Submission Procedure
The Journal of Computational Science Education is intended to provide an outlet for high quality papers describing successful computational science instructional materials and projects and research on the efficacy of instruction with computational science. Articles will be accepted from faculty describing instructional materials and/or the impacts of those materials on student learning and from students presenting successful projects and their assessment of what was learned.
Regular articles should describe the implementation of a computational science program, project, approach, or exercise that has been used in a formal or informal educational setting. The article should also provide results of a formal or informal evaluation of the experience that could take several forms. A formal assessment might involve the evaluation of the effectiveness of the learning materials based on quantitative measurements of achievement or observations of learning behaviors. Less formal evaluations could include reflections on the success of the experience based on teacher or student journal entries about the experience, discussions of any technical problems or innovations, quantitative or qualitative analysis of student learning and/or attitudes, or reflections on the causes of successes or problems with the approach. Articles will be judged relative to the originality of the learning materials, approach to instruction, evidence of success, and potential importance of the information to the computational science education community.
Student papers should summarize the purpose and results of a computational science project undertaken by one or more students. Those papers should describe the project in terms of the underlying science and engineering principles and the nature of the problem, the approach taken to solve that problem, and project results. Student papers should also reflect on the experience including such things as project organization, challenges, and solutions as well as the impact of the project on the students' education and career outlook.
Submission Format
All submissions should be in the form of a paper with attached interactive materials (software, spreadsheets, interactive workbooks, or other materials) and photo quality graphics. The paper should be submitted both as a PDF file and in raw form (both Word and LaTeX accepted, with LaTeX perferred). The format of the paper must follow the guidelines included in the following templates.
These templates have been revised (November 2024). Please download the new versions rather than using an old submission as a template.
The attached materials should be packaged in a zipformat, with the extension .zip. File names for .zip files should be in the form of the first author's last name, followed by the year. If multiple submissions are made in the same year, additional submissions should add .a, .b, .c or further letter distinguishing it from previous submissions. The paper should be between 5 and 15 pages in length, unless prior approval from JOCSE has been obtained. Student papers should be identified as such by preceding the title of the paper with the phrase 'STUDENT PAPER:'. This will be removed in the final formatting process if the paper is accepted for publication.
All papers, exercises, and programs will be subject to VV&A review, authors are highly encouraged to include their own VV&A results as a section in their paper. Keywords should be adequate to assign a reviewer and to make the article discoverable in search.
Review Procedure
An editor will be assigned to the submission based on content area, and the editor will make an initial decision based on appropriateness of the material to either submit to full review or reject based on inappropriateness to the publication or failure to adhere to the submission format. Once assigned to a reviewer or reviewers, the submission will undergo review according to the VV&A process in place at the Computational Science Education Reference Desk (CSERD). Additionally, a recommendation to accept, accept with minor revisions, reject with resubmission recommended, or reject with resubmission not recommended will be made and the author will be informed of the editor's decision. Criteria for acceptance is that the submission should include either a unique use of computation in the classroom or a unique research finding in computational science education, that it should pass CSERD's VV&A review, that it is viewed as valuable to the community, and that there be space available in an upcoming issue.