Modern Education Forum

Manuscripts should be related to but not limited to the following areas:

• higher education
• education theory
• basic education
• professional education
• scientific and educational innovation
• university management

Editor(s)-in-Chief

Associate Editor(s)

Editorial Board Members

Authorship

Authorship should be limited to people who have contributed substantially to the work. The corresponding author must have obtained permission from all the authors mentioned in the manuscript. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring adherence to all editorial and submission policies and for any communications and actions that may be necessary after publication. A maximum of two corresponding authors are allowed for the associated responsibilities. The corresponding author must include written permission from the authors of the work concerned for any mention of any unpublished material included in the manuscript, for example, data from manuscripts-in-press, personal communication, or work in preparation.

Conflict of Interest

The authors must declare any conflict of interest with any financial body or funding agency or anything else that might influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All authors, members, reviewers and editors must disclose any association that poses a conflict of interest in connection with the manuscript.

Duplicate Submission

Manuscripts submitted to FSP’s journals should 1) not have been published before, and 2) not concurrently be submitted elsewhere. If part of a manuscript has been published or will be published elsewhere, the authors must let the editors know in a cover letter. If duplicate submission is detected during peer review, the manuscript may be rejected. If it is detected after publication, the manuscript may be retracted.

Plagiarism

FSP does not approve of plagiarism. Plagiarism detection software is used to verify the originality of submitted manuscripts. If a manuscript uses a text copied directly from another source, this text must be written in quotation marks and original source must be cited. If any kind of plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, is detected during the review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If it is detected after publication, the manuscript may be retracted.

Open Access Policy

FSP provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Manuscripts are published under the (CC BY-NC 4.0) publishing license, which allows the manuscript to be freely shared or used for non-commercial purposes, as long as attribution is given. Authors are welcome to post the published manuscript on personal websites, institutional repositories, and any other database.

Publication Ethics

Frontier scientific publishing requires all members involved in the journal publishing process to adhere to the principles of Core practices as stipulated by COPE (Committee on Publishing Ethics), to investigate misconduct and to ensure the integrity of research.

COPE has defined measures against data fabrication, duplicate publication, plagiarism and retraction, etc. All complaints submitted by the authors to the journal will be addressed promptly according to the procedure set out in the COPE complaints and appeals. The complainant may direct all inquiries and correspondence to the publisher at contact@front-sci.com.

Editorial Process

The journal operates a double-blind peer-review process, meaning that both author and reviewer identities are concealed in the reviewing. Each article is assigned to at least two independent reviewers, followed by a final acceptance/rejection decision by the Editor-in-Chief, or another academic editor approved by the Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the academic quality of the publication process, including acceptance decisions, approval of Guest Editors and special issue topics, and new Editorial Board members.

Pre-check

Immediately after submission, this check is initially carried out by the managing editor to assess:

• Suitability of the manuscript to the journal/section/special issue;
• Qualification and background of authors;
• Reject obviously poor manuscripts.

The Academic Editor, i.e., the Editor-in-Chief in the case of regular submissions, or the Guest Editor in the case of Special Issue submissions, or an Editorial Board Member in case of a conflict of interest, will be notified of the submission and invited to check and recommend reviewers.

Peer-review

At least two review reports are collected for each submitted article. Suggestions of reviewers can be made by the academic editor during pre-check. Alternatively, Frontier Scientific Publishing editorial staff will use qualified Editorial Board Members, qualified reviewers from our database, or new reviewers identified by web searches for related articles.

The following checks are applied to all reviewers:

• That they hold no conflicts of interest with the authors, including if they have published together in the last five years;
• That they hold a PhD (exceptions are made in some fields, e.g. medicine);
• They must have recent publications in the field of the submitted paper;
• They have not recently been invited to review a manuscript for any Frontier Scientific Publishing

To assist academic editors, Frontier Scientific Publishing staff handle all communication with reviewers, authors, and the external editor; however, Academic Editors can check the status of manuscripts and the identity of reviewers at any time. Reviewers are given two weeks to write their review. For the review of a revised manuscript, reviewers are asked to provide their report within three days. In both cases, extensions can be granted on request.

