Publication journals
Selected papers of the IBERSID conference has been published in the journal Scire, distributed in printed format by Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza, till 2006. Now only the Ibersid’s papers that are directly related to knowledge organization and representation are published in Scire. It is also being published in open access in the Internet.
From 2007, selected and peer-reviewed papers are published in its own journal “Ibersid: journal of information and documentation systems”, also distributed in printed format by Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza. They are also being published in open access. Papers related to knowledge organisation and representation keep being published in Scire.
Editorial process
Both journals are double-blind peer-reviewed and implement editorial quality control.
The papers and notes will be published in the same shape that the authors send them. No further editing or corrections will be done, though they can be suggested in the reviewing process. As it will be understood, the organization cannot publish papers with a poor writing, misspellings, or those that are not conformed to these editorial instructions. Authors are responsible for the translation and style correction management and costs.
Paper submission
Papers must be original and should have not more than 8.000 words in the case of theoretical and completed research papers, and not more than 4.000 words in the case of projects, experiences and short papers. Exceptionally, if very good reasons exist, this number of pages can be discussed with the organizing committe.
Authors must include a page apart with the name, position, organization, address, telephone, fax and email of every author of the paper.
The articles must be uploaded to the web sites of the journals Scire (papers related to knowledge representation and knowledge organization) and Ibersid (the rest ot them). They must be preceded by titles, informative abstracts and keywords in English and Spanish, and include the graphics and tables into the text in their proper place. Use the Ibersid template or the Scire template for layout, depending on the subject of your paper.
All the chapters, including notes, references and appendixes must be sequentially numbered with the format “1.1. “, “1.2. “, “1.2.1. ” and following. Do not number abstracts, notes, acknowledgements and references. Do not use a range of titles higher than four levels.
Do not include in the text body repetitive statistical data or lists. Use tables or appendixes for this purpose.
It is of common understanding of the authors that the editor is entitled by the author to make small changes of style and layout to adequate the paper to the journal.
The author is reminded that any violation of copyright, intellectual property laws and codes of ethics are unacceptable and can constitute a grave offence.
Text formats
Do not use underlines, bolds or versals. Use capital letters only for their normal orthographical uses and for acronyms. Do not use spaces or periods in acronyms.
Cursives should be used only to highlight terms in other languages, bibliographic titles, some keywords into a paragraph and, seldom, to emphasise some words or sentences.
Do not use lists with returns or line feeds. Write complete paragraphs according to the English grammar. You can add numbers o letters in brackets to your in-paragraph lists to give the reader information about the order or dimension of the list; for example, (1), (2)…
Figures and graphics
The figures must be include only if necessary (do not illustrate the text with web pages without a clear purpose) and must be presented also in a separated file in EPS or PDF format with a high quality resolution (at least 600 ppp). Include also a file in the original format of the figure or graphic.
Be careful if you generate images by printing the screen with the Windows key, as these images usually have an insufficient resolution.
In the article body, each image must have bellow an indicative legend beginning the word “Figure”, a correlative number and a period (for example, “Figure 1. “).
Tables
Tables must be crated with the same word processing application that the rest of the original. They must include below an indicative legend beginning the word “Table”, a correlative Roman numeral and a period (for example, “Table I. “).
Notes
Explicative notes must be used exceptionally. Do not use the automatic function of the word processor. Put a reference in the text body with a sequential number in brackets and include a “Notes” chapter after the last one and before the bibliographic references. Numbered or foot bibliographic notes are not allowed: they must be referred at the “References” chapter. Web pages must be considered references, and cannot be included in notes.
Bibliographic references in text
Bibliographic references in text are cited in brackets by the surname of the author, the year of the paper, and, if necessary, the page number. If convenient for writing purposes, the name and surname of the author can be outside of the brackets. If the same author and title are used repeatedly and subsequently, the abbreviation ibidem can be used to substitute the author and the year. If two authors have the same surname, use their second name or name initials. If two or more papers of the same author have the same year, use sequential alphabet letters beginning with ‘a’ after the year to distinguish among them. If there are several subsequent references, put them in the same brackets separating them with a semicolon if they are of different authors, and a comma if they are from the same author.
For example: “This theory is defended by several authors (Gallego, 1975; Christian and Chan, 1993) […]”. “According to John Smith (1993, p. 24) […]”. “The same author (ibidem, p. 27) considers the convenience of […]”. “Problems with the replication of the experiment have been encountered (Ismalin, 1994a, 1994b; Ismalin and Alonso, 1997)”.
