About the Journal

Focus and scope

FormAkademisk – research journal of design and design education – is a peer-reviewed scientific forum for the documentation of design and design education research from a perspective of innovation and sustainability. The journal define design as a generic term in line with Herbert Simon, who says that ‘Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones’ (Simon, 1969, p. 55).

The term design is here seen as a collective concept incorporating the best within the field of art and the best within the field of craftsmanship.

The scientific journal FormAkademisk has its origins in the National Assosiation of Art and Design in Education (in Norwegian Kunst og Design i Skolen, KDS). KDS publishes the professional journal FORM; the only journal for teachers of design, art & crafts in early childhood education, primary school, upper secondary education and art & crafts teacher education in Norway. KDS had for a long time seen the need for the establishment of an academic scientific journal in addition to their professional journal FORM and had therefore since 2002 been working towards materializing an academic journal. In the preparations for the establishment of an academic journal for the field of design, art & crafts in 2007, it was therefore natural to give the new scientific publication the name FORMakademisk.

In 1995, the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO) opened up for artists, designers and art & crafts teacher educators to follow AHO’s Ph.D. program, for then to graduate as doctors within their fields of competence. Those who started FORMakademisk were doctoral students and a professor at AHO, who also became the first editorial team. Research in design and design education was broadly defined to include research within the fields of architecture, art, and art & crafts education.

We publish articles whitin fields such as industrial design, visual communication, interaction design, architecture, landscape architecture, urbanism and design education at all levels from kindergarden to the doctoral level.

The journal is aimed at those involved in design research as defined by the higher education system in the Nordic countries and internationally. Our purpose is to present cutting-edge scientific insight in a form that is accessible to all who might benefit from this information. We also aim to bring new life to this field of research by providing overviews of high-quality literature and free access to the journal’s own articles.

We aim to become the most important academic forum for design research and artistic development in the Nordic countries. The articles are published in Norwegian, other Scandinavian languages, or English. Contributions are expected to be of high academic quality and will be submitted to a rigorous, systematic peer-review process.

The Editor-in-Chief carries full editorial responsibility according to the Norwegian Rights and Duties of the Editor. However, he/she takes the initiative to consult with the editorial team and editorial board. It is, therefore, the members of the editorial team and editorial board that provide a collective endorsement of the professional quality of the information published in the journal.

Peer review process

FormAkademisk is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal that publishes high-quality, original articles in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, or English, will not publish manuscripts without prior double-blind peer review. The review process of manuscripts will be done by two or more referees whose field of expertise is pertinent to the subject area. The editors require that peers have a doctorate or equivalent.

When a contribution is received, the Editor-in-Chief will first decide whether it is relevant to the journal’s main focus and scope and is of sufficient academic quality. All relevant contributions will then go through one or more rounds of anonymous peer review and editing, including manuscript editing and layout editing ; this process is managed by an editor and carried out by professionally qualified appraisers section editors and external peer reviewers). This process is based on the standards of one of the world’s leading peer-reviewed scientific journals in that ‘Peer reviewer identities are kept confidential, but author identities are made known to reviewers’ (Journal of the American Medical Association: ‘Instructions for Authors: Editorial and Peer Review’).

The journal ensures full editorial quality of all submissions. The author(s) have both the right and duty to approve or reject the proposed changes and amendments presented during manuscript processing. Until the manuscript is published, it will be treated with confidentiality by the editorial team, in terms of all personal information.

Peer reviewers’ work thus concludes with a recommendation to the editors that the manuscript be accepted, revised or rejected. It is then up to the editorial team to determine whether the manuscript should be published. Further information on the peer review process and editorial evaluation can also be found in the discussion of the different journal sections; the assessment process varies to some extent, depending on the various categories of information.

The journal’s Editor-in-Chief has the overriding responsibility of recruiting peer reviewers to meet the journal’s needs. The journal acknowledges that peer reviewers cannot come exclusively from the Nordic communities of design research, as these are too small and transparent to maintain the integrity and credibility of a completely anonymous review process. It would be especially difficult to maintain authors’ anonymity, especially in those cases where the author is already well known and well published in the field. Still, we do our best to establish and maintain a completely anonymous system and assume that all staff, contributors and supporters take this responsibility seriously. If it becomes necessary to change the journal’s policies or procedures for peer review, this will be announced well before the changes are implemented. Such changes will never be made in a retroactive manner (an example of a more open process of peer review is one of the world's leading peer-reviewed scientific journals, the BMJ – British Medical Journal).

Copyediting

It is the responsibility of the author to make sure the manuscript has been professionally copyedited after it has been approved for publication. For English language articles, we require that you use the copyediting services of Scribendi at www.scribendi.com. Choose Academic Editing and tick English isn't your first language, if such is the case.

A receipt of the professional copyediting must be uploaded as an attachment to your submission before production and publication can proceed.

Publication Frequency

FormAkademisk publish on an on-going basis, as soon as the articles’ peer review and editorial processing are finished. We also publish special issues sporadically.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Such access is associated with increased readership and increased citation of an author's work. For more information on this approach, see the Public Knowledge Project, which has designed this system to improve the scholarly and public quality of research, and which freely distributes the journal system as well as other software to support the open access publishing of scholarly resources.

Readers of the journal can print out the manuscripts under the same conditions as apply to the copying of physical copies. This means that mass production of physical copies or the production of copies for commercial purposes is prohibited without the permission of the author(s) and the journal.

