Preparing Your Research Object

 New Research Object Submissions

Authors will log onto the Aperture Neuro Submission platform to begin the submission process. When you are ready to submit your Research Object, please use your Orcid ID username and password to log in.

Once we receive your Research Object, you will be notified via email. You will be able to log into the system at any time during the review process to view the status of your submission. Please do not make any edits to your submission during the initial review process unless directed to do so by the Journal Manager.

For authors submitting a standard research report or review article, please submit your work as a docx file. You can also upload a PDF of the work or link to a pre-print, but in order to make direct edits and copyedit during the revision phase, you will need to submit a docx file.

If you are unsure of your Orcid ID or need to register for one, you can easily do this by following the “Forgot your Password or ID,” and “Register Now” prompts after clicking “Login.”

Cover Letter
Please include a cover letter with your submission. You can either upload your cover letter as a PDF or enter the letter in the submission form. This letter should be addressed to Aperture Neuro’s Editorial Team and include any relevant information you feel will aid the Editor-in-Chief in the consideration of your work.

Hybrid Research Objects
Authors submitting a hybrid Research Object (A jupyter notebook, a software submission, or an educational tutorial for example) must prepare at least a 1-2 page comprehensive summary to accompany the work if not submitting a traditional journal article. Keep the lay-public in-mind when creating this overview as this summary will be the first thing audiences will see when visiting your publication on the Aperture Neuro site.

This summary will also include one image or figure. You do not have to section your comprehensive summary but the text should flow smoothly and be structured in a logical way.

If the author is submitting supplementary material to accompany a traditional research report, a comprehensive summary is not needed.

Authors submitting hybrid works will have to follow the same criteria for references and figures as those submitting traditional research reports.

Formatting Requirements

When submitting to Aperture Neuro please allow for a maximum length of 5,000 words (not including references) and please include any necessary supplementary materials in your submission.

For specific articles where you feel you will go over the maximum word count, contact the Journal Manager.

Submissions should be separated into the following sections:

• Title
• Authors
• Abstract and Keywords
• Introduction
• Methods
• References
• Supplementary Materials (if applicable)

Titles
Titles are limited to 300 characters and should contain major keywords. Please do not use Subscript, Superscript, boldface, and/or italics in your title. 

Abstract
All Research Objects must include a can abstract, 300-500 words in length, that will serve as a preview to any published submission and guide reviewers invited to assess the submission. The abstract should be formatted as a single paragraph. The abstract should summarize the main concepts and conclusion of the paper. The abstract should not mislead or overinterpret findings. Please spell out abbreviations when they are first being used.

We ask that authors keep the lay-public in-mind when creating this overview as this summary will be the first thing audiences will see when visiting your publication on the Aperture Neuro site.

For authors submitting a code or software submission, please see the specific guidelines for these kinds of submission as they vary.

Introduction
In the introduction, discuss the motivation for the study, include any necessary background or contextual information as well as a review of relevant work, and a hypothesis.

Methods
Authors should provide enough detail to allow the Research Object to be reproduced. Methods that are already published should be summarized and cited. When you are quoting directly, use quotation marks and cite the source. Please describe any modifications to existing methods.

Figures
When submitting a self-contained Research Object, authors have the opportunity to submit accompanying figures, images, and graphs using the upload step in the submission process. Figures can be formatted in your Research Object and authors are encouraged to include their figures in their doc.x file.  However, please note that authors who submit figures, tables, and images with their doc.x file should carefully review to ensure that information was uploaded correctly. You can make edits, add tables, and add images with the editing option and directly edit your manuscript within the platform before submitting your work.

Authors are welcome to submit a figure as the visual abstract.

There are no limits to the number of figures you can include in your work.

When uploading figures please be aware of the following: 

• Figures should be less than 10 MB in size
• Figures should have a resolution of 300 dpi, with a minimum width 1,800 pixels
• Acceptable file formats include JPG, PNG and GIF
• Please be mindful of sizes and consistency when uploading images and figures. You do not have to keep all your figures the same size but consider what is helpful to the reader, the format of the image, and the fact that these images will not be embedded within the work.

References
There is no limit to the number of resources an author can cite in their work as long as these citations significantly enhance/support the work. 

