Submission Guidelines

Journal Scope

The Journal of Student Success and Retention (JoSSR), the official publication of the Tennessee Association for Student Success and Retention (TASSR), provides a forum for the scholarly study, discussion, dissemination, and evaluation of policies, programs, and practices that influence post-secondary student academic success and retention.

JoSSR reflects the mission of TASSR to reach out to academic staff, administrators, and faculty working with diverse populations of students on college campuses. This publication is a vehicle for information and idea sharing to support and coordinate the collective effort to improve student success. Topic areas include, but are not limited to, the following: retention initiatives, learning support and/or developmental education, academic advising, effective teaching practices/techniques and curricula, student support services, special student populations, distance/online learning, student life, enrollment and administrative services, and current research/trends that advance the field of student success and retention.

Types of Submissions

  1. Research articles
  2. Learning support program profiles
  3. Best practices in teaching, advising, retention, student support, etc.
  4. Reviews of books, articles, textbooks, or educational resources

Code of Ethics

  1. Articles should be original, unpublished works that are not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Any conflict of interest or financial support must be disclosed at the time of submission.
  2. Studies including human participants must be approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) or equivalent body, and a statement as to IRB approval or exemption should be present in the manuscript.
  3. Plagiarism (the use of words or ideas from another source without attribution, including but not limited to use of generative AI without attribution) and fabrication or falsification of data, information, or citations (including but not limited to generative AI hallucinations) are prohibited.
  4. Any authors using generative AI in the writing process must include a section in their manuscript that discloses how and why they have used it, along with a description of the tool used, its version, and the date used. When submitting their manuscript for consideration to the journal, authors who have used generative AI must also submit a full chat transcript, so that reviewers can access this information during the peer review process.
  5. Anyone may bring potential research misconduct associated with an article published in JOSSR to the attention of the editorial board, and anyone making an allegation of misconduct must provide evidence supporting their allegation in order for the editorial board to begin an investigation. The JOSSR editorial board will investigate the potential misconduct and be responsible for the final decision on its consequences. Consequences for misconduct may include educating an author about a misunderstanding of citation standards; retracting an article; banning an author from publishing in or reviewing for the journal; and notifying an author’s employer or institution of the misconduct.
  6. Authors must inform the editorial board if they find a substantive error in their manuscript after it has been published, so that a correction can be published or the article can be retracted.

Technical Guidelines for Submission

  1. Send submission as an email attachment to jossronline@gmail.com.
  2. Submission document should include the following: title of the article, abstract (maximum of 120 words), a set of 5-10 keywords for indexing the article, and the text of the article. Documents should be typed in Microsoft Word, 12 point font, double-spaced, one-inch margins. Articles should not exceed 6,000 words, excluding references. Reviews should not exceed 1,000 words. Multimodal submissions are also welcome; please contact the editor for information.
  3. Authors’ names should not appear on any of the pages of the article, but please submit a separate cover sheet that lists the title of the article, along with name, institutional affiliation, title, mailing address, email address, and telephone number for each author.
  4. Use APA citation style in your article.
  5. There are no fees for authors to submit to or publish in JoSSR.

Review Process

  1. JoSSR uses a double-anonymous peer-review process.
  2. JoSSR has a rolling submission process and deadline. We aim to provide a decision on each manuscript within 26 weeks of submission.
  3. JoSSR depends on a community of researchers to conduct a rigorous peer review process. By submitting an article to JoSSR, you are agreeing to serve as a reviewer for the journal.

Articles Accepted for Publication

  1. Once your article has been accepted for publication and you are making your final submission, you should format your article according to this template.
  2. Authors retain copyright of their articles and may distribute them as they see fit. Articles are licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY license.