Proceedings guide

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General information

To ensure that high quality, professional proceedings are published, authors are urged to take special care in preparing their papers.

Please use this checklist to ensure that guidelines are followed:

1. Paper size must be letter size: 8 1/2" x 11"
2. Margins must be 1″
3. Font face must be Times or Times New Roman
4. Font size must be 10 point (except paper title is 14 point)
5. Paper page length must be followed
6. References, graphics, tables all count toward total pages count
7. Must include an abstract
8. Do not include page numbers
9. Do not include a header or footer

We have also created a Google Template as an example. To use this template, download it to your computer.

Note: Do not include the author name(s) and information in the initial submission. All reviews are blind. After acceptance, prior to the early registration deadline, upload your final version and include this section.

Deadline

To be included in the conference proceedings, your paper must arrive in electronic form on or before the deadline (to be determined).

Style

Maximum Length (including graphics and references)

Since the proceedings will be generated from the electronic file you send, it is important that your paper not exceed the following guidelines.

Presentation category	Maximum length
Brief papers	6 pages
Best practices	6 pages
Virtual posters	6 pages

Text Area – 6.5 x 9 inches per page

Begin the text area 1″ from the top of the hard copy page. Use only a one-column layout. Set your margins so that they precisely match the text area specified. Place pictures, figures and tables centered between the margins without any text flowing around them. Do not start a new page for new sections (chapters) or subsections. Do not insert page numbers. Also, notice that no form of running heads is allowed.

Do not use the paragraph spacing feature of your word processor to create the line spaces indicated in the following sections.

Structure

Title

The title of a paper consists of the title itself, capitalized (all words except for short connectives should start with a capital letter), unnumbered and centered between the margins. Use a serif typeface (e.g. Times or Times New Roman), 14 point, bold font for the title. There should be no title page. The body of the paper should begin immediately after the title and author text. Leave two blank lines after the title and then give the name and affiliation of each author including department, institution, country, and email address centered between margins. Multiple authors should be delimited by a single blank line. Use a serif typeface (e.g. Times), 10 point. Leave at least three blank lines after the last author. Please do not put any acknowledgements or thanks here, but place them in the optional Acknowledgement section at the end of the document.

Abstract

Abstracts should be 75-150 words in length. Indent 2 cm or 3/4″ from left and right margins for abstract. Skip 2 lines before and after abstract. Start the abstract with the sequence “Abstract:” (without the quotes) in 9 point bold-face without a line break after “Abstract:”.

Literature References

Start the literature references with the first level header “References” (see Headings below for a detailed description of the first level header format).

Acknowledgements

This is an optional section. Acknowledgements or appreciation to individuals for assistance with the manuscript or with the material reported should be included and appear at the end of the article after References. Financial support for work reported or a grant under which a study was made should be noted in the Acknowledgements. Start the acknowledgements section with the sequence “Acknowledgements” in 10 point bold-face, left justified, followed by a single blank line.

Typeface and size

Headings

Use a typeface with serifs for all levels of headings. It is recommended to use Times or Times New Roman. Leave sufficient place for the title to stand out clearly. Leave two lines blank above and a single line below the headings. If a heading is directly followed by a lower level heading, the two blank lines before the lower level heading should be omitted. All headings should be capitalized (i.e. all words except for short connectives should have a capital initial). The title should be centered between the margins, and all lower level headings should be left-justified.

Font sizes, numbering and styles for the different types of headings:

• Title: centered, 14 point, bold
• 1st-level heading: left-justified, 12 point, bold
• 2nd-level heading: left-justified, 10 point, bold
• 3rd-level heading: left-justified, 10 point, bold, italic

Running text

Use a typeface with serifs for running text. It is recommended to use Times or New Times Roman. Use 10-point type size and single line spacing for normal text and 9-point type size for small text (abstract, literature references and acknowledgements). Use italic print to emphasize words. Note: bold type and underlining should be avoided. The text should always be justified to occupy the full line width, so that the right margin is not ragged. All text should be single-spaced.