A paper can only be accepted for publication by an academic editor. Employed Frontier Scientific Publishing staff can only reject papers: it would create a clear conflict of interest if they were permitted to accept a paper as their salary is paid for by the APC of accepted articles.

Editor Decision

Acceptance decisions on manuscripts, after peer review, are made by an academic editor, either the Editor-in-Chief, a Guest Editor, or another suitable Editorial Board member. When making an editorial decision, we expect that the academic editor checks the following:

• The suitability of selected reviewers;
• Adequacy of reviewer comments and author response;
• Overall scientific quality of the paper.

The editor can select from: accept, reject, ask author for revision, ask for an additional reviewer.

If there is any suspicion that a paper may contain plagiarism, the editorial office will check using the industry standard iThenticate software.

Reviewers make recommendations, and Editors-in-Chief are free to disagree with their views. If they do so, they should justify their decision, for the benefit of the authors.

Editorial independence is extremely important and Frontier Scientific Publishing does not interfere with editorial decisions. In particular, no paper is published without the agreement of an academic editor and Frontier Scientific Publishing staff do not advise academic editors about accepting or rejecting articles.

Revision

In cases where only minor revisions are recommended, the author is usually requested to revise the paper before referring to the external editor. Articles may or may not be sent to reviewers after author revision, dependent on whether the reviewer requested to see the revised version and the wishes of the Academic editor. Apart from in exceptional circumstances, we allow a maximum of two rounds of major revision per manuscript.

Production

Frontier Scientific Publishing carries out production on all manuscripts, including language editing, copy editing and conversion to XML. Language editing is carried out by professional English editing staff. In the small number of cases where extensive editing or formatting is required, we charge authors an additional fee (with authors’ prior approval). The authors are also free to use other English editing service, or consult a native English-speaking colleague—the latter being our preferred option.

Publishing Standards and Guidelines

Frontier Scientific Publishing follow the following guidelines and standards for its journals:

ICMJE: Medically related FSP journals follow the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. The guidelines comprehensively cover all aspects of editing, from how the journal is managed to details about peer review and handling complaints. The majority of the recommendations are not specific to medical journals and are followed by all Frontier Scientific Publishing journals.

The CONSORT statement covers reporting of randomized, controlled trials. We encourage authors to verify their work against the checklist and flow diagram and upload them with their submission.

TOP covers transparency and openness in the reporting of research. Our journals aim to be at level 1 or 2 for all aspects of TOP. Specific requirements vary between journals and can be requested from the editorial office.

PRISMA covers systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Authors are recommended to complete the checklistand flow diagram and include it with their submission.

ARRIVE contains guidelines for reporting in vivo experiments. Authors are recommended to verify their work against the checklist and include it with their submission.

Compliance with the standards and guidelines above will be taken into account during the final decision and any discrepancies should be clearly explained by the authors. We recommend that authors highlight relevant guidelines in their cover letter.

About retraction

The Frontier Science Publishing values the integrity of academic activities and the completeness of academic achievement records, ensuring that academic papers are kept as recordable and unchanging as they are published. However, it is difficult to find out the individual non-normative phenomena in the manuscript or the inattention of the author, even if carefully reviewed by the editor. Therefore, correcting academic records is sometimes necessary. The decision to change the record is of great importance, and the publisher will take different measures based on the article's situation, roughly in the following forms:
1. Expression problem
2. Correction (error in the layout or error in the content)
3. Cancellation
4. Remove
All of the above measures are aimed at correcting the article and reminding the reader, but not punishing the author. In the articles published in the journals, there are intentional or unintentional irregularities, the editors of the journals have the responsibility of supervising the review, and the review process should involve the authors and reviewers. The editor will follow the publisher's retraction guidelines and other acceptable academic principles to select the best solution to the problem.
If the author is actively asking for action, the author will not be required to pay additional fees. If the measures taken (such as retraction) are not initiated by the author, or only the unilateral action of the author before the both sides reached an agreement, the publisher does not need to compensate the author for economic losses, and the article's page fee cannot be returned to the author.

