Submissions

This page is designed to help you ensure your submission is ready for and fits the scope of the journal.

Before submitting you should read over the guidelines here, then register an account (or login if you have an existing account)

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About

Research is vital for effective practice and policy in special education and related fields. Research in Special Education (RiSE) is an online-only, peer-reviewed, diamond open-access journal with no article processing charges for authors. The mission of the journal is to (a) openly disseminate rigorous, relevant, and accessible research that contributes to the advancement of special education and related fields and (b) openly publish commentaries, theoretical analyses, and practical guides to advance the rigor, openness, and equity of research and practice in special education and related fields.

Focus and Scope

Research in Special Education publishes all types of research (e.g., primary and secondary data analyses; systematic literature reviews and meta-analyses; quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods studies), including replications and studies with null or negative findings, as well as non-empirical papers (e.g., conceptual and theoretical papers, commentaries, how-to guides) related to research. Papers should have a clear focus on special education or a related field (e.g., communication sciences and disorders, developmental psychology, gifted education, rehabilitation counseling, school psychology).

We strongly encourage authors to incorporate open-science practices in their work, including preregistering studies; sharing materials, data, and analytic code; and posting preprints. We invite the submission of Registered Reports for all types of empirical research. We also publish guest-edited topical special series (please contact editor(s)-in-chief to propose a special series).

Submission Checklist

To prepare your manuscript for submission, follow these guidelines.

  1. Comply with submission-specific requirements (e.g., replication studies, non-empirical papers) delineated in the Author's Guidelines
  2. Prepare your work to adhere to the APA style described in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.; APA, 2020), including (but not limited to)
    1. Use compatible document format, such as Microsoft Word
    2. Format the manuscript with double-spaced text and 12-point Times New Roman font
    3. Provide DOIs for all referenced materials where available
    4. Ensure all materials borrowed from third-party sources are appropriately credited, and permission has been secured from the copyright holder.
  3. Submit a cover letter that: 
    1. Highlights your manuscript's suitability for RiSE
    2. Lists all co-authors and verifies that all authors have agreed to be named on the manuscript and that they have fulfilled the authorship criteria as defined by APA guidelines (APA., 2020, p. 4)
    3. Confirm that your manuscript has not been published previously and is not currently under consideration by another journal

Copyright Notice

  1. 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):

    1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
    2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
    3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

    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).

Upon acceptance for publication, authors retain the copyright of the work published in the RiSE through a Creative Commons license. The default is for articles to be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0), allowing others to share and adapt the work as long as they provide appropriate credit, link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. However, authors can select any of the Creative Commons licenses to use with their article. See https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/cclicenses/ for a description of Creative Commons licenses.

Peer Review

After screening for relevance by the editor(s)-in-chief, submissions will be reviewed by at least two expert peer reviewers using double-masked peer review (i.e., masking the identities of authors and reviewers from one another). Based on peer reviews and their own reading of the manuscript, the editor will make a decision of rejection, minor or major revisions, or acceptance. Overall editorial responsibility rests with the journal’s editor(s)-in-chief. Publication decisions are based on rigor and relevance of work, not perceived originality.

Licences

Research in Special Education allows the following licences for submission:

  • CC BY 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. No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
  • 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.
  • CC BY-SA 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. ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Publication Fees

There are no fees to publish in Research in Special Education.

Publication Cycle

This journal publishes continuously with articles being made available as soon as they are proofed.

Sections

Section or article type

Public Submissions

Peer Reviewed

Indexed

Registered Report

Empirical Article

Non-empirical paper