Author’s instructions

Jamk Arena disseminates new, researched and new information produced at Jamk University of Applied Sciences. Jamk Arena publishes popular articles for the general public (Jamk Arena Public) and professional articles (Jamk Arena Pro).

The writers of Jamk Arena are mainly experts of Jamk staff as well as students. Articles may include experts from outside Jamk, but the basis for accepting the manuscript is that at least one of the authors belongs to Jamk staff. We also publish high-quality writings by Jamk students at our discretion. However, articles written by students are not included in the Ministry of Education and Culture’s publication data collection.

If you have submitted or are in the process of submitting a manuscript on the same topic to another publisher, please inform the editorial board of Jamk Arena. Articles published in Jamk Arena contain new professional knowledge that has not been previously published in the format reported in the Ministry of Education and Culture’s data collection.

Who can publish on Jamk Arena?

Jamk Arena is a channel for continuous publication. The platform can publish Jamk’s staff (at least one of the authors is Jamk’s staff) as well as students together with teachers. High-quality writings from students are also accepted as recommended by teachers. Articles written by students are not included in the Ministry of Education and Culture’s publication data collection.

If you have submitted or are in the process of submitting a manuscript on the same topic to another publisher, please inform the editorial board of Jamk Arena. Articles published in Jamk Arena contain new professional knowledge that has not been previously published in the format reported in the Ministry of Education and Culture’s data collection.

Principles of publication

Publications must be new, produce new information, and not have been previously published elsewhere.

Please note that

  • Publications are not marketing communications: they do not market trainings, events, services or products.
  • Also, the publications are not news, interviews, compilations or scraps of what has been planned, done or what has happened.
  • Participation in networks, events and travel reports alone do not meet the criteria for producing new information – consider what change participation, event, trip or project has brought about.

All articles are reviewed with the Turnitin plagiarism detection system.

Jamk’s publication activities follow the Responsible Conduct of Research, i.e. the RCR Guidelines 2023 (RCR Guidelines 2023). The author ensures that references to previous research results are marked in accordance with the RCR guidelines and that the bibliography correspondingly mentions the key source literature. Anyone who has made a significant contribution to the writing process is listed as a writer (see Agreeing on the authorship of scientific publications).

As part of the Finnish research community, we adhere to the principles of open science, according to which the content of Jamk Arena is freely accessible to everyone. Read more about open science and research at Jamk University of Applied Sciences.

The new publishing platform uses the Creative Commons license CC-BY.

Credits in the publication

Author’s name and affiliation when at least one of the authors is Jamk’s staff: Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences. If you and/or your co-author have an ORCID ID and a profile at Research.fi, add this to the author information.

Authorship is a criterion in the publication data collection of the Ministry of Education and Culture. The publications subject to data collection must be based on the research or expert work of the authors. In addition to this, the authors of the publications and the research or expert work must have a connection to the higher education institution. For example, publications related solely to hobbies, organisations or business activities are not reported.

Author description

In addition to the manuscript, create an author description based on the research and expert work related to your duties at Jamk. This description text comes with the author information in Jamk Arena. If a publication has multiple authors, an author description is required from each author. If you have previously published in Jamk Arena, you already have an author description there, and you do not need to create a new one unless your job responsibilities at Jamk have changed. A description is needed in Finnish and English.

The author’s description could be something like this: “I work as a communications specialist in the Communications Services of Jamk University of Applied Sciences. My job includes internal communications, RDI communications, publishing activities, as well as employer branding and recruitment communications.”

Each author will have a writer’s page on Jamk Arena, which lists all the author’s published articles in Finnish and English.

On the writer’s page, Jamk’s personnel image is used as the profile picture, and the contact information is linked to the contact details on the jamk.fi website.

Publishing with a Student

At Jamk Arena, it is also possible to publish joint publications written by both staff members and students. The topic of such an article can arise, for example, from a student’s thesis, development task, or RDI project.

The article is processed by the editorial board of Jamk Arena following the same editorial process as other articles offered to online journals. Popular articles are published in the Jamk Arena Public journal, and professional articles are published in the Jamk Arena Pro journal. The editorial board provides feedback on the manuscript, and professional articles are additionally reviewed by experts from Jamk Arena’s expert pool.

Joint articles follow the general writing guidelines of Jamk Arena’s online journals. Additionally, the following points must be considered in joint publications by students and staff members:

  • A publication based on a thesis cannot be a summary of the thesis; instead, a specific perspective from the work is highlighted and deepened in the new publication. The publication must produce new information.
  • In a joint publication, shared authorship is important, meaning that the staff member listed as an author is also responsible for the content of the publication. It should be noted that the staff member’s contribution must be significant and visible in the content of the publication.
  • If the joint publication is based on a student’s thesis, this is mentioned at the end of the article in a separate information box without separate emphasis in the text itself.
  • General citation practices are followed in the text and the reference list appropriately. Repeated references to the thesis should be avoided.

