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Policies

PJSL does not require author processing charges or other publication fees.

General Submission Rules

Submitted manuscripts must be the original work of the author and cannot be previously published, nor be forthcoming in an archival journal or book (print or electronic). By submitting material to PJSL, the author is stipulating that the material is not currently under review at another journal (electronic or print) and that they will not submit the material to another journal (electronic or print) until the completion of the editorial decision process at PJSL. If you have concerns about these submission terms, please contact the Journal Editor.

PJSL welcomes submissions from all student authors who completed their service learning, civic engagement, or experiential learning as a Purdue undergraduate, graduate, or professional student in any of the Purdue campuses: Purdue University – Main Campus West Lafayette, Purdue University Calumet, Purdue University North Central, and Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne.

Students must be currently enrolled or within 1 year post-Purdue education to submit an abstract for review. Submissions are accepted from all academic disciplines.

Submitted proposals will be reviewed by experts in the discipline and in scholarly writing, as well as select members of the Editorial Board. Selected student authors may be contacted with an invitation to submit a Student Reflective Essay, Research With Reflection, Community Partner Snapshot, or Profile Interview.

Peer Review Process

PJSL aims to globally advance service-learning and academic civic engagement by publishing the scholarly work of Purdue students. Because part of this aim includes highlighting students, alumni, faculty, administration, and their partners, we do not guarantee the anonymity of authors and their partners in review. For this reason, PJSL reviews are “single-blind” – reviewers may be aware of the identity of the authors, but authors are unaware of the identity of reviewers in all cases.

Authors seeking double-blind review (in which authors identities are not shared with reviewers) may request this by contacting the Journal Editor. In this case, it is the responsibility of authors to ensure to not include any identifying information in the document. Please review the body of the text for potential identifying information and omit any information, including in the student impact statements (author biographies can be added during the copyedit process following acceptance). Please also ensure that all self-citations are indicated as Author (Year) for both in-text citations and references.

The submission and review process is completed online using an electronic editorial system. For manuscripts that are deemed appropriate for the journal, PJSL strives to send the document to at least two experts; in some cases, the second reviewer may be a member of the Editorial Board. Authors are provided feedback in the form of a rubric that follows the Guidelines for Authors per submission type (see Author Guidelines). In-text comments, where submitted by reviewers, are also provided. The Journal Editor may provide additional guidance or comments in the form of a cover letter or email accompanying reviewer feedback, and/or they may reach out to the faculty mentor identified by student authors for additional information during review.

Formatting Requirements

Please consult the Author Guidelines for submission format requirements. Although bepress can provide limited technical support, it is ultimately the responsibility of the author to produce an electronic version of the article as a Microsoft Word or PDF file.

Copyright and Licensing

PJSL is published electronically and in print once a year by Purdue University Press. PJSL provides universal open access to scholars and non-scholars in the interests of promoting scientific progress and public good. This means that it does not charge readers or authors to access, read, download, and distribute articles. This journal is covered under the CC-BY-NC-ND license. This means this content is available for anyone to use/share with appropriate attribution non-commercially (NC) and with no derivatives (ND).

Rights for Authors and e-Pubs

Authors retain copyright of their article but license to PJSL the nonexclusive worldwide right to publish the article in print and electronic form.

Personal-use Exceptions

The following uses are always permitted to the author(s) and do not require further permission from Purdue e-Pubs provided the author does not alter the format or content of the articles, including the copyright notification:

  • Posting of the article on the author(s)’s personal website, provided that the website is non-commercial;
  • Posting of the article on the internet as part of a non-commercial open access institutional repository or other non-commercial open access publication site affiliated with the author(s)'s place of employment; and
  • Posting of the article on a non-commercial course website for a course being taught by the author at the university or college employing the author.
People seeking an exception, or who have questions about use, should contact the Journal Editor.

General Terms and Conditions of Use

Users of the Purdue e-Pubs website and/or software agree not to misuse the Purdue e-Pubs service or software in any way.

The failure of Purdue e-Pubs to exercise or enforce any right or provision in the policies or the Submission Agreement does not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. If any term of the Submission Agreement or these policies is found to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor to give effect to the parties' intentions as reflected in the provision, and the other provisions of the Submission Agreement and these policies remain in full force and effect. These policies and the Submission Agreement constitute the entire agreement between Purdue e-Pubs and the author(s) regarding submission of the article.

Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Authors must guarantee that submitted manuscripts have not been published elsewhere, are not currently under review elsewhere, and have been submitted with the full knowledge of their institutional home. Any manuscripts must be original work. PJSL follows Purdue University Press's ethical standards and misconduct policy for journals, found at https://www.press.purdue.edu/ethics-policy/.

All manuscripts will be reviewed based on intellectual content without regard for age, gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, country of origin, or political philosophy of the authors.

All manuscripts submitted for review are kept strictly confidential by editors and reviewers. At no time will editors or reviewers utilize submitted materials without the consent of the authors.