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During the on-line submission process, you will be required to acknowledge that your submission is original and unpublished.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-anonymous 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 anonymity. 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 anonymity 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 anonymity 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 anonymity that may occur if the manuscript is available online, as discussed in the previous paragraphs.
• A anonymous version of the manuscript. Note that authors are responsible for ensuring that their manuscript has been properly anonymized. 
• 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 pressing 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 Technology Innovations, Statistical Investigations, Statistical Thinkings,  and Notes.

Technology Innovations describe a new technology that solves educational problems, provides infrastructure to assist statistics educators, or provides infrastructure to assist developers of statistics education technology. Technology Innovations manuscripts must provide: 

• The 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. 
• A high-level description of the technology that includes discussing features of the design. 
• Comparison and contrast with competing technologies with an argument for why the technology is innovative, while also discussing its limitations against other options.
• Evidence of the functionality of the tool with informal testing with examples and screenshots of the tool.
• Access and sustainability discussion that allows readers to judge whether they want to adopt the technology. This includes the cost of the technology, what platforms it runs on, and how it is maintained and supported.

Examples of Technology Innovations 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. 

Statistical Investigations are research papers backed by empircal evidence. They 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 must:

• Make explicit research questions or hypotheses that can be tested with data. 
• 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. 
• Include a discussion of the broad impact of the research. 
• Discuss ethical considerations of the data analyzed.

Statistical Investigations may provide a demonstration of the technology and a discussion of alternative tools like done in Technology Innovations, if deemed appropriate. 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. 

Practitioner’s Corner papers are focused on the audience of in-service teachers and instructors, and describe a technology-focused statistics task or activity in enough detail that readers can implement this themselves. Practitioner’s Corner manuscripts must:

• Discuss implementation and access issues (e.g. cost, maintenance)
• Provide explicit learning objectives for the activity presented.
• Describe an intended audience for the activity.
• Authors should consider the typical skills that an instructor at that level holds, and give appropriate preparation and detail in supplemental materials for a typical instructor to implement this activity.
• Present a pedagogical context that includes a description of the problem solved by the use of technology, and all relevant classroom artifacts that would allow another instructor to implement the activity themselves, such as:
• Activity worksheets or documents
• Assessments
• Data sets given to students
• Teacher notes
• Discuss how the activity may be adapted for a different audience, class size, skill level, or other institutional contexts.

The technology that the activity uses does not need to be novel or innovative, but authors should provide a literature review to establish the importance of the activity’s main topic or focus. Rigorous empirical evidence for the efficacy of the activity presented is not required, but informal student experiences and feedback should be present to contextualize the impact of the activity for other readers to decide if they should implement it. 

Brief Reports are welcomed to give an opportunity to describe how existing innovative technology has been implemented in the classroom, or to detail timely, important updates or additions to existing technology. Such articles help build a common understanding of how implementation is being done in various institutional settings, giving greater context to the effectiveness of a technology. Brief reports must:

• Use technology that is already detailed in a previous publication (in TISE or elsewhere) with appropriate citation, or use technology that is well-understood in the statistics education community with appropriate justification.
• If no citations are provided, it should be that the technology is well-known enough that a full description of the technology and evidence of functionality is generally not needed for the TISE audience.
• Briefly establish the theoretical grounding for why the technology is important and how it has been implemented previously. 
• Discuss the institutional and classroom context for the present study.
• If the study is a replication, a purpose for investigating the population given should be provided. Why is the current population different from other already studied populations?
• Either:
• Provide empirical evidence on the effectiveness of the implementation of a tool in the classroom. 
• Effectiveness can be measured directly through assessment performance or through other constructs like attitudes, agency, equity, etc. 
• Detail the relevance of a current update to a given technology in light of timely or recent trends in statistics education.  
• Discuss any relevant ethical considerations.
• Discuss the implications from implementing this technology in the present context, and give a cross-contextual comparison with previous literature to broaden the understanding of implementing this technology.
• Be limited to 2500 words, focusing heavily on the new empirical evidence provided.

Like with Statistical Investigations, any 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. 

Style Guide

This is a general overview. 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. 

Templates

An example of the appropriate formats for documents prepared by a word processor is provided here. A separate guide is provided for LaTeX documents. 

While the styles included in the templates above are given to aid your use of the style guidelines above, use of a template does not ensure style compliance, especially with a word processor. Carefully read the styles below to ensure that you meet the style requirements.

Style Requirements

Font should be Calibri (Word), Computer Modern Sans-Serif (LaTeX) or other similar sans-serif font. 11pt 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 bold. 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 bold). (Note that the affiliated departments for all authors will also be required by the web portal while submitting the manuscript.) One blank line 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 and bold. 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, bold, 16 pt, numbered with a decimal, and followed by one blank line.

Level 2 headers are left-justified, mixed case, 14pt, numbered with no 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, or pdf. However, if LaTex or pdf, then all files used to generate output must also be included so that the editors can re-compile if needed. In the case of LaTex, this should include all necessary dependent files. (e.g. images, styles, bibliography, etc.)

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 10pt and centered below 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 and alt text. All figures should be referred to within the body of the text.

Authors must also submit an anonymized 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 for citiations and references should follow either the American Psychological Association (APA) or the American Statistical Association (ASA). The template for LaTeX is set up for ASA. References should have all lines after the first indented by (roughly) 1/4 of an inch.

Note to LaTex Users

Manuscripts prepared using LaTex must use the TISE style, linked in the template above. Bibtex may be used, but should be configured to produce reference lists that match the style described above. 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 or .jpg etc) 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. {http://www.stat.ucla.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, for example video, audio, or pictures. (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. 

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 OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, RFT, or WordPerfect document file format. If the submission was prepared in LaTeX, then an anonymized pdf version and the source document are provided along with any necessary style files.
• Where available, DOIs and URLs for references have been provided UNLESS they break anonymity, in which case they should be replaced with a note indicating the omission. For example, "[URL removed to preserve anonymity]"
• The main text is single-spaced, uses a 11-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.