References

The sources are marked in such a way that the reader can unambiguously find out whose thinking you are quoting or referring to in your text and from which page of the publication that information can be checked.

Jamk Arena follows the APA7 citation system (American Psychological Association).
There is no official guideline adapted for the Finnish context, so Jamk Arena’s instructions differ in some respects from the original APA7 guidelines.
The main principles of the citation style are described in Finnish in Jamk’s reporting instructions.

If there is a copy for the publication. a persistent identifier unique to the publication, mark it at the end of the source entry: e.g. https://doi.org/10.30667/hls.112211;
https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-830-638-5.

The source references of the text use the name-year order: (Salmela, 2023, page number[s])

When there are several references from the same author in the same year, the internal reference of the text will indicate, for example: (Salmela, 2023a, p. 154) and next (Salmela, 2023b, p. 32).

Several consecutive in-text references of the same text lead are marked: (Salmela, 2023, page; Dufva, 2020, page).

If italics are used in the text quotation, the citation should indicate whether the italics are in the original text or the author’s own addition. Self-insertion in italics is separated by square brackets [MK].

In the reference list, include the author(s), year of publication, title of the publication, publisher, any persistent identifier (e.g., DOI or URN), and for online sources, the date of retrieval and the URL if the page is subject to updates.

The Finnish versions of APA7 abbreviations are used instead of the original English ones — for example, “ei pvm.” is used instead of “n.d.”

Below are a few examples of reference entries. More examples can be found in Jamk’s reporting guidelines.

Book in bibliography:
Salmela, K. (2023). Teacher’s Copyright Handbook: A Survival Guide to the Jungle of Copyright. Edita.

Article in the bibliography:
Burns, G. & Teshome, M. (2024). Futureproofing the institution. In G. Burns & A. Harmoinen (eds.) Digital transformation of learning environments. From the classroom to student-centred online learning. Publications of Jamk University of Applied Sciences 337, p. 14–47.
https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-830-759-7

Ahlgren, R. (2024). Unlocking SME Success in their journey of digital Transformation. Jamk Arena Pro. https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:jamk-issn-2984-0783-75

Study or report in bibliography:
Dufva, M. (2020). Megatrends 2020. Sitra reports, 162, 2020. Retrieved on September 29, 2025 from https://www.sitra.fi/julkaisut/megatrendit-2020/.

Website in bibliography:
Jamk University of Applied Sciences. (N.d). BioBoosters. Retrieved on September 29, 2025 from  https://www.jamk.fi/en/jamk/focus-areas/sustainable-bioeconomy-and-energy-solutions/bioboosters

Scientific publication:
Yamout, Y., Yeasar, T. S., Iqbal, S., & Zulkernine, M. (2024). Beyond Smart Homes: An In-Depth Analysis of Smart Aging Care System Security. ACM computing surveys, 56(2), p. 1–35. https://doi.org/10.1145/3610225

Scientific article, conference publication, and similar types of publications: The publisher typically provides a citation guideline for the publication, which is advisable to follow whenever possible. The guideline can be found in the article/publication under the section “Cite,” “Cite article,” “Citation Tools,” or similar additional information. If the guideline includes multiple citation style suggestions, choose the one that follows APA and modify the source reference according to Arena’s citation instructions.

Textual articles

You can write articles for the general public or professional articles. You can write in Finnish or English.

Rhythm your text with subheadings and paragraph divisions.

In the context of the article, you can use good quality images and patterns. The size of the images should be in full hd level 1920×1080 px. Remember to note the usage and copyright of the images. All images should be accompanied by source information. The illustrations in the article come on behalf of the editorial board of Jamk Arena.

Suggest keywords for your post that are well-established concepts for dealing with the issue. For the usable format of descriptors, use The General Finnish Ontology (YSO).

The instruction length for a popular article is approximately 3,000–6,000 characters, incl. spaces, excl. bibliography. Note that the instruction lenght is only instructional; the article can also be shorter or longer, if needed.

It is advisable to use the sources in the article to support reflection. For example, the source may be a workbook or a development report produced in a project. Let’s take the reader to the information related to the article.

Popular publications refer to publications that disseminate research and development-based information to the general public and whose content does not require special knowledge of the field. Imagine that you are writing to someone who is not familiar with your field. Keep the language popular, avoid jargon. Remember to write a professional article as an alternative if your article produces new information for the expert community.

Mark the sources you are using in the bibliography according to the instructions. If necessary, you can also use in-text references.

A professional publication refers to publications that disseminate information based on research and development work to the professional community. The main readership of professional publications is those trained in the field, who apply the knowledge in their practical work.

