Submissions

Author Guidelines

The Student Journal Forum welcomes participants of all backgrounds, with a specific focus on post-secondary students in Canada who are involved with or contemplating the creation of a student journal, or those seeking to connect with others involved in the student journal publishing community.

We invite proposals for 10-minute presentations in English or French. We particularly encourage students to share their experiences, challenges, and insights. Some suggested presentation topics include:

• Starting a new journal 
• Attracting author submissions
• Recruiting and training peer reviewers 
• Managing technical processes (e.g., producing galley files, publishing platforms, copyediting) 
• Promoting your journal
• Equity and inclusion in journal publishing
• Following ethical publishing practices 
• Enhancing discoverability for your journal, including applying for inclusion in the DOAJ and other indexes
• Changing your journal's practices (e.g., peer review or editing) and an assessment of the outcomes
• Publishing non-traditional, multimedia, or multi-modal content
• Partnerships, such as working with faculty, other campus groups, or community organisations
• The author experience of submitting to/publishing with a student journal

You are welcome to propose your own topic. For inspiration, you can find a list of previous SJF presentations on the previous forum event pages. 

~~~ 2027 Submission Instructions ~~~

Proposals must be submitted using the online form. You must also download and complete this submission form, available in English or in French, and upload that with your submission.

1. Presentation Title

• Include a meaningful title for your presentation.

2. Presentation Description/Abstract

• To help the program committee evaluate your session’s value and relevance, consider highlighting the unique approaches your journal has taken to address your chosen topic, including any challenges, successes, and recommendations for other student journals. You may also include more details on how your session will be structured to achieve the proposed outcomes. 
• This abstract will also be used in the online program, and may be quoted in social media posts. If accepted, you can edit your abstract later. 
• We suggest around 250 words for this section.

3. Presentation Outcomes

• Describe in your supplementary submission form the specific knowledge or skills attendees will have after participating in the session. Each outcome should focus on participants, specifically stating what each participant should be able to know, do, or value by the end of the session.
• Example: "After participating in this session attendees will be able to identify different forms of peer review..."
• We suggest up to 150 words for this section.

4. Journal Details

• For active journals, your proposal should include your journal title and journal homepage URL (or link the publishing program with the host library/institution). Reviewers will likely visit your journal site.
• For journals in development, please include 2-3 sentences outlining your plan for hosting and how others will access it.

5. Presenter Information

• You will provide presenter information during submission. 
• You will be able to update presenter information closer to the Forum if needed.
• Emails addresses will only be used for the planning committee to communicate with presenters, and will not appear on public web pages for the conference or be shared outside of the committee.

~~~ Review Information ~~~

All proposals are reviewed by at least two members of the organizing committee using a single-anonymous review process. Reviewers do not review proposals coming from their own library/university, and are expected to declare any conflicts of interest. See the Review Guidelines for more.