Submission Guidelines
Journal Description
The Asia Pacific Journal of Evaluation (APJE) is the official journal of the Asia-Pacific Evaluation Association (https://asiapacificeval.org/). Since the last two decades, the M&E culture has gained momentum in the Asia-Pacific region. This has resulted in a body of knowledge spread across countries with different socio-political regimes. To strengthen the understanding of M&E at policy and ground level, APEA has launched APJE in 2022.
Aim and Scope
The journal envisages contributing to summative and formative aspects of monitoring and evaluation. The journal aims to enhance the accessibility to complex aspects of monitoring and evaluation; it also contributes to nurturing formative aspects such as innovations, localizing (context-driven) evaluation, and value creation for the society. The journal presents a platform for scientific evaluation and promotes innovative policy and on-field practices. We invite articles from academics, development planners and policymakers, and implementers to actively contribute to the journal’s growth by submitting articles/notes based on their research output, ongoing/recently concluded development programs and interventions. We anticipate that the journal will not only be useful for academically trained evaluators but also policymakers, donors, and ground-level level implementers. The overall objective of the journal is to strengthen the understanding of evaluability context at the policy and ground level in developing countries in general and in Asia-Pacific in particular.
The journal publishes fully referred research papers and focuses on promotion of theory, methodology and practices of monitoring and evaluation. The journal primarily focused on creating and promoting scholarly work highlighting the challenges and achievements in M&E in the Asia-Pacific region and other developing countries. The objective of the journal includes the following –
- Adopting interdisciplinary approaches to understand M&E practices.
- Highlighting innovations in policies and practices concerning with M&E.
- Promotion of effective and novel practices leading to capacity building in M&E
APJE is aimed at readers in academics, development practitioners, public sector professionals, policymakers and donor agencies.
Submission Guidelines
The Asia Pacific Journal of Evaluation (APJE) publishes original research work, previously not published in other peer-reviewed journals, related to program evaluation, M&E, impact assessment with a special focus on the Asia-pacific region. Please see the journal’s Aim and Scope for information about its focus. APJE publishes manuscripts in English only. APJE publishes the following types of articles – Research Articles, Practice Notes, Policy Corner, and Evaluation Capacity Building.
Research Articles are usually between 5000 to 6000 words presenting rigorous research studies on different aspects of impact assessment and M&E. Application of theory, and usage of novel research methods are to be prioritized.
Practice Notes are of maximum 3000 words, describing the experiences of using evaluations practices in a local context that may be of interest to nonprofits, public organizations and donor agencies. These are written with focus on capturing the innovations in practices related to M&E and need not focus on a stringent methodology.
Policy Corner is a space dedicated to discussion on issues related to policies on M&E. These pieces are expected to be no longer than 3000 words and should be explored as an opportunity to collaborate with policymakers to incorporate their views.
Evaluation Capacity Building is aimed to strengthen the curriculum of M&E. This would include teaching cases, demonstrated examples of M&E capacity building, Interviews of sectoral experts on M&E etc. The length of submission should not go beyond 3000 words.
Preparing your paper
General structure of manuscript
The full research paper should have the following sections –
- Title page
- Abstract (maximum 250 words) and Key words (maximum 5)
- Main text
- Acknowledgement
- Declaration of conflicting interest statement
- References
- Appendices
- Table with captions
- Figure with captions
Authorship
Individuals who have made significant contributions to the submitted work should be listed as authors. The authorship order, and other publication credit should be based on professional contribution of the individuals involved. The authorship order should be based on only contribution and not on professional status of the authors. Each of the submitted manuscripts should identify one principal author for communication. Research work substantially derived from doctoral thesis or master dissertation should have the student listed as principal author on a multiple-authored publication.
Acknowledgement
Contributions not meeting the criteria for authorship should be reported in the Acknowledgment section. The example of such contribution may be individuals offering purely technical support or administration head offering general support while conducting the research work. Acknowledgement should also include support from donor agency/grant-making agency for the reported to research project.
Declaration of Conflicting interest statement
According to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) conflict of interest may arise when authors, reviewers, or editors have interests that are not fully apparent and that may influence their judgment on what is published. They have been described as those which, when revealed later, would make a reasonable reader feel misled or deceived. If your submission requires you to make a declaration of conflict of interest, please state the same after the acknowledgement section. In case, no conflict exists, please state that “the Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest”.
