Guide for Authors

The Journal is a platform for educators interested in teaching advanced technologies and technician education. This includes 2-year community college faculty, undergraduate researchers, STEM educators in grades K-12, university faculty, as well as industry personnel.

Topics that are covered:

• Articles and short communication on topics relevant to teaching and learning advanced technologies at all levels, including innovative pedagogical/andragogical methods, approaches and related technician education research.
• Manuscripts that demonstrate new educational activities, lab experiments, instructional methods and pedagogical/andragogical approaches that can be adopted in technician education curriculum at level especially in undergraduate education at community colleges.
• Provide a resource for manuscripts and related information as a resource to those in the field of advanced technological education, and to those institutes who serve them.
• Research manuscripts in micro/nano technologies, biotech technologies, autonomous technologies, manufacturing technologies and their applications to tackle scientific problems.

The submitted work is required to be based on original results and should present novelty, which have not been published previously. Please refer to manuscript preparation ethical guidelines for detailed information about obtaining permissions from copyright owners.

Journal of Advanced Technological Education, J ATE Editorial Policy

J ATE welcomes and invites all ATE community colleges and partners to submit manuscripts to this updated publication platform. We are dedicated to the research and development of ongoing work within our community. Much like the National Science Foundation (NSF) ideology, J ATE believes in  and “supports partnerships between two-year institutions of higher education, other academic institutions, industry and other entities to improve the education of technicians in science and engineering.”

We are very proud we have now evolved to become independent yet still very much affiliated with our NSF, ATE program colleagues. While we continue to be a free to submit, download, and be published in online. We have, as a result of our sustainability efforts become an independent business. As such, we will necessarily  need to begin implementing a fee to authors wishing to be published in the J ATE hardcopy edition.

ATE Center leaders are working with us to help provide support for authors, to be included in the hardcopy format. To view individual costs to submit and be printed in the hardcopy format, please see below in the Open Access Policy and Updates to the J ATE Publication Process. We look forward to serving our ATE community with the same dedication and support as when we were completely supported by NSF and MNT-EC.

There have been many updates and changes to the J ATE editorial and business processes that we respectively request that you read closely. While reviewing the J ATE Guidelines we strongly urge all authors to engage with and use the J ATE Template to guide you through the writing and publication experience.

J ATE is an Open Access Journal which means published content is available for free with no subscription cost. J ATE follows the principles of the Budapest Open Access Initiative. The authors hold the copyright over the integrity of their published work, which needs to be properly acknowledged and cited. As long as the users abide by these constraints, they are allowed to read, download, print, search, distribute, copy or link to the full texts of the published materials, or use for any lawful purpose.

As the editors, we kindly ask the authors to follow the guidelines strictly in order to process submissions in a timely and efficient manner.

Updates to J ATE Publication Process:

Please note that effective January 1, 2025, J ATE is still FREE to download, submit manuscripts and publish online; however, effective for the Volume 4, Issue 1, there will be a charge of $2,700 for publication in the J ATE hardcopy edition. Authors who are sponsored by an ATE Center will need to provide a confirmation document from the supporting Center that their Center will be taking financial responsibility for an author’s hardcopy publication.

Free Online Publications: All manuscripts will receive a rigorous blind review, final copyedit, and rewrite process; they will also, once approved, receive a Digital Object Identifier, and be published on the current J ATE website.

Hardcopy Published Articles, will receive all of the above with the addition of a detailed formatting review with J ATE selected Designer and Printer. IEEE referencing formatting will be reviewed and confirmed, and the final approved manuscript will be included in the print edition.

Articles

Reports that advance the understanding of the advanced technological education community especially addressing original ways to strengthen the development of the workforce. Articles should include an abstract of maximum 200 words followed by a short list of keywords. An introduction section should present the background of the work with relevant references. The article may also include Methods, Results, and Discussion sections if applicable. The article should contain a Conclusion section. The authors may choose to provide Supplementary Materials. Articles are limited to 10 pages in length.

Reviews

Upon the received suggestions, Editors may invite authors to submit review papers on a selected topic. A good review paper is expected to evaluate the existing work from various angles and provide a logical organization. The general format of the review submissions follows the same format as articles. However, reviews are generally longer than articles.