Copyright Notice

Authors contributing to this journal agree to publish their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License, allowing third parties to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it, under the condition that the authors are given credit, that the work is not used for commercial purposes, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear. With this license, the authors hold the copyright without restrictions and are allowed to retain publishing rights without restrictions as long as this journal is the original publisher of the articles.

Kindly check that your manuscript has been prepared in accordance to the step-by-step instructions provided before submitting a manuscript to our online submission system.

Manuscript Format

Your manuscript should be in MS Word format. All manuscripts must be written in clear, comprehensible English. Both British and American English are accepted. Usage of non-English words should be kept to a minimum and all must be italicized with the exception of "e.g.", "i.e." and "etc." If you have concerns about the level of English in your submission, please ensure that it is proofread before submission by a native English speaker or a scientific editing service.

Cover Letter

All submissions should include a cover letter as a separate file. A cover letter should contain a brief explanation of what was previously known, the conceptual advancement with the findings and its significance to broad readership. The cover letter is confidential and will be read only by the editors. It will not be seen by reviewers.

Title

The title should capture the conceptual significance for a broad audience. The title should not be more than 50 words and should be able to give readers an overall view of the paper's significance. Titles should avoid using uncommon jargons, abbreviations and punctuation.

List of Authors

The names of authors must be spelled out rather than set in initials along with their affiliations. Authors should be listed according to the extent of their contribution, with the major contributor listed first. All corresponding authors should be identified with an asterisk. Affiliations should contain the following core information: department, institution, city, state, postal code, and country. For contact purposes, email address of at least one corresponding author must be included. Please note that all authors must see and approve the final version of the manuscript before submitting.

Abstract

Articles must include an abstract containing a maximum of 200 words. The purpose of the abstract is to provide sufficient information for a reader to determine whether to proceed to the full text of the article. After the abstract, please provide 5-8 key words, avoiding the same words already used in the title.

Text

The text of the manuscript should be in Microsoft Word. The length of the manuscript cannot be more than 50,000 characters (inclusive of spaces) or approximately 7,000 words.

Section Headings

Please number the section headings (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) in boldface. Likewise, use boldface to identify subheadings too but please distinguish it from major headings using numbers (e.g. 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 2.2, etc.) Further subsections of subheadings should be differentiated with the numbers 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 2.1.1, 2.1.2, etc.

Introduction

The introduction should provide a background that gives the broad readership an overall outlook of the field and the research performed. It pinpoints a problem and states its importance regarding the significance of the study. The introduction can conclude with a brief statement of the aim of the work and a comment about whether that aim was achieved.

Materials and Methods

This section provides the general experimental design and methodologies used. The aim is to provide enough details for other investigators to fully replicate your results. It is also required to facilitate better understanding of the results obtained. Protocols and procedures for new methods must be included in detail to reproduce the experiments.

Results

This section can be divided into subheadings. This section focuses on the results of the experiments performed.

Discussion

This section should provide the significance of the results and identify the impact of the research in a broader context. It should not be redundant or similar to the content of the results section.

Conclusion

Please use the conclusion section for interpretation only, and not to summarize information already presented in the text or abstract.

Conflict of Interest

All authors are required to declare all activities that have the potential to be deemed as a source of competing interest in relations to their submitted manuscript. Examples of such activities could include personal or work-related relationships, events, etc. Authors who have nothing to declare are encouraged to add "No conflict of interest was reported by all authors" in this section.

Funding and Acknowledgments

Authors should declare all financial and non-financial support that have the potential to be deemed as a source of competing interest in relations to their submitted manuscript in this section. Financial supports are generally in the form of grants, royalties, consulting fees and more. Examples of non-financial support could include the following: externally-supplied equipment/biological sources, writing assistance, administrative support, contributions from non-authors etc.

