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Start SubmissionArticle types | Structure | Hardware documentation |Style guide| Permissions
Submissions should be made electronically through this website. Once submitted, the author can track the submission and communicate with the editors via the online journal management system.
Please ensure that you consider the following guidelines when preparing your manuscript. Failure to do so may delay processing your submission.
All word limits include referencing and citations.
Please download the article template and fill in the required sections.
Title page
The title page must include all of the below information, in the same order. No further information should be included:
Abstract
Research articles must have the main text prefaced by an abstract of no more than 250 words summarising the main arguments and conclusions of the article. This must have the heading ‘Abstract’ and be easily identified from the start of the main text.
A list of up to six key words may be placed below the abstract (optional).
The Abstract and Keywords should also be added to the metadata when making the initial online submission.
Main text
The body of the submission should be structured in a logical and easy to follow manner. A clear introduction section should be given that allows non-specialists in the subject an understanding of the publication and a background of the issue(s) involved. Methods, results, discussion and conclusion sections may then follow to clearly detail the information and research being presented.
Up to three level headings may be present and must be clearly identifiable using different font sizes, bold or italics. We suggest using Headings 1, 2 and 3 in MS-Word’s ‘Style’ section.
Acknowledgements (optional)
Competing interests
If any of the authors have any competing interests then these must be declared. A short paragraph should be placed before the references. Guidelines for competing interests can be found here.
Ethics and consent (if applicable)
Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Where applicable, the studies must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee and the authors should include a statement within the article text detailing this approval, including the name of the ethics committee and reference number of the approval. The identity of the research subject should be anonymised whenever possible. For research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their legal guardian).
Experiments using animals must follow national standards of care. For further information, click here.
References
All references cited within the submission must be listed at the end of the main text file.
Any submission that describes one or more hardware designs requires the deposition of a detailed description and documentation of the hardware in a suitable repository (see list of recommended repositories). While the reviewers of your submission mainly assess the accuracy and quality of the metadata rather than the documentation, there will be a minimum level of quality check on this documentation. Hardware documentation must include:
• The source (e.g. schematics, modifiable CAD files, board designs, etc)
• Any useful intermediate files (e.g. fabrication-ready PCB files, STL files for 3D printing)
• An indication of the intended audience, and resources required to build it
• Description of the project’s functionality
• Explanation, where appropriate, to help the reader understand why design decisions were taken
• Complete assembly instructions, ideally with photographs, diagrams, etc.
• Calibration and testing instructions
• List of parts, ideally with supplier details
• Sufficient information to recreate any custom parts required
This list forms part of the acceptance criteria for the journal.
Submissions also have to comply with the OSHWA definition for open source hardware:
For detailed instructions on language and text, data and symbols, figures and tables and references, please, see the JOH style guide.
The author is responsible for obtaining all permissions required prior to submission of the manuscript. Permission and owner details should be mentioned for all third-party content included in the submission or used in the research.
If a method or tool is introduced in the study, including software, questionnaires, and scales, the license this is available under and any requirement for permission for use should be stated. If an existing method or tool is used in the research, it is the author's responsibility to check the license and obtain the necessary permissions. Statements confirming that permission was granted should be included in the Materials and Methods section.
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
All authors have given permission to be listed on the submitted paper and satisfy the authorship guidelines.
Hardware Metapapers are written in accordance with the article template.
Articles accepted for publication will be asked to pay an Article Publication Charge (APC) to cover publication costs. This can normally be sourced from your funder or institution. This fee covers all publication costs (editorial processes; web hosting; indexing; marketing; archiving; DOI registration etc) and ensures that all of the content is fully open access. This approach maximises the potential readership of publications and allows the journal to be run in a sustainable way. For a breakdown of costs, please click here.
Many institutions have funds available to support open access publications by their staff, therefore we ask that you contact the relevant body to cover the APC.
If you do not know about your institution’s policy on open access funding, please contact your departmental/faculty administrators and institution library, as funds may be available to you.
If published, you will receive an APC request email along with information on how payment can be arranged. If you need to waive the APC, you will also have an opportunity to do it there.
If you do not have funds available to pay the APC (eg because your institution/funder will not cover the fee) then we may be able to offer a discount or full waiver. Please ensure that you contact the editor as early as possible should you need to discuss waiver options or the APC in general.
Editorial decisions are made independently from the ability to pay the APC.