Rapid Communications

Brief reports (up to 3 pages) on the latest findings of a topic that will be of interest to the advanced technological education community. In general, rapid communications ensure that the community is made aware of the focused subject in a timely manner. An example of a Rapid Communication is an instructive lab activity. Rapid communication can include: title, abstract, materials and methods, and results.

Conversations

Conversations are authored by the journal editors on various subjects. These topics include can include upcoming events, profiles of people helping advance the advanced technological education community and supplementary curriculum materials. Conversations do not necessarily follow the timeline of the released issues.

Authors are respectfully asked to use and strictly follow the guidelines provided in the updated J ATE Template

Manuscripts submitted for initial consideration must adhere to the following standards:

• A cover letter must accompany the submission as a separate file. Please see the Cover letter template to ensure you are providing the details necessary.
• Submissions must be complete with clearly identified standard sections used to report original research, free of annotations or highlights, and include all numbered and labeled components.
• All of the utilized materials including figures, tables and equations should be presented at the point of relevance within the text.
• References should follow the IEEE style shown in the J ATE template. References style should be consistent, clear, and complete.
• Supporting material should be prepared and submitted in a separate file.
• Author names and affiliations on the submission must be identical to the ones entered to the online submission system.

Cover Letter

The cover/rebuttal letter and agreement to the general manuscript submission ethical guidelines are required for every submission/resubmission and it is expected to contain the following elements in the order listed. Please see the online templates provided for your convenience.

Download Cover Letter | Download Rebuttal Letter

• A paragraph explaining why your manuscript is appropriate for the Journal of Advanced Technological Education.
• A statement confirming the manuscript, or its contents in some other form, has not been published previously by any of the authors and/or is not under consideration for publication in another journal at the time of submission. Authors must agree to terms of submission during the online submission.
• Corresponding author must confirm that all of the co-authors have been notified and are aware of the submission.
• A clear statement defining the type of the manuscript submitted (i.e. article, review, conversations). Must be included in the cover letter.
• Up to 3 potential reviewer suggestions with their full contact information (names, academic email addresses and affiliations). The submitting author will enter the names and contact information during the online submission.

Manuscript Text Components

All sections of the paper must be presented in a clear, concise and well-written manner.

Abstract

The abstract is a brief summary of the research carried out, its significance, and the results of the study. It provides an overview of the research so that the reader can see that the report matches his/her research interests. Authors should include an introductory statement outlining the scientific motivation for the research. The statement should clearly specify the relevance of the present work to applications, the problems it has solved or the practical advances it will enable.

Introduction

In Articles, the Introduction should be a separate section of the paper.

Methods

Details all procedures and laboratory equipment used.

Results and Discussion

The result section explains the main findings, the results of the lab work, comparing, and analyzing data. In the Results and Discussion sections, the author should discuss the significance of his/her observations, measurements, or computations and their implications for the applications outlined in the Introduction. Figure captions should be concise and easy to read but should be sufficiently detailed to provide a reasonable understanding of the figures without reference to the main text. For example, in a graph the caption should include enough information to readily distinguish between different datasets, provide an indication of the statistics used to derive error bars, and indicate briefly any trend that is shown. In the case of an image, the sample, imaging technique, and scale should be clearly provided. For more information, refer to the template.

Conclusion

This is where you wrap up your manuscript with any final points, calls to action, further research required, etc.

Subheaders: May be used throughout the manuscript to assist in providing chronological and clarifying points throughout your paper.

Acknowledgements. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under award XXXXXXX.

Disclosures. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

References must be consistent, complete, including titles. J ATE follows the IEEE style. The particular citation style is shown in the template. You need an in-text citation whenever you quote, paraphrase, or summarize a source.

In-text citations are usually just placed at a relevant point in the sentence—for example after the author’s name or the quote you’re citing, or just at the end of the sentence. It’s not required to mention the author’s name, but you can.

Some examples are given below.

It is not necessary to mention an author's name, pages used, or date of publication in the in-text citation. Instead, refer to the source with a number in a square bracket, e.g. [1], that correspond to the full citation in your reference list.