Any References included in the Reference section must be cited in the text.

References must be included in the manuscript and formatted as Vancouver Style and include these in the Submission Form.

Here is an example of the Vancouver Style. 

1. O'Campo P, Dunn JR, editors. Rethinking social epidemiology: towards a science of change. Dordrecht: Springer; 2012. 348 p. 
2. Schiraldi GR. Post-traumatic stress disorder sourcebook: a guide to healing, recovery, and growth [Internet]. New York: McGraw-Hill; 2000 [cited 2019 Nov 6]. 446 p. Available from: http://books.mcgraw-hill.com/getbook.php?isbn=0071393722&template=#toc DOI: 10.1036/0737302658

If your references are not in Vancouver Style, we will not be able to publish your submission. If your references are already formatted in a different style, you can use a number of citation style generators to format them for Aperture Neuro once the work has completed the initial review process. 

Authors are encouraged to critically consider gender, geographical and ethical aspects of citations in their work and strive for balance in the resources they chose to cite.

Submission Requirements for Different Research Object Types

Review Articles
If you would like to submit a review article to Aperture Neuro Neuro, please send a brief proposal to the Editor-in-Chief.

When submitting a review article, you may link to a PDF or copy paste the article directly into the submission platform. Review articles do not need subdivisions but you will be asked to include a comprehensive summary and at least one figure with your article. If the review does have subsections, follow the same requirements for the Standard Research Reports outlined above. The review article should be timely, relevant and fit the scope and vision of Aperture Neuro. Keep the article to 5,000 words. If you feel you will exceed this word limit, please contact the journal for approval.

Tutorials
The tutorial should fall within the scope of Aperture Neuro and serve an important function to the neuroscience and brain mapping community. The submission should begin with a 1-2 page comprehensive summary that addresses key learning objectives of the course and prerequisites. The educational sessions should be embedded in the work.If it is not possible to embed the links into the work, a link to each tutorial should be provided as supporting materials. Any work cited during any of the video presentations or in the written tutorials should be listed in the reference section at the end of the submission, this to provide authors credit for their work being cited.

Jupyter Notebooks
Authors submitting a Jupyter Notebook should ensure that they are using an open source and accessible repository to share their work.  Authors submitting code and software should follow these guidelines.

Authors submitting a Jupyter Notebook (hybrid Research Object) must prepare a 1-2 page comprehensive summary (with headers) If the author is submitting a Jupyter Notebook as a supplementary material to accompany a traditional research report, a comprehensive summary is not needed.

Software
Please refer to the separate software submission guidelines.

Supplemental Materials and Links

Aperture Neuro encourages authors to link to supplemental materials or Research Objects that are hosted on external platforms. Aperture Neuro also welcomes pre-prints. At this time the Aperture Neuro platform cannot support the upload of PDF’s or Jupyter Notebooks, but you will be able to link to these items. If published, your materials will be included as links in your Research Object. 

Authors who will be linking to external materials must ensure that Research Objects are hosted at trusted repositories that have a high level of access and reliability into the foreseeable future. If you are linking to an external hosting site or pre-print server we ask that you use a repository that has been in continuous operation for at least 5 years. You are sharing your Research Object in good faith that researchers will be able to access your work in the years to come. If the server or hosting site you have linked to goes down, please contact the Journal Manager to resubmit/modify/edit your Research Object. You may not link to a lab-operated, University-operated, or personal website. 

Any linked or shared research must be accessible and browsable online without a paywall or registration. If submitting open-source software or code, individuals must be able to clone the software without a registration or paid access and create tickets or notify the author of issues in the hosting platform. 

Examples of reliable and acceptable pre-print and hosting servers include: 

We draw this list from Scientific Data's Recommended Data Repositories

• Github Repository
• NeuroLibre
• BioRxiv 
• The Winnower
• PsyArXiv 
• PrePubMed
• OpenNeuro (formerly OpenfMRI)
• G-Node
• Neuroimaging Informatics Tools and Resources Collaboratory (NITRC)
• EBRAINS
• Dryad Digital Repository
• Figshare
• Harvard Dataverse
• Open Science Framework
• Zenodo
• Mendeley Data