Computer programs

For computer programs, both sans-serif and serif typefaces are allowed. Use 10-point type size and single line spacing.

Special formats

Citations

Insert the sequence “(Name year)” (without the quotes) into the running text for a citation to a literature reference. Name is the second name of the author and year is the year of printing. Also, a citation to several authors is allowed. In this case, the single authors must be delimited either by commas or the word “&”. The phrase “et al.” is also valid. The year can either be written in short form or in long form (i.e. 92 and 1992 are both valid entries) and is a possible lower case literal, if you refer to more than one article of an author of the same year. The word “see” and the brackets around the year are optional.

… this special form (see Wonko & Tsio 1994b) is very…
… as described in (Wonko 94a)…
… and this algorithm (Tsio et al. 1994c) is used…
Insert the sequence “(Fig. n)” (without the quotes) into the running text to refer to a Figure contained in the current document.
Insert the sequence “(Tab. n)” (without the quotes) into the running text for a markup to a table contained in the current document.
For a reference to a footnote, use the form [n], where n is the unique number of the footnote [see Footnotes]. Please note that footnotes should only be used when unavoidable.

Please use exactly the format given here to allow us to insert Hypertext links automatically by searching for these special sequences.

Literature references

Every reference must start with the sequence “Name (Year)” (without the quotes). Name and year must match the citation in the running text [see Citations]. The single information fields of a Reference (Author1, Author2, Title…) should be divided by commas or semicolons.

Use the following APA style when referencing a book or journal article making sure to precede the reference with the bracketed information described above:

Book references

O’Shea, T., & Self, J.A. (1983). Learning and teaching with computers. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc.

Proceedings references

Tsio, F. (1994). Hypermedia Systems in the Future. Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 1994, Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education, Charlottesville, VA. 115-123.

Journal references

Beasley, R.E., & Vila, J.A. (1992). The identification of navigation patterns in a multimedia environment: A case study. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 1 (2), 209-222.

Figures and tables

Center figures and tables between the margins with one blank line above and below each. Insert the text “Figure n: description” or “Table n: description” (without the quotes) in 10 point font after the figure/table (n is a unique number that identifies the figure/table; description is a short description about its contents. “Figure n: and Table n:” should be in bold). Please use an expressive description for your figures to allow finding them in a keyword search.

Footnotes

Separate footnotes from the preceding main text by a line from the left to the center of the page. Start the footnote with the sequence “[n]”, where n is the unique number of that footnote (unique means that this number can only appear once on a page, not throughout the whole document). Use a 9 point font for footnote text.

Example:

_________________________________

[1] as we mentioned earlier this is how to write footnotes

Accepted file formats

A format which best preserves the “document’s look” as it was submitted is preferred. You should not have problems generating a file in one of those formats, no matter which word processor you are using. When submitting a file, please follow the rules given below which will allow your paper to be read and converted. To provide an interface to a wide variety of word processors, we accept the following file types:

Uploaded file format and file name

File formats accepted:

• Rich Text Format (.RTF)
• Microsoft (MS) Word (.DOC or .DOCX)
• Portable Document Format (.PDF)

File name:

• Can only contain the following characters: A-Z and 0-9
• Can have no dashes, spaces, underlines, or special characters
• File extensions are required for a successful upload.

Proceedings files must arrive by the noted deadline date at the top of this page. Files received after this date will not be processed.

Submitting your file

Note: If your proposal submission is intended to also serve as your proceedings file, and you indicated that at the time of your submission, you do not need to resubmit.

Receipt communication and changes

After submission, you will receive a confirmation message on the screen, as well as a copy of your submission via email. In case you need to make changes after submission, please email onlinepd@vcu.edu

To submit your file for the conference proceedings, complete and submit the form below.

Submit your file

All correspondence regarding your paper should be directed to onlinepd@vcu.edu