[1] Place bracketed citations within the line of text, before any punctuation, with a space before the first bracket.

[2] Number your sources as you cite them in the paper, be sure to organize your references consecutively. Once you have referred to a source and given it a number, continue to use that number as you cite that source throughout the paper.

[3] When citing multiple sources at once, the preferred method is to list each number together, within the same set of square brackets, using a comma or dash between numbers, as such: [1,3] (only 1 and 3), or [1-3] (includes 1, 2 and 3).

Reference Examples, please visit https://journals.ieeeauthorcenter.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/IEEE_Reference_Guide.pdf, for more extensive examples in IEEE References.

Book Basic Format: 

K. Author, “Title of chapter in the book,” in Title of Published Book, xth ed. City of    Publisher,    (only U.S. State), Country: Abbrev. of Publisher, year, ch. x, sec. x, pp. xxx–xxx. Examples:

Klaus and P. Horn, Robot Vision. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 1986

Conference Paper (Paper Presented at a Conference) Basic Format: 

K. Author, “Title of paper,” presented at the Abbreviated Name of Conf., City of Conf., Abbrev. State, Country, Month and day(s), year, Paper number. Examples:

Caratelli, M. C. Viganó, G. Toso, and P. Angeletti, “Analytical placement technique for sparse arrays,” presented at the 32nd ESA Antenna Workshop, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, Oct. 5–8, 2010.

Lecture Notes Basic Format:

K. Author. (Year). Title of lecture [Type of Medium].

Available: URL Examples: 

Barney. (2011). Documenting literature [PowerPoint slides]. Available: http://moodle.cotr/english/gill

Yardish. Tumbling past data [Online]. Available: http://www.statistics.cotr.ca/classes/statistics/Yardish/ index.html

Reports: The general form for citing technical reports is to place the name and location of the company or institution after the author and title and to give the report number and date at the end of the reference.

Basic Format: 

J.K. Author, “Title of report,” Abbrev. Name of Co., City of Co., Abbrev. State, Country, Rep. xxx, year. 17

Examples:

E. Reber, R. L. Michell, and C. J. Carter, “Oxygen absorption in the Earth’s atmosphere,” Aerospace Corp., Los Angeles, CA, USA,Tech. Rep. TR-0200 (4230-46)-3, Nov. 1988.

H. Davis and J. R. Cogdell, “Calibration program for the 16-foot antenna,” Elect. Eng. Res. Lab., Univ. Texas, Austin, Tech. Memo. NGL-006-69-3, Nov. 15, 1987.

Theses and Dissertations 

Basic Format: 

J.K. Author, “Title of thesis,” M.S. thesis, Abbrev. Dept., Abbrev. Univ., City of Univ., Abbrev. State, year.

J.K. Author, “Title of dissertation,” Ph.D. dissertation, Abbrev. Dept., Abbrev. Univ., City of Univ., Abbrev. State, year.

Examples: 

J.O. Williams, “Narrow-band analyzer,” Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. Elect. Eng., Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA, USA, 1993.

Websites

The most basic entry for a website consists of the author name(s), page title, website title, web address, and date accessed:

First Name Initial(s) Last Name. “Page Title.” Website Title. Date Accessed. [Online]. Available: Web Address.

J. Smith. “Obama inaugurated as President.” CNN.com. Accessed: Feb. 1, 2009. [Online.] Available: http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/01/21/obama_inaugurated/ index.html

The first author’s name should be first initial(s) and then the last name and a period. Titles and affiliations associated with the author should be omitted. Do not use commas to precede a suffix, such as a roman numeral or Jr./Sr., after the author’s given name.

Preparing Graphics

Be sure to follow the J ATE Template on size and formatting. Be sure that you are able to provide high resolution images that will work for both online and hardcopy publication. When submitting your manuscript, be sure to provide a separate folder with all images and native files for graphs or charts, labeling them as they are labeled in the manuscript (ex. Fig. 1. Article caption information).

The author’s original submission determines the quality of illustrations in published J ATE issues as the figures are not altered by the Journal production staff. All figures need to be in digital format at the time of the submission. Authors are responsible for obtaining the permissions for the reproduction of the figures that might have appeared in earlier publications. Such figures must include a credit line citing the original source.

