For Authors

Focus and Scope

Welcome to the Tennessee Community Service International of Empowerment (TCSIE). TCSIE is a double-blind peer-reviewed online journal dedicated to disseminating high-quality community service, campus-community engagement for empowerment, and the promotion of active and effective citizenship through education. TCSIE is also to accommodate training for the community, coaching for the community, workshops for the community, and assistance in the form of skills and business and trade. The journal is international in scope, with an interest in community service for empowerment both in the United States and around the world. The Journal also aims to be comprehensive in its approach, with an interest in articles on community service and community empowerment in a variety of settings, including vocational education, higher education (undergraduate and graduate), and community-based programs. TCSIE is multidisciplinary, drawing on existing literature and contributions from a variety of fields (education, social science, social issue, sociology, and others) and open to well-designed research using quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods as well as other scholarly approaches. Finally, the Journal is rigorous. The focus is on high-quality research and scholarship aimed at expanding our understanding of community service and community empowerment by providing an outlet for new research, discussions of the theoretical bases of civic learning, and critical reviews of the emerging knowledge base. Published annually by the Tennessee Community Service International of Empowerment, the Journal welcomes submissions from all researchers and scholars interested in the field.

Types of Manuscripts

TCSIE seeks three types of research-focused manuscripts on community service and community empowerment:

Research Studies. These articles report on the findings of empirical studies of community service and community empowerment and/or related civic education and civic engagement efforts. Research study articles should be theory-based and well-grounded in relevant research literature and should pose new questions that are significant to and advance the field. Research articles may be based on quantitative, qualitative or mixed approaches and can reflect the variety of types of studies currently underway on community service and community empowerment, such as experimental (causal) and quasi-experimental studies. Articles based on methodologies emerging from the community service and community empowerment field, such as community-engaged research, are encouraged. Regardless of the research design or methodological approach, research study articles should be linked to broader theoretical or research-based questions in the field, incorporate rigorous methods (design, instruments, sampling approaches), thoroughly describe methods of analysis and findings, provide a clear line of reasoning linking the conclusions to the findings, and describe the limitations of the study.

Community Service Report. Community Service is an activity that aims to help the community in several activities without expecting any form of reward. In general, this program was designed by the relevant agencies to provide real contributions to the nation, especially in developing the prosperity and progress of Tenessee. Community service includes education, research and community service as well as carrying out research and developing innovation, as well as preserving and developing knowledge that is superior and beneficial to society. The forms of community service activities are quite diverse, such as social service and teaching. Apart from that, community service can also be carried out by holding training for the community to improve the capabilities of human resources at the service location. The main goal of community service is to develop the welfare of Tennessee specifically. To be more specific, the objectives of community service activities include creating technological innovation to encourage economic development by commercializing research results; provide solutions based on academic studies of the needs, challenges or problems faced by society, both directly and indirectly; carrying out activities that are able to alleviate marginalized communities (preferential option for the poor) at all strata, namely communities that are marginalized economically, politically, socially and culturally; transfer technology, science and art to society for the development of human dignity and preservation of natural resources.

Research Reviews. These articles synthesize and critically examine the extant research and/or emerging findings in the field of community service and empowerment. Authors can adopt a broad focus for a review or may limit the review to a particular area, such as impacts on faculty, institutions, or communities; quality practices; and/or processes of learning, development, and change; or community service and empowerment within a specific discipline, grade level, or cultural or national context. Research review articles should be based on a comprehensive, systematic search of the relevant literature, should explain the need for the review, and should clearly articulate the search process and criteria for including and for excluding studies. While there have been regular reviews of the emerging research in the service for community empowerment field, few of those reviews have adopted a critical perspective on the literature. Therefore reviews that assess the shortcomings as well as strengths in the empirical basis for a body of knowledge are strongly encouraged.

TCSIE invites research articles, theoretical or conceptual articles, and research reviews that focus on an area of community service. Authors are encouraged to identify the journal section that best fits the focus of their paper. Articles submitted to one section may be reassigned to another section to ensure a strong fit.