The instruction length for a professional article is approximately 5,000–10,000 characters, incl. spaces, excl. Bibliography. Note, this is not maximum length, you can also offer longer texts.

In professional expert articles, in-text references are used to distinguish what is the author’s own thinking about the thinking of another specialist. The in-text references and bibliography are marked in such a way that the reader can unambiguously find out whose thinking you are quoting or referring to in your text and which publication from which page that information can be checked.

Expert articles contain a comprehensive bibliography corresponding to the discussion of the topic.

Podcasts and videos

Podcasts and videos are published on Jamk Arena as embedded content—for example, from YouTube (videos), Panopto (videos and podcasts), SoundCloud, or Spotify (podcasts)—provided they meet the criteria for publication data collection. Due to publication data collection requirements, videos and podcasts must be published on Jamk-managed channels that have an editorial board.

Jamk has its own YouTube account with an editorial board. Podcasts can be published, for example, as part of a unit, result area, or project podcast series. The podcast platform must have an editorial board that decides on publication. Submit the script of the podcast or video to the editorial board in advance. Only after receiving feedback from the editorial board should you roll up your sleeves and start producing the video or podcast.

From the perspective of publication data collection, audiovisual publications are subject to the same criteria as text-based publications.
The publication must be publicly accessible, the publishing decision must be made either by an editorial board or a commissioning party, the publication must convey new researched knowledge from your research or expert work, and the authors must be affiliated with Jamk. It is essential that the publication or application has not been previously published in a similar format.

In addition, for an audiovisual publication to be accepted as part of the publication data collection and to earn publication points, the following information must be clearly visible alongside the publication:

  • Descriptive text that introduces the topic and sparks questions and interest.
    • Example: YouTube video description, podcast episode metadata
  • Author information for all contributors, including their affiliation (organization where the contributor works)
    • Example: Videographer: Matti Meikäläinen, Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences
    • Note: All individuals appearing in the publication are considered contributors.
  • Publication date and publishing platform (usually Jamk University of Applied Sciences)
  • Commissioning party information (usually Jamk University of Applied Sciences or a project)

Additional considerations:

  • Accessibility: Text transcript for podcasts, subtitles for videos
  • Keywords related to the publication
    • Usually added to the metadata depending on the platform

Examples of audiovisual materials that are not included in the Ministry of Education and Culture’s data collection:

  • TV or radio interviews
  • Artistic audiovisual content (Category F)
  • Audiovisual teaching materials or online content created solely for individual courses
  • Individual teaching materials that are part of a broader series (e.g., part of a lecture series)
  • Lecture and webinar recordings
  • Extensive teaching materials where the main product is a book (Category D5)
  • Self-published content uploaded online without editorial or external commissioning decision
  • Promotional or marketing materials
  • Instructional or tutorial videos (e.g., library database search guides)
  • Websites (e.g., project websites)
  • Educational tasks (e.g., student-created websites as part of coursework)

Examples of materials not accepted in the Ministry’s data collection:

  • Publications missing author information, e.g., online teaching material Viedex: https://portal.viedex.com
  • Instructional and tutorial videos, e.g., Library tutorial video: https://panopto.jamk.fi/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=d78339f5-305f-42f2-93ca-ab92008a2f3e
  • Publications lacking editorial board or external commissioning party, e.g., https://aoe.fi/#/materiaali/157
  • Lecture recordings, e.g., https://aoe.fi/#/materiaali/27
  • Project websites, e.g., https://www.uuttaluova.fi. Note: Publications, blogs, videos etc. on such websites may be recorded as independent publications if they meet the required criteria.

Podcasts and videos are published on Jamk Arena as embedded content from platforms such as YouTube, Panopto, SoundCloud, or Spotify, provided they meet the criteria for publication data collection.
Due to these requirements, podcasts and videos must be published on Jamk-managed channels that have an editorial board.

Editorial process

Submit your manuscript with images and other attachments by email to arena@jamk.fi.

All publications published in Jamk Arena are evaluated by the editorial board. You will receive feedback from the editorial board on your publication and you can edit your publication based on the feedback. You will also receive feedback and suggestions for language improvement.

Edit the post based on the feedback you’ve received and have it delivered back to arena@jamk.fi.

The author and Jamk Arena sign an agreement, which documents the requirements for publishing and the use of open licensing. The author signs the agreement only once and it covers author’s previous as well as possible future publications in the both journals (Jamk Arena Pro and Jamk Arena Public).

The editorial board will notify you when your publication is published and will handle the reporting of articles to the JUSTUS publication data storage service. For podcasts and videos, the responsibility for storing the data in the JUSTUS storage service lies with the author themself.

After publishing, remember to communicate about your publication in different channels, such as your own networks, your own social media channels and the project website.

The editorial board also has the right to decide not to publish the publication.

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