journal of interdisciplinary music studies

The main aim of JIMS is to promote collaboration between humanities and sciences in musicology. All submissions to JIMS must address a musically relevant issue and demonstrate a synergetic interaction between humanities and sciences. Submissions may be purely empirical, purely theoretical, or a mixture of the two.

JIMS welcomes contributions from researchers at all stages in their careers. The peer review procedure focuses on the content of the submission, not the qualification of the author(s). All editors, reviewers and commentators must hold a PhD in a relevant discipline and relevant publications in internationally recognized journals; there is no such requirement for authors.

JIMS assigns all editors, authors, reviewers and commentators to the humanities or the sciences according to the disciplinary infrastructures in which they are qualified and/or have published. In ambiguous cases, JIMS reserves the right to make an autonomous decision. In this process, the English word `humanities` is assumed to be roughly equivalent to both the German word `Geisteswissenschaften` and the French expression `lettres et sciences humaines`. The English word `science` is assumed to comprise natural, social and formal sciences and to exclude humanities (musicstudies.org/infor.html).

Manuscripts are submitted as a single pdf file that includes all text, figures, tables and any other material intended for publication. Pages are numbered throughout. The format conforms to the JIMS template document (you can download it here either as word or pdf) and either the Chicago Manual of Style (http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html) or the American Psychological Association Manual (http://www.apastyle.org/). For the print version of the journal, figures are black and white unless their content makes color unavoidable and the author(s) meet any additional printing costs. Each new submission is accompanied by a statement of authorship, conflict of interest, and copyright (Authorship, Conflict of Interest, and Copyright)

All submissions that conform to these guidelines (including OPC submissions - see below) are subject to a confidential peer-review procedure. The procedure is administered by an action editor who is invited by the administrative or guest editor/s; administrative and guest editors may also act as action editors themselves. The (first) author is responsible for all communication with the action editor, which is generally electronic (email with attachments). The (first) author is also responsible for informing any other author(s) about such communications.

Submissions are reviewed (click to see the review form for regular submissions and the review form for OPC submissions ) by at least two experts, at least one of whom is qualified in the submission`s main humanities discipline and at least one in its main science discipline (as indicated in the abstract). Reviewers are asked whether the submission should be accepted or rejected for publication and to give helpful suggestions for improving the content. If one humanities reviewer and one sciences reviewer independently recommend rejection and back up their case plausibly, the submission is rejected.

Reviewers should feel free to act independently of the authors whose work they are evaluating. If a reviewer believes that there may be a conflict of interest, s/he is asked to contact the administrative editor before writing the review. The same applies to commentators for OPC submissions (see below).

When a manuscript is accepted for publication, acceptance is conditional on adequate revision in accordance with reviewers' suggestions. The revised manuscript should be accompanied by a cover letter that responds to every suggestion by every reviewer in the following format: first, the reviewer's suggestion, copied verbatim from the text of the review; then one or more extracts from the revised submission that show how the author/s responded to the reviewer's suggestion (again, copied verbatim). A reviewer's suggestion may only be ignored if the (first) author and action editor agree that the suggestion is erroneous, inappropriate, or irrelevant.

The cover letter also briefly documents any further substantive changes that may have been made to the text since the original submission (i.e., changes that do not follow from the reviews). Responsibility for accepting or rejecting such additional changes lies with the action editor. All these points apply to both regular and OPC submissions.

The final manuscript should be submitted in a widely used text-processor format (e.g. Microsoft Word, but not LateX) and pdf. No paper copy is required.

Regular versus Open Peer Commentary (OPC) submissions
For both regular and special issues of JIMS, authors can choose between regular and OPC submissions.

The format of the submission is the same in both cases, including the length and format of the abstract. The abstract includes background paragraphs in two main disciplines - one in humanities and one in sciences. These paragraphs are expanded upon in the main text to demonstrate a synergy between humanities and sciences.

Regular submissions have at least two authors, of which the first two are a humanities scholar and a scientist in either order. There is no limit on the length of regular submissions, but reviewers may recommend changing the length.

OPC submissions differ from regular submissions as follows.

1) There is no restriction on the authorship of OPC submissions. We accept single-author submissions and submissions whose authors are only humanities scholars or only scientists
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2) The length of an OPC submission (all text including title page, abstract, tables, references, biographies, figure captions) is limited to 8000 words. The limit is relaxed to 9000 words following review to allow authors to respond to reviewers` suggestions.

3) OPC submissions are accompanied by an email with a list of three colleagues who have accepted to write peer commentaries if the submission is accepted for publication. If the submission is proposed by a humanities scholar, all three suggested commentators should belong to the sciences, and vice versa. Additional suggestions from any discipline are welcome. The email should include the email addresses and homepage addresses (or CVs) of all proposed commentators.

4) Reviewers of OPC submissions are informed about the OPC procedure and asked whether, in their opinion and according to their own criteria, the submission is suitable for publication with OPC. If one humanities reviewer and one sciences reviewer independently answer `no` to this question and back up their decision with plausible arguments, and the submission does not meet the criteria for regular submissions, the submission is rejected.

Once an OPC submission is accepted for publication and revised satisfactorily, the action editor/s begins to invite commentaries of up to 500 words from experts in relevant areas of humanities and sciences, including one or more of the commentators proposed by the author/s. The reviewers are also given the revised manuscript and an opportunity to write peer commentaries with the option of concealing the fact that they reviewed the original submission. In addition, an open call (including titles and abstracts, but not authors) is launched on the JIMS website and sent to relevant email lists, in which interested commentators with a doctorate in a relevant discipline are asked contact the action editor. The open call requires potential commentators to provide their homepage address or CV and a summary of the planned commentary in 2-3 sentences. The action editor accepts or rejects such requests depending on the commentator`s qualification and suitability, and the number and quality of existing commentaries. Upon acceptance, the requester receives the complete revised text for comment. Commentaries should generally be submitted within three weeks, otherwise the invitation lapses.

The action editor selects for publication two to six peer commentaries from the humanities and two to six from the sciences. For papers whose first author is a humanities scholar, the number of commentaries by scientists must equal or exceed the number of commentaries by humanities scholars, and vice-versa for papers whose first author is a scientist.

The action editor ensures that commentaries meet the following criteria: substantive, constructive, plausible criticism or interpretation; polite formulation; focus on the issues rather than the authors (no ad hominem arguments); and reference to appropriate literature. Commentaries that are not revised satisfactorily according to the suggestions of the action editor may be rejected.

Following the final selection and revision of peer commentaries, they are sent to the (first) author with a request for a reply of up to 1500 words within three weeks. At this point, neither the original text nor the commentaries can be changed. If it is necessary to correct a factual error or to omit part of the text for well-substantiated legal reasons, and the action editor agrees to the change, the (first) author may do that provided s/he also informs those commentators (if any) who referred to the changed part of the text in their commentaries. They may then change their commentaries accordingly, provided the action editor approves the change.

If the original submission has more than one author, the reply may be written by the first author alone. In their reply, the author/s provide an integrated overview of the commentaries. They then respond to the main points of all commentators, referring to the author of each point by name. The action editor applies the same editorial principles to the author`s reply as s/he did to the commentaries, and the author/s is/are similarly bound to comply with her/his recommendations.

Finally, the action editor forwards the complete text of the article, all commentaries that have been selected for publication, and the author`s reply to the administrative editor (for regular submissions) or guest editor/s (for special issues). They may ask for further revisions or for the deletion of any passage or commentary.