Main Sections of TCSIE:

Lecturer Outcomes (Primary, Secondary, and Higher Education)
The community service is an activity that aims to help the community in several activities without expecting any form of reward. In general, this program was designed by the relevant agencies to provide real contributions to the nation, especially in developing the prosperity and progress of Tenessee. Community service includes education, research and community service as well as carrying out research and developing innovation, as well as preserving and developing knowledge that is superior and beneficial to society. Service-learning is a constructivist teaching/learning/training approach in which society on the community-based issues and public problems and then works to design and implement strategies to address those issues and solve the problems. If well implemented, community service for empowerment can promote better career, and intercultural understandings and skills as well as positive personal, civic, and moral development. Articles included in this section may report the results of research on the effects of participating in community service empowerment on one or more outcomes, including conceptualizing the processes of growth in community service developmental outcomes. A second type of article may explore report findings on quality features of community service for empowerment experiences.

Faculty Roles and Institutional Issues
Faculty who practice community service for empowerment are engaged scholars who focus their training and research on the renewal of society's well-being. They embrace their own, their lecturer’ and their institution’s responsibility to bring their knowledge and skills to bear on critical public issues. In their service-learning and community empowerment faculty prioritize active, experiential methods, including community action, and they serve as facilitators of learning (e.g., presenting questions and providing feedback on community activity). They also embrace broader epistemologies that honour different ways of knowing and community-based knowledge. Research practices of faculty in community service-learning and empowerment are typically more collaborative and action-oriented than is traditional in academic disciplines. The aim of research is to enhance civic or public life, which may be achieved through continuous cycles of inquiry, action, and reflection. Despite support for community service work in higher education scholarship (Boyer, 1990), faculty who practice these approaches often face institutional barriers to tenure, promotion, and other rewards. Thus, articles in this section can present new theories or conceptual frameworks regarding faculty roles and responsibilities in the context of community-engaged scholarship. They may present the results of research on faculty motivation for practising community service for empowerment or the positive and negative effects of adopting these practices on faculty development, such as role identity and professional advancement. Articles may discuss the results of studies of professional development models or other supports for the utilization of community service for empowerment, such as social issues.

The process of institutionalizing community service for empowerment and its effects on educational organizations has long been a topic in the field’s literature. Articles in this section can discuss community service for empowerment as forces for educational reform and transformation across the educational spectrum. They can describe histories, institutional policies, emergent structures, and practices associated with the institutionalization of community service for empowerment in primary, secondary, and higher education as well as in community-based organizations. Articles can also describe the role of community service for empowerment in institutional assessment.

Community Partnerships and Impacts
The main aim of community service for empowerment is to encourage reciprocal and mutually beneficial relationships between communities and institutions. The institutions, with an often public-facing goal of engaged citizenry, deploy intellectual, human, and financial resources in the service of the communities outside their walls. Faculty and students collaborate with community leaders, organizations, and individuals to identify community needs and assets, develop action plans, and implement and reflect on solutions. Scholars of community service for empowerment are urged to engage partners in the design and implementation of studies that reflect joint concerns and are of practical benefit to communities. Articles included in this section consider the partnership between communities and institutions as a conceptual framework and unit of analysis. A list of possible topics includes, but is not limited to:
* Conceptualizations of the civic roles and responsibilities of educational institutions and the tensions surrounding these conceptualizations as they emerge either from within the institution or in the interactive dynamics with communities and external partners.
* The effects of engagement-oriented transformations to institutional structures and policies.
* New, community service for empowerment visions of general studies or professional development programs, other curricula or individual courses, or results of studies of the effects of efforts to reform these educational structures.
* Research on community service for empowerment in the disciplines and their implications for identifying research questions, design, instrumentation, modes of analysis, and/or knowledge sharing.

The community partnerships and impacts section welcomes submissions that demonstrate early and continuing involvement of community collaborators in developing objectives, implementing projects, and reflecting and evaluating programs.

Tennessee Community Service International of Empowerment
The community service for empowerment practices have proliferated around the world, as have international partnerships that support global service, education and empowerment. The goal of the “International” section of the Journal is to reflect the goals of supporting global movement. Construction of knowledge bases and research agendas for international community service for empowerment is already well underway, yet researchers from all nations need a better understanding of global similarities and differences in community service for empowerment goals, implementation, and outcomes, as well as knowledge of the ethical and conceptual implications of the global partnerships. Articles can present theoretical and empirical research on the value and potential impacts of community service for empowerment in particular national, social issues, and/or cultural settings, either through in-depth analysis (e.g., case study) or a comparative approach. They can discuss the significance of the context for international engagement or community-engaged scholarship. In addition, articles can report transnational efforts to build coalitions designed to advance research on global community service for empowerment, as well as findings from such international partnerships. Articles describing research conducted in a non-U.S. and/or U.S. context do not automatically qualify for the “International” section; unless the cultural context is a primary unit of analysis, articles that focus on one of the empirical studies and experiences.

