Instruction to Contributors

Manuscripts

The Finnish Journal of Music Education publishes original research articles, reviews, conference and other reports, literature reviews and dissertation abstracts in the field of music education, both scholarly and practical. The Editorial Board will consider manuscripts written in Finnish, English or Swedish. The articles should be those that have not been submitted for publication elsewhere. Manuscripts will be evaluated by the journal's editorial board, which will use a peer review process for scientific articles.

Please submit your text to the editor(s) by e-mail as an attachment (Word). Further information about submitting contributions is available from the managing editors: fjme[at]uniarts.fi.

Finnish-language papers must be accompanied by an English abstract (Summary or Abstract) of up to 200 words. Anonymised manuscripts should be sent to the editor as an e-mail attachment (fjme[at]uniarts.fi, word document). Manuscripts should apply the APA 7 referencing system. The recommended maximum number of references is approximately 20.

The author(s) grants the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts the right to publish the text in print and electronically after any corrections and editorial work required by the evaluation process in accordance with the Music Education Journal's guidelines. At the same time, the author(s) grant the limited distribution rights of the texts to national and international licensed database services or publishers of scientific publications (e.g. EBSCO, Rilm, Taju). No financial compensation will be paid to the author(s) for the publication rights thus transferred. The author(s) will retain ownership and use rights to their text, the use of which will not be restricted by this transfer of a parallel right of use. It is the responsibility of the author(s) to ensure that the text (including images) does not infringe the copyright of any third party

Examples of quotes

Juntunen, M. L., & Partti, H. (Eds.). (2023). Musiikkikasvatus muutoksessa. [The diversifying working contexts of music professionals in social and health care settings]. University of the Arts Helsinki. https://taju.uniarts.fi/handle/10024/7961 

López-Íñiguez, G., & Bennett, D. (2020). A lifespan perspective on multi-professional musicians: Does music education prepare classical musicians for their careers? Music Education Research, 22(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/14613808.2019.1703925

Richardson, L. (1994). Writing as a method of inquiry. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research, pp. 516–529. Sage.

Siljamäki, E. (2021). Plural possibilities of improvisation in music education: An ecological perspective on choral improvisation and wellbeing. [Dissertation]. Studia Musica 86. University of the Arts Helsinki. https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-329-241-3

UNESCO. (2024, April 22). Understand, educate, protect: UNESCO´s blueprint for the ocean. https://www.unesco.org/en

Contact details of the author


Postal addresses, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers of the contributors should be enclosed.

Other remarks

The journal uses a peer review method for research articles. Manuscripts submitted for peer review will be sent to three experts in the field for review and possible revisions. Members of the editorial board will not act as referees except in exceptional cases. Authors are responsible for anonymising their manuscripts.

The journal wishes to get the reviews within approximately one month. However, it may take more, as referees write their reviews on a voluntary and unpaid basis in addition to their own work, and holiday periods, for example, may affect the length of the review process.

Once all the reviews have been received, they are sent to the author, who can then edit the manuscript as instructed. The revised manuscript is then sent to the referees for review and re-evaluation. If further revisions are required by the referees, the author will be given the opportunity to edit the manuscript according to the reviews, after which the edited manuscript will be resubmitted for review and evaluation. The manuscript is then either accepted for publication as an article or the author may be offered the opportunity to publish it as an unpeer-reviewed review.

Finally, the author will be asked to review a layout version of the accepted manuscript. The average total time taken for the publication process is around one year, varying according to the publication date, the number of issues and the time taken for the review process.

The authors are expected to follow The Ethical Guidelines of the Finnish Advisory Board on Research Integrity. We also require an ethical acceptability assessment through a prior research ethics review, if required for the responsible conduct of the research.

The journal does not pay writing fees. Authors of articles and reviews receive two copies of the issue of the journal concerned. Authors of other sections will receive one journal.

For all manuscripts accepted for peer review, The Finnish Journal of Music Education will archive key information and documents relating to the review process:

  • For peer-reviewed but rejected manuscripts, the names of the authors and the title of the manuscript, as well as the names of the referees, are recorded in the publication proposal.
  • For published manuscripts, at least the authors' publication proposal, the comments sent by the referees and the publication decisions sent to the authors by the editors are recorded.

Each author has the right to parallel publish the article´s Author Accepted Manuscript in its final form under CC BY-ND licence immediately after publication by the journal, provided that the article is not published in its final form (journal layout) until one year after the original publication. The co-published version must be accompanied by a link to the actual publication on the publisher's website and the article's citation information

Graphics

Graphic elements (e.g. photos, sheet music, drawings or tables containing complex graphics) should be saved as separate image files. They should not be placed in the text files; instead, an indication of desired location for the element in question should be added (e.g. "Figure 1 here", "music sample 2 here", etc.) In addition to the text and image files, a PDF file of the complete article is also required. In it all the elements should be placed as intended by the author. This will make it easier and more secure to get the final layout correctly.

However, tables containing only simple graphics and/or a lot of textual information are left as they are in the text. The magazine is entirely black and white, which should be taken into account when using any colour elements.

The resolution of the image files should be at least 300 dpi, preferably 600 dpi. Although the resolution value can be increased afterwards, it no longer makes the image sharper or more accurate. PDF, JPG, PNG or TIF formats are suitable for saving image files.