Bibliographic references format
Bibliographic references must be included by alphabetic order at the end of the article under the chapter title “References”. They must follow the ISO 690:1987 standard with a punctuation as close as possible to that of the abbreviated ISBD, but removing blank spaces before period, comma, semicolon and colon. References to web pages must be also included in this part, not in the body of the article or in the ‘Notes’ section. Include every referred paper in the ‘References’ section, but do not include any references that has not been used in the body of the article (It is not a bibliography section). Basic structures and examples for the main types of references are offered bellow (occasional elements in cursive):
Monographies, congresses, reports and thesis
Surname, Name; SurnameN, NameN (function) (Year). Title: subtitle. edition. Publication place: editor; publication place: editor. ISBN number. Doctoral thesis.
Delclaux, Isidoro; Seoane, Julio (1982). Psicología cognitiva y procesamiento de la información: teoría, investigación y aplicaciones. Madrid: Ediciones Pirámide.
Articles of journals and periodicals
Surname, Name; SurnameN, NameN (function) (Year). Title: subtitle. // Title of the journal. ISSN number. Volume:number, first page-last page.
Ellis, David (1992a). The physical and cognitive paradigms in Information Retrieval Research. // Journal of Documentation. 48:1, 45-46.
Chapters of monographies, reports or proceedings
Surname, Name; SurnameN, NameN (function) (Year). Title: subtitle. // Surname, Name; SurnameN, NameN (function) (Year). Title: subtitle. edition. Publication place: editor; publication place: editor. ISBN number. First page-last page.
Markey, Karen (1990). Keyword searching in an online catalog enhanced with a library classification. // Bengtson, Betty G.; Hill, Janet Swan (eds.). Classification of library materials: current and future potential for providing access. New York: Neal-Shuman Publishers. 99-125.
Smith, Ph. J.; Beghtol, C.; Fidel, R.; Kwasnik, B. H. (eds.) (1993). Proceedings of the 4th ASIS SIG/CR Classification Research Workshop: Columbus, OH, Oct.24, 1993. Silver Spring, MD.: American Society for Information Science.
Web pages and online resources
They must be referred correspondingly as monographies, articles o chapters. Then, include, after a dot, the URL and, finally, the date of consulting in brackets.
Reference. URL (Date of consulting).
Sagredo Fernández, Félix; Espinosa Temiño, María Blanca (2000). Del libro, al libro electrónico-digital. // Cuadernos de Documentación Multimedia. 9. http://www.ucm.es/info/multidoc/multidoc/revista/num9/cine/ sagredo.htm (2001-01-22).
The abstract
An abstract provides information about the aims, limits, methodology, results, conclusions and recommendations of a work. ‘Limits’ means the point up to which the aims have been achieved. Results are the specific data and information that are directly obtained from the application of the methodology. The conclusions are derived form the results when they are interpreted from a theoretical frame or when a new model or affirmation of general interest is built from them through a process of abstraction. Recommendations are opinions about the new problems and hypothesis to be addressed or about the application of the knowledge that has been gained. Recommendations are never demonstrated by the methodology.
Abstracts must be written in a concise and clear manner, without redundancies or periphrases, neither with difficult-to-interpret information, neologism or non-common abbreviations.
It is very advisable that the abstract begins with the type of article, for example: “State of the question about the application of the European Foundation Quality Model to the management of university libraries.”
Writing a scientific article: some obvious aspects that are frequently overseen
Systematization
Scientific articles must be written in a very organized manner, with a strong textual structure. In the research results articles, the usual structure is aims – methodology – results – conclusions – recommendations. In the state-of-the-art articles, the discussed papers are presented in a chronological or systematic order according to the ontology of their scientific field; then, they are synthesized and discussed; and the conclusions and recommendations follow. Other article types can follow other structures, but, in any case, their structure must be clear, explicit and apparent.
Clarity and concision
The language of the scientific paper must be deliberatively clear and concise. Exceptionally, authors with a high mastering of the writing language can use literary resources when writing position papers and essays.
Pertinence and parsimony
Previously known information must not be given, except if it is the main departing point for the discussion. You can refer to previous information with references. Systematizing previously known knowledge is the aim of a specific type of scientific article (review or state of the question), and it requires a complete documentation work. In the rest of the articles, give only the key references that form the frame of your work in the introductory paragraphs.
Civility
Previous authors who have work in the subject must be referred to. It must be demonstrated that the relevant previous literature is known, and that the paper is introduced politely to the scientific field where it pretends to contribute to. It is not a question of agreeing, but of recognizing the others contributions and cooperating in creating a living scientific community.