Contributor Guidelines

Author Toolbox

To Contribute to MIFO

The Editorial Board of the Management of Industrial Forest Operations (MIFO) welcomes contributions of relevant materials (chapter sections, articles, multi-media resources) from academics and practitioners from around the world.  Contributions to this e-textbook are usually organized through the Content Managers that have responsibility for their respective Parts of the book.  Those who wish to contribute must arrange with the appropriate Content Manager or the Chief Editor for permission to join the design and development groups and for contributor's access to this site.  The normal process for contributing material is as follows:
 
  1. An author who is interested in contributing or reviewing material contacts the appropriate Content Manager and describes the proposed contribution. The Content Managers' contact information can be found on the Project Team page.  If any authors are not sure which Content Manager is appropriate or if the material is of very general nature (such as would be the case for a glossary or dictionary), they should contact robak@unb.ca.
  2. A Content Manager (sometimes with advice of the Editorial Boar or Chief Editor ) approves the author as a contributor and enables the author’s access to www.forestoperations.org website, to the MIFO repository (for storing and sharing images, videos and other objects) and to the MIFO on-line submission and review system (OJS).  The author is also placed on the mailing list of those who are designing and contributing to that Part of the e-textbook.
  3. With this permission, the author will be invited to share the draft documents that are being created and to participate in design and contribution discussions.   The methods employed for collaborative authoring may vary by Content Group.
  4. Draft material that is ready for submission and peer review is uploaded to MIFO OJS system by the Content Group leader (usually the Content Manager).  Once it has been reviewed and edited on the OJS and approved for publishing, the material is posted to the MIFO website as an “official” part of the MIFO e-textbooks.
 
Note: While any material can be “posted” or “published” for sharing and evaluation by other contributors, the contributor must ensure and confirm (to the Content Manager) that all permissions and copyright issues have been cleared (see Permissions and Copyright section below).  Note, as well, that authors retain ALL copyrights for their own contributions.
 
Suggestion: While the MIFO content management system and MIFO OJS are regularly backed up, it is advisable to keep backup copies of critical contributions for your own records.
 
 
General Contribution Guidelines
 
Perrmissions and Copyright
 
It is the responsibility of contributors to obtain permission to reproduce any copyright material, even if they have previously obtained permission for inclusion of the copyright in other publications.  It is acceptable to upload and share copyright material with other contributors as this e-textbook is being developed, but permission must be obtained from copyright owners before the copyright material is made available to general readers. We will not “publish” or “post” (make available to general readers on the web-site) any contributions unless copyrights have been cleared.  Contributors should clearly indicate what parts of a proposed contribution are subject to copyright and for which copyright has not yet been cleared. Copyright permission examples would include the following:
  1.  A contributor should clear copyright for published work where the extracted work is longer than 400 words, or a series of extracts together total more than 800 words, or for an extract or series of extracts comprising one-quarter of the work or more.
  2.  Permission must be obtained for using (or adapting) figures, tables, charts, or graphs taken from other printed sources.
  3. If raw data is derived from another source and not through the contributor’s empirical research, the contributor should check with the source whether any acknowledgement is necessary.
  4. All photographs are in themselves copyright material.  The contributor should therefore ensure that permission has been given to reproduce photographs with the source.
  5. A contributor should obtain the consent of firms or organizations that have been cited or used as the basis of case studies or examples. 
  6.  Use of a company logo requires permission from the company.
 
Please contact the Chief Editor if the copyright status or process is unclear for material you wish to include in your proposed contribution.
 
House Style
 
Guidelines on House style are provided by the Electronic Text Centre and are available at: dev.hil.unb.ca/Texts/style/ETC_style.doc.
 
Inline citations
 

The (author, date) or Harvard style of inline referencing will be used in this e-textbook, i.e., (Greer, 2003). A complete citation is then placed at the end of the text in an alphabetized list of "References". If you name the author in the text, put the year in parentheses; for example "Greer (2003) says..."  For two authors, use (Greer & Jones 2003). For three or more authors, use (Greer et al. 2003).

