Submissions

Author Guidelines

1 Aims and scope

AWARI is an open-access peer-reviewed journal of an international character aimed at publishing studies related to social network analysis and online user behavior. AWARI is oriented to researchers, academicians, students, practitioners, and all social entities from the public or private sectors. We welcome articles from sociology, computer science, political science, information science, economics, communication, and management, among other fields. The topics covered in the journals are (but not limited to):

• Theoretical and empirical studies on social network structures
• Social networking practices in social media
• Social network modeling
• Network Visualization and Analysis Tools
• User behavior in virtual communities
• Multidimensional studies on internet use
• Data mining and machine learning techniques for the study of social media
• Graph theory
• Sociometrics
• Group dynamics
• Social capital
• Invisible schools
• Gestalt theory

2 Before you submit

2.1 Editorial policies

AWARI ensures the publication of high-quality content derived from transparent and trusted research practices. AWARI follows all the guidelines and best publication practices defined by the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE).

2.1.1 Authorship

AWARI demands that all authors listed in the manuscripts have taken real responsibility during the research process and article creation. We encourage the corresponding authors, project leaders, or institutions to avoid adding people who did not contribute to the research output (Gift authors) or to exclude people who did contribute and whose name is not finally included (Ghost authors). To prevent so, it is strongly recommended to decide on the authorship before the project writing.

Before considering a paper for possible publication, a decision needs to be made regarding the definition of the ‘corresponding author’ and the ‘order of authors’. The corresponding author will play an administrative role since he/she will be contacted by the Editorial Office during the manuscript evaluation, production, and post-publication processes.

A contribution statement needs to be submitted together with the manuscript where the role per author is described. The authors can find support for the roles defined by CRediT. This information will be published together with the full text. All those whose contributions are not listed in the taxonomy defined by CRediT can be listed in the Acknowledgements section.

In case someone requests to withdraw his/her name from a paper, or even claim for inclusion, a formal declaration needs to be submitted to the Editorial Office. This request will be considered once a letter of agreement is signed by all authors.

2.1.2 Conflict of interest

A Conflict of Interest (COI) takes place when authors have personal, academic, or financial relationships with third parties that could influence the content of research work submitted for publication.

At the time to submit any type of paper, authors are requested to complete the COI Statement by which all potential interests are declared, if applicable. Through this statement, the following issues might be declared:

• Direct or indirect resources received by any institution to complete the research work.
• Financial relationships with entities that supported the performance of the research work. 
• Patents and copyrights, whether pending, issued, licensed, and/or receiving royalties related to the research work.
• Personal relationships with people who can influence the research content.

These are some examples of COI statements: 

• [Author name] has received [state the received benefits] from [Institution name or equivalent].
• [Author name] has [type of relationship] with [Institution name or equivalent].

If there is no conflict of interest, the authors must declare:

• The author(s) declare that there is no conflict of interest.

2.1.3 Research data, reproducibility, and transparency

The authors are encouraged to share the data behind the research work. AWARI’s policy is to make all scientific data open access since we follow the Guidelines on Open Access to Scientific Publications and Research Data defined by the European Commission.

The data-sharing process can occur in the following ways:

• Depositing data in a public repository. The Registry of Research Data Repositories can be of help in selecting a platform to host the data. The link(s) to access the data should be included in the manuscript.
• Data as supplementary material. During the submission stage, authors can submit supplementary files containing relevant data to share. These files will be available during the peer-review process and will be also published together with the paper's main text. 
• Data on request. Before the publication process, authors may be asked for research data at the request of the editors or reviewers.   

Citations to research data should appear in the full text in the reference section. Authors need to follow the Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles to provide the correct citation and referencing of the data.

2.1.4 Statement of Data Consent 

To make science more transparent, open, and reproducible, AWARI encourages its authors to submit a data statement; which will be publicly available. These are some examples:

• The (Name/type of data) generated during the development of this study has been deposited in (Repository name) and it is accessible at (Data URL).
• The (Name/type of data) generated during the development of this study has been included in the manuscript. 
• The (Name/type of data) generated during the development of this study has been published as supplementary material. 
• The (Name/type of data) generated during the development of this study cannot be freely available due to (reasons) but they might be requested to (contact information).
• The (Name/type of data) generated during the development of this study cannot be freely available due to restrictions imposed by (Name of the restrictor).
• No data have been generated during the development of this study.

2.1.5 Open access and copyright

All articles published by AWARI are open-access, meaning they are freely available without any kind of subscription or restriction. The articles are published under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license, which permits the sharing and adaptation of the material as long as appropriate credit is given, a link to the license is provided, and all changes are indicated. More information about this license can be found here.

2.1.5 Publication fees

There are no fees or charges applied for article processing and/or publication in AWARI.

2.1.6 Preprints

Authors can use preprint servers to host their articles before submission to the journals. This will not count as multiple or redundant publications. Some of the preprint servers that can be used are ArXiv, bioRxiv, psyArXiv, SocArXiv, engrXiv, RePEc, etc.

3 Article preparation

3.1 Article type

3.2 Text

• All manuscripts should be submitted in Word format.
• Text line spaced at 1.5, plain font 10-point Times New Roman.
• The sections ‘Introduction’, ‘Material and Methods’, ‘Results’, ‘Discussion’, and ‘Conclusions’ should be numbered (eg.: 1., 2., 3., 4., etc.), as well as all the subsections (1.1., 1.2., 1.1.1, 2.1, 2.2., etc.).
• All pages should be numbered consecutively.
• The manuscript should not include personal information about the authors (eg.: names, affiliations, emails, etc.).