Appendix

This section is optional and is for all materials (e.g. advanced technical details) that has been excluded from the main text but remain essential to readers in understanding the manuscripts. This section is not for supplementary figures. Authors are advised to refer to the section on 'Supplementary Figures' for such submissions.

Figures

Authors should include all figures into the manuscript and submit it as one file in the OJS system. Reference to the "Instructions for Typesetting Manuscript" is strongly encouraged. Figures include photographs, scanned images, graphs, charts and schematic diagrams. Figures submitted should avoid unnecessary decorative effects (e.g. 3D graphs) as well as be minimally processed (e.g. changes in brightness and contrast applied uniformly for the entire figure). It should also be set against a white background. Please remember to label all figures (e.g. axis etc.) and number them (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.) in boldface. Please also add in captions (below the figure) as required and number them (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.) in boldface. The caption should describe the entire figure without citing specific panels, followed by a legend defined as description of each panel. Please identify each panel with uppercase letters in parenthesis (e.g. (A), (B), (C), etc.)

The preferred file formats for any separately submitted figure(s) are TIFF or JPEG. All figures should be legible in print form and of optimal resolution. Optimal resolutions preferred are 300 dots per inch for RBG colored, 600 dots per inch for greyscale and 1200 dots per inch for line art. Although there are no file size limitation imposed, authors are highly encouraged to compress their figures to an ideal size without unduly affecting legibility and resolution of figures. This will also speed up the process of uploading in the submission system if necessary.

The Editor-in-Chief and Publisher reserve the right to request from author(s) the high-resolution files and unprocessed data and metadata files should the need arise at any point after manuscript submission for reasons such as production, evaluation or other purposes. The file name should allow for ease in identifying the associated manuscript submitted.

Tables, Lists and Equations

Tables created using Microsoft Word table function are preferred. The tables should include a title at the top. Titles and footnotes/legends should be concise. These must be submitted together with the manuscript. Likewise, lists and equations should be properly aligned and its meaning clear to readers. For listing things within the main body of the manuscript, please use roman numbers in parenthesis (e.g. (i), (ii), (iii), (iv), etc.)

Supplementary Information

This section is optional and contains all materials and figures that have been excluded from the entire manuscript. These materials are relevant to the manuscript but remain non-essential to readers' understanding of the manuscript's main content. All supplementary information should be submitted as a separate file in Step 4 during submission. Please ensure the names of such files contain 'suppl. info'. Videos may be included in this section.

In-text Citations

Reference citations in the text should be done using the author-date method in which the author's surname and the year published are included in the text. If the reference has no known year of publication, use 'n.d.' (without the quotation marks). The citation style depends on the number of authors for the reference.

One author

• Niemi (2011) illustrated some scenarios to prove this.
• The theory governs civil society (Niemi, 2011) and social behaviour.
• In 2011 Niemi described the theory in detail.

Two authors (Always use both names)

• Chandler and Tsai (2001) analysed data from several reports.
• This theory was further supported by Chandler and Tsai (2001).
• In 2001 Chandra and Tsai proposed a possible mitigation measure.

Three or more authors (Use first author's name, followed by italicized et al.)

• Dickson et al. (2014) brought up some points to support such an argument.
• This was further emphasized (Dickson et al, 2014) and subsequently widely accepted.
• In 2014 Dickson et al. noted that such initiatives have far-bearing effects.

Personal communications and unpublished works can only be used in the main text of the submission and are not to be placed in the Reference section. Authors are advised to limit such usage to the minimum. They should also be easily identifiable by stating the authors and year of such unpublished works or personal communications and the word 'Unpublished' in parenthesis.

E.g. (Smith J, 2000, Unpublished)

References

This section is compulsory and should be placed at the end of all manuscripts. Do not use footnotes or endnotes as a substitute for a reference list. The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should be excluded from this section.