Font and Formatting
MS Word is the preferred format for your manuscript. Fonts to be used is Times New Roman (12 point font)
Artwork, figure and other graphics
Picture, graphs, and other artwork should be provided in highest quality and in an electronic format that is helpful in publishing in the best way possible. You are requested to follow the guidelines while preparing your artwork for the both the printed issue as well as online version of the journal.
Format: TIFF, JPEG are the common format for the pictures without any text and graphs. For graphs and line art EPS is the preferred format.
Placement: Figure, table, and chart created in MS Word should be included at the end of the article rather than in the main text. In the main text, please include a placeholder note in the running text like “insert Figure 1”. The title should be placed below the table or figure.
Resolution: Files with extensions like .tiff or .jpeg require a resolution of at least 300dpi.
Colour: Images supplied in color would be published in color in the online format and in black and white in the print format. It is important to provide images that are comprehensible in black and white as well.
Dimension: The artwork supplied should match the dimension of the journal. Images can not be scaled up after origination.
Fonts: The letters used in the picture/charts/graphs should not vary much in size and should be in Times New Roman(12).
Referencing
APJE encourages authors to prepare manuscripts according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association using the 7th edition. Examples of the APA style of referencing is given here.
Peer Review Policy
APJE is committed to a rigorous peer review policy to protect academic integrity and highest quality of work. Post the submission of the manuscript, the Editor would assess the suitability of the paper in terms of alignment with the purpose of APJE and the quality of the work submitted. Once found suitable, the manuscript would be double blind peer reviewed by at least two independent reviewers. The identity of the reviewers and authors are concealed from each other during the entire process of peer review. These reviewers are expected to judge the validity, significance and originality of the work submitted. Peer review is key to maintain the quality of the journal and APJE is largely driven by the reviewers who are experts in the respective areas of work.
Although peer review may be time taking and can also be flawed sometimes, there are important benefits of the process. It helps authors to identify some critical errors and literature that might have been overlooked while preparing the manuscript. Peer review often helped in bettering the work of authors as compared to originally submitted versions. In order to ensure a speedy process of publication, the first decision on the peer reviewed manuscripts is to be announced within 100 days of submission.
Submission Process
The expected duration from submission of manuscript to the author’s receipt of the first decision is about 100 days. Each suitable manuscript undergoes a rigorous blind peer review by at least two reviewers before arriving at the first decision. The possible decisions by the editor are – accept, accept with minor revision; major revision, and reject. Revised manuscripts are requested to return within 60 days of communicating the decision to author(s). It is expected that the author(s) would be taking substantial care to avoid grammatical errors and issues related to copy-editing before submitting the manuscript. The corresponding author will receive the Proof copy of the manuscript for approval before publication. All the authors would be required to sign the copy-right form before publication of the manuscript. The journal will inform the corresponding author once the manuscript is assigned a volume and issue number.
Publication Ethics
APJE aims at upholding the integrity of academic research and publication. APJE is committed to follow the recommendation of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) on International Standards for Authors . For details click here.
Plagiarism
APJE considers the issues of plagiarism seriously and scrutinizes claims related to plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Submitted articles are checked with plagiarism detection software for their authenticity. If an article is found to have copied other work verbatim, included third-party copyright material without the requisite permission or cases where the authorship of the article is contested, APJE may take the appropriate action including, but not limited to : publishing an erratum or corrigendum, article retractment, engaging with the head of author’s institutions or relevant academic bodies highlighting the unethical practices; or taking appropriate action through legal route.
Publishing Agreement
Before publication, APJE requires the author as the right holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Signing the agreement transfers the ownership of the article to APJE.
Submitting your article
All contributions to the journal should be submitted at apje.apea@gmail.com
Tracking the progress and on acceptance of article
The APJE will keep the author(s) updated on the progress of the journal during the review and production process. Upon acceptance of the article, proofs will be shared with the corresponding author. To facilitate a quicker production process, author(s) are expected to return the proof at the earliest. Proofs are shared so that author(s) can confirm the relevant information like names, affiliations, sequence and contact details. Funding details and statements regarding conflict of interest are also to be reconfirmed by authors. If there are any changes in these sets of information, all authors are required to complete and sign a form to authorize the suggested changes.