The following resolution and size recommendations are given for the best results.

It is recommended that digital graphics pasted into manuscripts have the following resolutions:

• Black and white line art, 1200 dpi
• Grayscale art, 600 dpi
• Color art, 300 dpi

Size

Graphics must fit a one-column format. Single-column graphics can be sized up to 240 points wide (3.33 in.). The text in graphics should be legible when the graphic is viewed full-size.

Color

Colored figures are highly recommended as they enhance the clarity. Graphics that are originally intended to appear in black and white or grayscale should not be submitted in color.

J ATE editors here provide ethical guidelines for authors and reviewers. J ATE treats all of the manuscripts as original submissions and authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to re-use any material that was already published.

General expectations from the authors:

1. Scientific Accuracy and Importance: Submitted work should contain sufficient detail, scientific accuracy and it should be presented as concisely and objectively as possible. The authors should cite all of the relevant work and the manuscript should include a discussion on the significance of the presented work.
2. Safety Considerations: Any hazards or risks associated with the submission must be clearly conveyed in the Experimental Section of the submission.
3. License and Copyright Agreement: The authors agree with the license and copyright agreement (J ATE Open Access Publishing Agreement). In the case of acceptance, the authors agree to the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License. In accordance with the CC-BY license, this allows the users to use, reproduce and distribute the portions or as a whole of the published manuscripts, for commercial and noncommercial purposes, as long as appropriate credit is given to the original source. The license and copyright agreement is summarized as bullet points below:
   • Authors are free to copy, distribute and use their presented work elsewhere with proper citation.
   • The authors give license to J ATE to publish the submitted manuscript as the original publisher.
   • The authors give permission to any third party the right to use the published manuscript freely while any such use is subject to citation of the original manuscript.
   • J ATE recognizes the requirements of the license and copyright agreements that the US government employees have to follow. If one or more authors are US government employees, the published manuscript will be released under the terms of the required Creative Commons License other than Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License indicated above.
   • J ATE also recognizes the strict regulations that many authors have to follow in their employment. Creative Commons License already validates that the published manuscript belongs to the author. In case a copyright transfer from the author to their institution/company is needed, a copyright statement will be placed at the end as shown in the template as an optional step. In such a case, the authors are expected to add the following sentence: “The author’s copyright for this publication has been transferred to [institution/company]”.
   • All published manuscripts by J ATE are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License. Hence, no additional permission will be needed for the reproduction of the materials used in the published work either from the authors or J ATE publication staff. We strongly recommend that the reproducing authors inform the original source authors about the future usage of the material. The reproducing authors are required to give the appropriate credit to the original source.
4. Conflict of Interest Disclosure: A statement describing any financial conflicts of interest or lack thereof is published in J ATE. The corresponding author must disclose a statement that will explain all potential sources of bias. Such bias might stem from affiliations, funding sources, financial or management relationships that can constitute conflicts of interest. In the case that no conflicts of interest has been declared, the following statement is expected to be added at the end of the submission by the authors: “The authors declare no conflicts of interest.”
5. Plagiarism: J ATE is committed to publish only original submissions. Hence, publication staff use software to screen for plagiarism, including self-plagiarism. The determined similarity index by the software should not exceed 15%.
   No Parallel Peer Review Rule: By submitting their paper to J ATE, authors confirm that the submission has not been submitted for peer review for publication elsewhere at the same time with the refereeing phase of J ATE.
6. Author List and Coauthor Notification: The submission must be approved by all of the coauthors. All of the coauthors’ consent must be obtained, which means that all of the coauthors have seen the latest version of the submission. In case a change in the authorship is needed after the submission, the corresponding author must e-mail a signed letter to the Editor in Chief denoting that all of the coauthors have been notified of the change. J ATE does not allow any changes to the author list after the acceptance. The submitting author is required to provide the complete contact information (full name, email address and affiliation) for all of the coauthors.
7. Funder Reporting Requirement: All of the funding sources, award/grant numbers are required to be disclosed in the manuscript.
8. Language: As J ATE editors, we expect that the authors have completed proof reading before the submission. We would like to remind authors that a proper choice of words and a carefully written manuscript free of errors drastically improve the quality of the submission.
9. Providing Potential Reviewers: The authors are strongly recommended to suggest up to 3 potential reviewers. The complete contact information will be entered to the submission system. The authors are reminded not to enter names that might have a conflict of interest. Whenever possible, suggestion of academic email addresses is preferred over personal email addresses.
10. Securing the Rights for Reproduction: As it is underlined many times above, J ATE expects that the authors have secured the permission for the reproduction of any material that had been published before.
11. Contents express the views of the Authors: J ATE treats all of the incoming submissions as original and accurate manuscripts. J ATE does not accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may have occurred. All opinions expressed in the manuscript are the views of the authors. Likewise, all of the data presented in the submission is the responsibility of the authors. The peer-review aims to sustain a high quality of standards for the journal. However, this does not mean that J ATE makes any guarantee with respect to the material contained herein.