Author Guidelines

The submissions may be conducted anytime.

Research Article is reporting on the findings from empirical studies of community service for empowerment and/or related social issues and skill issues. (Peer reviewed)
Community Service Report is an output of community service for empowerment that is conducted directly to the community-based. (Peer reviewed)
Review Article is to take a critical look at emerging findings and practices in the fields of community service for empowerment to assess the state of knowledge in the social field and/or the significance of existing literature. (Peer reviewed)

TCSIE also invites submissions of Book Reviews of recent publications in the community service for empowerment, or social education field. (1500 words or less).

Submission of Manuscripts
The recommended length for all manuscripts is 6,000-8,000 words, including abstracts, references, and appendices.
Please be aware that by submitting a manuscript to the TCSIE, you understand and agree to the following:
* Your submission indicates a commitment to publish in TCSIE if your manuscript is accepted for publication
* You permit TCSIE to publish the manuscript and you assign all rights to TCSIE
You retain the right to use the substance of the published manuscript, provided you acknowledge prior publication in TCSIE
* TCSIE reserves the right to make editorial changes for publication suitability
TCSIE reserves the right to not publish the manuscript for any reason; if so, the rights revert to you as the author
* If the submitted manuscript has more than one author, all co-authors have agreed to the submission, including the order of names in the publication and all submission guidelines and agreements

Submission Preparation Checklist
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their compliance with all of the following items, and submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines may be returned to authors.
* The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
* The submission file is in Microsoft Word format (.doc or .docx).
* The submission file is BLINDED for peer review. This means:

  • authors names, titles, and institutions are removed from the title page of the manuscript
  • references in the manuscript text to either the authors, their institutions or departments are either removed or replaced with the text [REDACTED].

Authors should complete the OJS submission form with their names and affiliations so that the Journal’s editors may communicate with you and use that information later for publishing, should your manuscript be accepted. But the manuscript submitted should be BLINDED for the integrity of the peer review process.

* The text is double-spaced; uses a 12-point font (Times New Roman); employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
* Manuscripts should be no more than 8,000 words, including the main text, references, notes, and appendices.
* The manuscript adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements stated in the most recent edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (i.e., APA style). Currently, this is the 7th edition.
* When applicable, a DOI or URL is included as the final component of a reference list entry. (a) URLs should link directly to the cited work whenever possible. (b) Include DOIs for all works that have DOIs. (c) If an online work has both a DOI and a URL, include only the DOI. (d) Present DOIs and URLs as hyperlinks (i.e., beginning with “http://” or “https://”). (e) Use the following format for DOIs: “https://doi.org/10.53730/tcsie.xxxx”.
* The submission does not infringe upon others’ rights, and does not show bias in any form (racial, ethnic, religious, gender, etc.).
* For consistency, use ‘community-service’ with a hyphen (unless quoting an unhypenated use of the term).
* The submission includes an abstract of approximately 150-100 words—with up to five keywords listed alphabetically—inserted between the title and the first paragraph of the manuscript.
* Any submitted research data should be recent (i.e., obtained within the past 1-5 years. Please explain exceptions in the Comments to the Editor(s).
* The type of manuscript (research, report, research review, or book review) is identified.
* For the purposes of review and correct placement, the appropriate journal section for the submission is identified (i.e., Advances in Theory and Methodology, Lecturer Outcomes, Faculty Roles and Institutional Issues, Community Partnerships and Impacts, Tennessee Community Service International of Empowerment, or Book Review).
* If the research involves human subjects, please include a statement that documents approval by an Institutional Review Board. (See “Authors’ Responsibilities” below.)

Privacy Statement
The names and email addresses entered in this Journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party. Note that published manuscripts typically provide the email address(es) of the corresponding author(s), with pre-approval from the author(s).

Peer Review Process
TCSIE is committed to the highest quality of blind peer review. The Senior Editors and/or Section Editors will determine whether the manuscript should be sent out for peer review. Following peer review, the Section Editor will summarize reviewer comments and recommend to the TCSIE Senior Editors (Co-editors) whether the manuscript should be accepted for publication, returned for revisions, or rejected.

