. For example, "[URL removed to preserve blind]"
• The text is single-spaced, uses a 12-point font, and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
• The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the section above.

Copyright Notice

Peer Review

Following author submission, the article is first checked for plagiarism, missing materials, and identifying information that identify the author. The editor, often in consultation with members of the editorial board, will make an initial assessment of the paper and either reject with comments or pass the paper to an associate editor. The associate editor will act as internal referee and assign the paper to two referees for review. (Papers submitted within the "Notes" category will be assigned only one referee.) This process takes a minimum of six weeks. The associate editor will compile the referees' reports and make a decision to accept, provisionally accept, reject and encourage a resubmission, or reject.

To the extent possible, the process will be double-blind, but we advise authors that we are not responsible for removing identifying information from the manuscript. We therefore ask authors themselves to remove any such information. This should include references to the authors' institution, external links to authors' professional pages, etc.  Authors must therefore provide two versions of their manuscript: one which includes authors' names and affiliations (and will be seen only by the editor and the internal referee) and another without (to be shown to the referees). Please refer to the Author Guidelines for details. 

Please note that if some version of your paper is available online, it is possible that the blind review will be broken.  Referees are asked to refrain from obtaining any information about the author or papers beyond those provided by the journal, but there is obviously no way for the journal to guarantee that this will happen.

Papers sent to referees will not be shared or sent to other people or organizations and referees may not use papers submitted for review in any way before publication.

Licences

The following licences are allowed:

• CC BY-NC 4.0
  Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes. No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Publication Cycle

Sections