1. Manuscript Submission:

Submitting your manuscript to JMNT-Ed is extremely easy.

• JMNT-Ed Submission Website: Please visit submission web page. The submitting authors will be able to upload their manuscript (prepared after strictly following the template) and cover/rebuttal letter (and supplementary materials, if applicable) to the system. Please review cover/rebuttal letter preparation and ethical guidelines for future instructions.

2. Peer-review phase:

If the submitted manuscript passes the initial approval stage of the editorial board, J ATE publication staff will make every reasonable effort to fulfill the reviewer requests coming from the authors at the time of the submission. The referees will start the reviewing phase in order to come up with a final decision about the submission. The reviewers will judge the submission based on the following criteria:

• Novelty and timely results
• Potential impact for the community
• Standard of English
• Suitability
• Study design and methodology with a convincing presentation

Reviewers will send their remarks for the authors as well as their confidential remarks to the J ATE editors. At this point, J ATE editors will share the remarks with the authors in the form of a decision letter, which will also be accompanied by a final decision regarding the submission.

3. Revision phase:

Authors can receive one of the 4 decisions from the JMNT-Ed editors.

• Publish as is: No further changes are required; manuscript is ready for publication.
• Minor revision: The manuscript can be published after minor revisions.
• Major revision: The manuscript might be published after a major revision, but a second round of review will take place.
• Reject: The manuscript is not suitable for JMNT-Ed

In case the authors receive a revision decision, the manuscript will be reconsidered after the suggested changes. Accordingly, the modified manuscript should be sent to the J ATE publication staff through the J ATE Submission Website before the due date assigned by the editorial board. Submissions that do not meet the deadline will have to be treated as new submissions. Revised manuscripts will be sent back to the referees for another round of a review (major revision) by J ATE editorial board.

The authors are required to send two copies of the final manuscript and the following documents:

• A version that highlights the changes made to the original submission
• A finalized version that is free of the highlights or edits mentioned
• A response letter that clearly addresses each change in the final version and also shows how the authors respond to the reviewers’ and editors’ comments.
• Supplementary materials (if applicable)

4. Post acceptance phase:

Upon the acceptance, the authors will receive a confirmation letter that the manuscript is received by the production team, who will produce the first version of the proofs. This version will be shared with the authors. Once the iterated version is accepted by the authors, the manuscript will be published with its own DOI number. The submission and revision dates of the publication will be also added to the final version.

JMNT-Ed follows the following policies:

• Modification: A purely technical correction might be done by J ATE publication staff. Such examples include broken URL links, corrupted files, incorrect citation. Under no circumstances, the content of the published manuscript can be changed.
• Corrigendum: An important error made by the authors or by the Journal that critically affects the scientific integrity of the published manuscript will be presented as a formal online notice.
• Retraction: Authors or the J ATE Editorial Board can decide to formally withdraw the published manuscript. An online formal explanation will be given as the cause of the retraction. The published paper will stay online.
• Fraud: In the unlikely event that J ATE is notified that a published manuscript turns out to be a fraud, the readers will be notified online. The published paper will stay online but will be formally withdrawn by the editorial board pointing out the malpractice.