The references in reference list are arranged in alphabetical order of the first author's surname. Authors referenced are listed with their surname followed by their initials. All references should also appear as an in-text citation. References should follow the following pattern: Author(s) followed by year of publication, title of publication, full journal name in italics, volume number, issue number in parenthesis and lastly, page range. If the referred article has more than three authors, list only the first three authors and abbreviate the remaining authors to italicized 'et al.' (meaning: "and others"). If the DOI is available, please include it after the page range.

Journal

Journal article (print) with one to three authors

• Younger P. (2004). Using the internet to conduct a literature search. Nursing Standard, vol.19(6): 45-51.
• Journal article (print) with more than three authors
• Gamelin F X, Baquet G, Berthoin S, et al. (2009). Effect of high intensity intermittent training on heart rate variability in prepubescent children. European Journal of Applied Physiology,105: 731-738.

Journal article (online) with one to three authors

• Jackson D, Firtko A and Edenborough M. (2007). Personal resilience as a strategy for surviving and thriving in the face of workplace adversity: A literature review. Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol.60(1): 1-9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2007.04412.x.

Journal article (online) with more than three authors

• Hargreave M, Jensen A, Nielsen T S S,et al. (2015). Maternal use of fertility drugs and risk of cancer in children—A nationwide population-based cohort study in Denmark. International Journal of Cancer, vol.136(8): 1931-1939. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ijc.29235.

Book

Book with one to three authors

• Schneider Z, Whitehead D and Elliott D. (2007).Nursing and Midwifery Research: Methods and Appraisal for Evidence-based Practice, 3rd edn. Marrickville, NSW: Elsevier Australia.

Book with more than three authors

• Davis M, Charles L, Curry M J, et al. (2003). Challenging Spatial Norms, London: Routledge.

Chapter or Article in Book

• Conway K M. (2014). Critical quantitative study of immigrant students. In F K Stage and R S Wells (Eds.)*, New Scholarship in Critical Quantitative Research— Part 1 (pp. 51-64). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

*Note that the editor's name is not inverted.

Others

Proceedings of meetings and symposiums, conference papers

• S S Chang, L Liaw and J Ruppenhofer J (Eds.) (2000). Proceedings of the 25thAnnual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society: General session and parasession on loan word phenomena. Berkeley, February 12-15, 1999. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.

Conference proceedings (from electronic database)

• Bukowski R M. (2009). Prognostic factors for survival in metastatic renal cell carcinoma: Proceedings of the Third Cambridge Conference, Cambridge, June 27-28, 2009. Cancer, vol.115(10): 2273-2281. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cncr.24226

Online Document with author names

• Este J, Warren C, Connor L, et al. (2008). Life in the clickstream: The future of journalism. Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. Retrieved from http://www.alliance.org.au/documents/ foj_report_final.pdf

Online Document without author name

• Princeton Writing Program. (n.d.). Developing an argument. Retrieved from http://web.princeton.edu/ sites/ writing/Writing_Center/WCWritingResources.htm

Thesis/Dissertation

• Gale L. (2000). The relationship between leadership and employee empowerment for successful total quality management(Thesis). University of Western Sydney. Retrieved from Australasian Digital Thesis database.

Standards

• Standards Australia Online. (2006), Glass in buildings: Selection and installation. AS 1288-2006, amended January 31, 2008. Retrieved from SAI Global database.

Government Report

• National Commission of Audit. (1996). Report to the Commonwealth Government, Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service.

Government report (online)

• Department of Health and Ageing. (2008). Ageing and aged care in Australia. Retrieved from http://www.health.gov.au/internet/ main/publishing.nsf/Content/ageing

Patent

• Rencher W F. (1995). Bioadhesive pharmaceutical car- rier. US Patent 5462749 A.

No author

• Guide to agricultural meteorological practices, 2nd (1981). Secretariat of the World Meteorological Organization, Geneva.

Note: When referencing an entry from a dictionary or an encyclopedia with no author there is no requirement to include the source in the reference list. In these cases, only cite the title and year of the source in-text. For an authored dictionary/encyclopedia, treat the source as an authored book