Acceptance Rate
Acceptance rate is defined as the percentage of all manuscripts submitted to the Journal that are accepted for publication. TCSIE does not focus on acceptance rates; rather, the Journal concentrates on rigorous peer review and the integrity of the research-to-publication process. This Journal’s acceptance rate reflects decision-making that deliberately emphasizes the importance of mentoring and guiding new, inexperienced, and promising scholars in the community service-learning and empowerment field toward improvement of their submissions so they will become acceptable for publication. As the leading international journal for research in the field, TCSIE remains committed to emphasizing the ultimate acceptance of submission—if it initially shows strong potential—rather than aiming for a low acceptance rate.

Open Access Policy
TCSIE provides open access to all its content. TCSIE is open-access under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License.

Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement
The management of the Tennessee Community Service International of Empowerment (TCSIE) adheres to a specific code of conduct that complies with best practice guidelines, as published by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The ethics and malpractice standards and responsibilities for the editor and associate editors, reviewers, and authors are presented below.

Editors’ Responsibilities

  • Editors have responsibility to accept/reject manuscripts submitted to the Journal, based on the policies established by the Journal’s Editorial Board.
  • Editors should ensure manuscript’s originality, quality of research, and relevance to the Journal’s scope.
  • Editors should evaluate manuscripts based on their intellectual content without regard to authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy.
  • Editors should investigate all allegations or suspicions of research, publication, or other academic misconduct (e.g., plagiarism, duplicate or redundant publication, and unethical publishing behavior) raised by readers, reviewers, or other editors.
  • Editors should keep all information about a submitted manuscript confidential from anyone not involved in a review or publication process.
  • Editors should not allow any conflict of interest between staff, authors, reviewers, and board members. Individuals must recuse themselves in situations where there is a conflict of interest.

Reviewers’ Responsibilities

  • Reviewers should notify the editor if they feel unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or know that its prompt review will be impossible.
  • Reviewers should keep all information regarding a manuscript under review confidential and not use any information or ideas for personal advantage.
  • Reviews should be conducted objectively, with no personal criticism of the author.
  • Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
  • Reviewers may identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.
  • Reviewers are responsible for notifying the editor if there exists any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published article of which they have personal knowledge.
  • Reviewers should not review manuscripts for which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the articles.

Authors’ Responsibilities

  • Authors must submit only entirely original works, and appropriately cite or quote the work and/or words of others.
  • Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere, or even submitted and been under review in another journal.
  • Authors of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed, objective discussion, and sufficient detail to ensure that the study can be replicated.
  • Authors must ensure that all data in the paper are real and authentic and be able to provide the raw data for review if requested.
  • If a study includes human subjects, authors must include a statement verifying that the research was reviewed by an Institutional Review Board and secured the protection of research participants. The narratives of submitted and published manuscripts must align with and reflect the approved human subject protocols (i.e., level of confidentiality, etc.).
  • Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported project or study, and/or have contributed substantive content to the final manuscript. Individuals who have participated in a lesser capacity should be listed as contributors.
  • Authors must disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflicts of interest.
  • Authors must report any errors or inaccuracies they discover in their papers to the journal editor(s) in a timely manner.
  • Authors must participate in the peer review process and follow reviewers’ comments to improve manuscripts. In the event that reviewers’ comments are not appropriate, authors should present a justification or other presentation that describes why the reviewers’ comments are not or cannot be addressed.
  • Authors are strongly encouraged to participate in the peer review process as a reviewer. Serving as a reviewer for TCSIE while one has a separate manuscript under review does not constitute a conflict of interest.

Statement on AI
TCSIE expressly rejects the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies (e.g., ChatGPT) in the writing of manuscripts submitted for publication to the journal. Such tools may be used to improve grammar, phrasing and the readability of particular passages but should not replace the core authorial and analytical tasks inherent to the research and writing process. Authors must certify their contributions as the originators of manuscripts submitted to TCSIE and are responsible for the integrity, validity and originality of the work.

References

  • Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. (2017).
  • Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). (2011). Code of conduct and best-practices guidelines for journal editors. Retrieved from http://publicationethics.org/resources/code-conduct
  • Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement.

ISSN 2998-3193 (Online)