3.3 Language

AWARI accepts contributions in English, Spanish and Portuguese languages. Please consider the following issues:

• To assess the quality of your manuscript, ensure that the content is professionally edited. 
• Both American and British spelling is accepted for manuscripts written in the English language; however, only one of them can be adopted throughout the paper.
• Non-native English authors are encouraged to find support from native English colleagues or use professional English editing services.
• All authors whose manuscripts are written in Spanish and Portuguese languages should type the English version of the metadata during the submission process in the journal platform. Bear in mind that these manuscripts require the English version of the title, abstract, and keywords in the full text.    

3.4 Abstract

Abstracts should contain between 100 and 250 words.

3.5 Keywords

Please provide 3 to 6 keywords that represent the content of the manuscript.

3.6. Tables

• Submitted as editable text and not as a picture.
• Cited in consecutive numerical order using Arabic numerals (e.g.: Table 1, Table 2, etc.).
• Placed next to the text where is cited.
• Contained data should not appear elsewhere in the manuscript.

3.7 Figures

• Use Arial or Helvetica fonts.
• Cited in consecutive numerical order using Arabic numerals (e.g.: Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.).
• For peer review purposes, low-quality figures can be accepted; however, for publication purposes, high-quality figures of at least 300 dpi are required.
• Figures should be submitted both in the main text and as separate files using JPG, TIFF, or PNG formats. Figures submitted as separate files should be named according to their numerical order in the text (e.g.: Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.).

3.8 Abbreviations

Non-standard abbreviations in the field should be defined at first mention in the text. Please avoid abbreviations in the title, abstract, and keywords.

3.9 Footnotes

Footnotes can be used to provide additional information to the text, tables, and figures. They should be numbered consecutively throughout the manuscript.

3.10 References

AWARI follows the reference style of the American Psychological Association (APA 6th edition).

Citation in text

Citations in text must appear in the reference list and vice versa. Here are some examples:

Smith (2004) considers …

Smith and Kim (2004) consider …

Smith et al. (2004) consider …

... a technique widely employed in previous studies (Smith, 2004; Smith & Kim, 2004; Smith et al., 2004).

Reference list

Journal article

Osman, M. (2010). Controlling uncertainty: A review of human behavior in complex dynamic environments. Psychological Bulletin, 136(1), 65-86. doi:10.1037/a0017815

Book

Berkman, R. I. (1994). Find it fast: How to uncover expert information. New York, NY: Harper Perrenial.

Book chapter

Baker, F. M., & Lightfoot, O. B. (1993). Psychiatric care of ethnic elders. In A. C. Gaw (Ed.), Culture, ethnicity, and mental illness (pp. 517-552). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press.

Conference paper

Bowden, F.J., & Fairley, C.K. (1996, June). Endemic STDs in the Northern Territory: Estimations of effective rates of partner change. Paper presented at the Scientific Meeting of the Royal Australian College of Physicians, Darwin.

Website

Atherton, J. (2005). Behaviour modification. Retrieved from http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/behaviour_mod.htm

Thesis

Rahman, M. (2013). Using authentic materials in the writing classes: Tertiary level scenario. (Unpublished master's thesis). BRAC University, Mohakhali, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

In case you are referencing sources not displayed above, we recommend you visit this website for more examples. 

3.11 Funding

In case the research has received funds, please declare the following: This research has received funds by [Institution name or equivalent] (grant number).

3.12 Appendices

Appendices should be placed after references. Whether these are in a table or figure format, they must be numbered consecutively.

4 Post-submission

Once a paper is submitted, the journal’s Editor(s)-in-Chief, in coordination with the Associate Editor(s), checks its relevance to the journal, completeness of metadata, text similarity in iThenticate, and content, such as technical quality and presentation. At this stage, the Editor might reject the paper if he/she considers it as not suitable for peer review. 

When the Editor-in-Chief moves the paper to the peer review phase, a Handling Editor is assigned to coordinate the review process. The Handling Editor invites two potential reviewers of considerable expertise in the field who are willing to collaborate. The review method used in the journal is double-blind. Reviewers perform voluntary work; nevertheless, they are asked to consider timeliness, confidentiality, possible conflict of interest, and ethical behavior.

Once the review process is completed, the Handling Editor in coordination with the Editor-in-Chief makes a final decision, which can be one of the following:

• Accepted
• Considered with minor revisions
• Considered with major revisions
• Rejected

When the papers are ‘considered with minor revisions’, ‘considered with major revisions’ or ‘rejected’, the author(s) will receive the comments resulting from the evaluation process. Those authors whose papers are accepted in their current form may receive comments regarding the journal’s guidelines to publish the final version.

The review process is closed when, after all the required review rounds, the author(s) addresses all the comments raised by the reviewers and/or editors.

5 After acceptance

5.1 Proofreading

Once the papers are accepted, authors will receive a proof to check the completeness of the text. Authors are asked to revise the entire content structure, author(s) information, numbering of figures and tables, references, as well as other issues. Please note that this is a critical stage because, after proofreading, the article will be published.

5.2 Online first

All articles that have passed proofreading by authors and editors will be published in the Online First section.

5.3 Complaints

Any allegation of misconduct or questionable practice must be reported to the Editorial Office, either during the pre- or post-publication stages. AWARI will follow the COPE’s Core Practices in deciding on any ethical issue.