 

List of references

Every contributor must produce a list of references for their contribution.  The general style for the list of references which will be used in this e-textbook is based upon the Harvard referencing system:
 
Author. Year Published.  Name of Article. In: Name of Publication Volume Number.  Page Number Range (as pp xx-yy). Location (not required for established journals or publications from well-known national or international agencies)
 
When there is more than one reference to the same author, the references should be listed chronologically within these categories
 
  1. Single-author works are listed first, chronologically.
  2. Works written with one or two other authors are listed second, in alphabetical order of the second and third authors, and then chronologically.
  3. Works the author wrote with more than two other people are listed last in chronological order not in alphabetical order of co-author (because names of co-authors are replaced by “et al.” in the text).
 
Where the publication in general has been referenced (such as a book), then there would be no “Name of Article” and no “Page Number Range” provided.  Here are some examples, using our future textbook (both electronic and print versions) and a journal article as models:
 
Referencing an entire book
 
Robak, E et al. (2008). Management of Industrial Forest Operations. Fredericton, Canada: Electronic Text Centre, University of New Brunswick.
 
Referencing a chapter in a book
 
Boston, K.. (2008). Continuous Improvement in Forest Operations. In: Robak, EW Management of Industrial Forest Operations. Fredericton, Canada: Electronic Text Centre, University of New Brunswick, pp 341-366.
 
Referencing a journal article
 
Richards, E. W. and E. A. Gunn. (2000). A model and tabu search method to optimize stand harvest and road construction schedules. Forest Science. 46:2, pp 188-203.
 
Referencing and on-line source
 
Stoilov, S. (2007). Improvement of wheel skidder tractive performance by tire inflation pressure and tire chains . Available: http://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak&id_clanak_jezik=28457. Last accessed 3 December 2008.
 
Note: Please check to ensure that all links to on-line sources in your list of references are functioning at the time you make your contribution.  These on-line sources should themselves clearly describe the provenance of the material being cited.
 
External Resources and Links
 
As much as possible, resources that are hyperlinked from within the MIFO e-book should be uploaded to the MIFO server so as to reduce the effort required to verify and fix links.  However, in cases where uploading the material is not possible or advisable, contributors should check that the links are valid and verify that they are likely to remain valid into the foreseeable future.
 
Indexing
 
While the e-version of MIFO allows for full-text searching and index generation, we still require that the contributor identify indexing terms. These terms should be identified using the MS Word tool for identifying index terms, since this will allow for automatic generation of the index.
 
Illustrations
 
The MIFO editors expect all illustrations to be submitted within the contribution in the position where it would make most sense to have them: not far after the reference to the illustration in the main text.  Resolution of all illustrations should be at least 300 dpi.
 
Note: Artwork will need copyright clearance. Such clearance is required even if you are adapting an existing figure reproduced from another published work.
 
Identification and numbering
 
Number all figures decimally by chapter (Fig. 1.1, Fig. 1.2, etc.). The main text should contain a reference to the figure by number (Fig. 1.1 here). Use MS Word's AutoCaption feature to insert all objects (figures, tables, video clips) into your file.
 
Labeling
 
Labeling must be consistent with stylistic conventions used in the text (see the MIFO Style Template). Ensure that the labels correspond with those cited in the figure legend and main text, even if it means re-labeling illustrations taken from other sources. Labels on the ordinates and abscissae in graphs should show the relevant units in brackets.
 
Sizing
 
The size of illustrations shall vary with their content and importance, but in general they should be small enough to fit well within the visible page.  Guidelines are provided in the MIFO Style Template.
 
Shading and tints
 
It is difficult to distinguish more than four tints in any one.  Please be consistent for your entire contribution: adopt similar styles in terms of shading, types of lines used for curves, types of arrows, etc.
 
Figure legends (captions)
 
The figure legend should define all abbreviations in the figure and must describe concisely what the figure shows so that the entire illustration (taken as a unit) is self-explanatory.  Ensure that the spellings, hyphenation, and symbols used in the legend correspond to those used in the labeling of the illustration itself and in the main text. Include any keys to your diagrams in the illustration, not the legend.
 
Photographs
 
Labeling rules for illustrations should be followed. If you are scanning images to include in your contribution, scan at high resolution: 800 dpi minimum for line diagrams, 300 dpi minimum for grayscale and color pictures.  It is preferable to obtain photographs from the source, at the same time obtaining permission for their inclusion in MIFO.