About co-authorship and republishing

Co-authorship

When a manuscript has several authors, all authors have participated in the work to such an extent that the individual co-authors take public responsibility for the content. One or more authors must also take responsibility for the totality of the work, from planning to publishing. Only those who meet all three criteria given below may be co-author of an article:

Co-authors have made a significant contribution to the idea and design, acquisition or analysis and interpretation of the data;
Co-authors have contributed to the drafting of the manuscript or critical revision of the article's intellectual content; and
Co-authors have had approval responsibility for the article version to be published.

People who have contributed to the work, but do not meet the requirements for authorship, may nevertheless be acknowledged in a separate section at the end of the article. In this case, it should be noted how each has contributed (such acknowledgment assumes the relevant person’s consent).

Republishing

The journal may publish current and relevant communications that have previously been published internationally, most often in English-language conference reports or professional journals. In special cases, republishing will also be considered even if the primary publication is in a Scandinavian language (see Section Guidelines for more information).

Republished articles must meet the following requirements:

The editors of both publications must be fully informed. A copy of the primary version of the manuscript must be attached to the secondary submission
The introduction to the secondary publication should refer to the primary publication
The secondary article must be rewritten with the journal’s readership in mind. It should therefore not be a pure reproduction or direct translation; a shortened and revised version will usually be the most appropriate
The secondary article should reproduce the primary publication in a correct and reliable manner
The summary of the secondary article should indicate that the same material has been published or is being considered for publication in another journal.

The above have been delineated on the basis of similar provisions in the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association.

Editorial structure and responsibilities

FormAkademisk has appointed an Editor-in-Chief who is primarily responsible for the operation of the journal. It has also appointed an Editorial Team consisting of 20 persons.

The Journal Manager will assist the Editor-in-Chief.
The journal may appoint Section Editors who are responsible for their own fields, as well as for managing the operation of the peer in their field.
Section Editors can link to Special Editors as needed, in agreement with the Editor-in-Chief. An editor can either be linked to the editorial staff for a limited period as Special Issues Editors, or as a regular editor in an editorial team led by an Section Editor.
The Journal Manager has the responsibility of monitoring the steps in publishing-related manuscript processing, specifically manuscript editing, layout and copyediting.
The Editorial Team is also made up of the journal’s internal experts.

The Editor-in-Chief carries full editorial responsibility with respect to both scientific management and administrative operations. The Editor-in-Chief and editorial staff both have independent responsibility for auditing and maintenance operations.

Editorial board

In support of the editorial work, an editorial board has been established. The editorial board’s objective is to contribute to the development of the journal’s design research reputation as evidenced by academic interest in the Nordic countries.

The editorial board will do the following:

Provide advice on request from the editorial staff
Peer review submitted manuscripts on request
Propose a peer review for submitted manuscripts on request
Be invited to joint meetings with the editorial staff

FormAkademisk publishes the names of the editorial team and board members to reflect the breadth of research field.

Information for supporters and sponsors

The journal relies on sponsors who are willing to provide unconditional resources to support the journal’s work and purpose. Such financial assistance may be provided to the journal in two main forms: allocations and provision of relevant duties to journal work.

We are seeking financial support from all relevant agencies, but we encourage special education institutions in design and design education to support our work. We will also ask these institutions to declare that they will recognize the scientific and editorial work in the journal as academically relevant experience in recruitment and promotion reviews. All relevant institutions making such a declaration will be counted as supporters of the journal at the website.

ISSN number

The ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) is an eight-digit number which identifies periodical publications as such, including electronic serials.

The journal’s ISSN number for this online publication is:

ISSN 1890-9515

Publication Ethics and Publication Malpractice Statement

Based on recommendations from COPE and PERK, the following points are intended to provide an overview of our general commitments. The list is not exhaustive of the duties of those involved in the journal.

Duties of the journal

FormAkademisk is committed to meeting and upholding standards of ethical behaviour at all stages of the publication process. The key principles are fairness, transparency and integrity.
We actively seek the views of authors, readers, reviewers and editorial board members about ways of improving our journal’s processes.
We continuously assess the effects of our journal policies on author and reviewer behaviour and revise policies, as required, to encourage responsible behaviour and discourage misconduct.
The journal ensures that all published articles are double-blind peer reviewed.
We are committed to ensuring that advertising, reprint or other commercial revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions.
Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review will be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage

Duties of authors

All authors must confirm that all the work in the submitted manuscript is original and has not been published elsewhere.
Content reproduced from other sources must be acknowledged.
Authorship of the paper must be accurately represented. This includes ensuring that all individuals credited as authors participated in the actual authorship of the work and that all who participated are credited and have given consent for publication.
Authors are expected to be forthright with any possible issues concerning the appropriateness of publishing the manuscript.

Duties of reviewers

Reviewers agree to contribute to the decision-making process, and to assist in improving the quality of the published paper by reviewing the manuscript objectively, in a timely manner.
Reviewers must notify the editor of competing interests that could result in biased decisions.
Reviewers are committed to confidentiality of the review process and manuscripts must not be presented to others except as authorized by the editor.

Digital preservation in the PKP Preservation Network

The journal has signed up for the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN) which uses the LOCKSS program for decentralized distributed digital preservation. This ensures continued access to the journal's content in the event of catastrophic failure or if the journal is no longer published and removed from the web. In these cases, the content can still be made available again by the PKP PN.

FormAkademisk