Submissions

Submissions

Overview

Individuals looking to publish their work with openwork currently have two pathways: the openwork Journal and the openwork Gallery.

For new, unpublished works, the openwork Journal is our primary venue for presenting peer-reviewed research in experimental music, art, technology, and performance. Submissions to the Journal are solicited during our annual Call for Proposals in September and undergo two rounds of review: first by the editorial board, then under double-blind peer review. Accepted submissions are published on our website.

For previously published and/or premiered works, the openwork Gallery is a curated space designed to complement the Journal's peer-reviewed research by presenting experimental practices, artistic research, and emerging formats that may not fit the formal structure of a journal issue but remain central to openwork’s interdisciplinary ethos. Submissions to the Gallery are reviewed by the editorial board on a rolling basis (with no peer review stage), and accepted submissions are published in the journal’s quarterly newsletter.

Journal Submission Guidelines

If your proposal was accepted to the Journal and you are submitting the full materials for your work, please submit them with Open Journal System (OJS), the publication review platform our journal uses. Click here to submit your materials.

You will first be prompted to either register for an ORCID ID account (if you do not already have one) or authorize Columbia University Libraries Journals to access your existing ORCID record. For detailed instructions on how to register for an ORCID ID account and link your account to Columbia University Library click here.

An abstract (no references) is required for all submissions. The abstract should serve as a brief description of the work and should include the artist's aims, details about the creative process, and other information relevant to the work and how it dialogues with the issue's themes. This should be no more than 250 words. Please also include a list of 5-6 keywords. All identifying information about the authors must be removed.

Uploaded files (which includes article text, illustrations, and/or other media) cannot exceed 100MB. If upload limits are exceeded, a PDF may be uploaded that contains clearly labeled links to file hosting sites like Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. Make sure that all links are publicly accessible and will remain active during the peer review process. All identifying information about the authors must be removed from the titles and metadata of any uploaded files. In addition, files must be named descriptively (e.g. “fig2_SoundDiagram.png” instead of “image1.png”).

Texts

  • All texts (e.g., academic essays, creative reflections, commentaries) should be submitted as a Microsoft Word document with a .doc or .docx extension.
  • Figures, illustrations, and media must be uploaded separately in addition to appearing within the text.

Artworks

  • For Music: The audio file ​for your submission in MP3 file format.
  • For Poetry: The text as a Microsoft Word document with a .doc or .docx extension.
  • For Video: The video file for your submission in MP4 format. 
  • For Still Images: The file ​for your submission in PNG, JPEG or TIFF format, and of a suitable standard to reproduce, at least 300 DPI.  Full art preparation guidelines can be found here.

Illustrations and Media

If your article includes figures or illustrations, please upload them as PNG, JPEG or TIFF files, and of a suitable standard to reproduce, at least 300 DPI. If files exceed the 100 MB uploading limit, upload a PDF with links to Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. Full art preparation guidelines can be found here.

If the images are not the work of the author, please begin acquiring images and clearing rights as soon as your article or review has been accepted. Permission instructions can be found here; a template for requesting permissions is available here.

All images must have been cleared for copyright purposes and all costs and permissions to reproduce are the responsibility of the contributor, who must provide correct credit lines for the image as well as the digital files. Online rights must be obtained from the rights-holder. Openwork illustrates its digital publication in full color, although grayscale images may be accepted  depending on the source material.

The Journal encourages multimedia additions to its articles. Please submit a short comment to the editors describing any plans for incorporating media if not already clear from submitted matierals.

Copyright clearance and any associated costs for permissions for audio and video recordings, or other varieties of digital media, are the sole responsibility of the author.

Text-Specific Preparation Guidelines

All texts should be original. Neither previously published work, nor work under consideration for publication elsewhere, will be accepted. Texts must be submitted in English.

openwork Article Template - Word

openwork Article Template - LaTeX

Style

House Style

Please adhere to the following house style preferences.

  • All text should be single-spaced.
  • Paragraphs should be indicated by a line space, not indented or separated using paragraph spacing.
  • Boldface should not be used except for headings, and underlining should not be used.
  • In the main text, italicize titles of books and journals (please do not use underlining).
  • Figures and illustration references should be included in the text in parentheses (e.g., “(Fig. 2)”), and the captions should be numbered by order of appearance (not descriptively).
  • Notes should be formatted as endnotes, with Arabic numerals.
  • Spelling should conform to American English standards (e.g., color, center, recognize, etc.)
  • Quotations should be set within double inverted commas, and quotations within quotations in single inverted commas. Quotations more than six lines long should start on the next line and should be indented.

Bibliography

Academic essays must include citations to the appropriate peer-reviewed or preprint publications where applicable. References and in-text citations should follow the Chicago author-date format (cf. The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th edition). The complete bibliography should be included in a section entitled “References” at the end of the article. We strongly recommend using Zotero to manage your bibliography and automatically format the references and in-text citations to follow the Chicago author-date format.

Formatting

Please adhere to the following specifications for page layout and formatting by using the following template.

Layout

  • Paper size must be standard US Letter.
  • Text must be written in one column. Multi-column layouts should not be used.
  • Margins should be 1 inch on all four sides.
  • Page headers must include a running head with the first author after the first page.
  • Page footers must include the page number right-aligned on all pages.

Section Headings

All headings must be left-aligned with boldface. Section headings should be 16 points and written in title case (i.e., every major word in the heading is capitalized). Sub-section headings should be 14 points and written in title case (i.e., every major word in the heading is capitalized). Sub-sub-section headings should be 12 points and written in sentence case (i.e., the first word is capitalized and the rest are in lowercase), with no extra line space separating the heading from the first paragraph. No more than three levels of headings should be used.

Fonts

The main text must be written using Times New Roman font. Standard body text should be 12 points, while the title should be 18 points. Other font types may be used if needed for special notations or equations.

Figures

Figures must be centered on the page. Figures that span the width of the page must be included on the top or bottom of the page. A minimum font size of 8 points is recommended for all text within figures. Please do not use stipple fill patterns as they do not render correctly in Adobe PDF.

Tables

Tables must be centered on the page. A minimum font size of 8 points is recommended for all text within tables.

Captions

Captions should follow each figure or table and conform to the guidelines below.

  • Please number figures and tables in order and make sure that image files can be clearly identified from their filenames.
  • Images not created by the author must have a catalogue-style caption supplied as a separate list. Captions should include:
    • Maker
    • Title (in italics)
    • Date
    • Medium
    • Measurements
    • Location (Institution, Geographic Location)
    • Copyright statement
    • Courtesy line and/or photo credit

An example of a caption is shown below:

Fig 1. Yinka Shonibare, The Swing (after Fragonard), 2001, mannequin, cotton costume, 2 slippers, swing seat, 2 ropes, oak twig and artificial foliage, 3.3 x 3.5 x 2.2 m (Tate, London) © Yinka Shonibare; image courtesy Stephen Friedman Gallery, London.

Journal Submission Checklist

Prior to submitting your materials to openwork, please verify that you have completed all of the items in the checklist below.

  • The submission adheres to the Submission Guidelines and Text-Specific Preparation Guidelines (if applicable) outlined in the sections above.
  • All identifying information (name, affiliation, etc.) is removed from texts, metadata, and associated media.
  • The author accepts responsibility for obtaining permission to publish any media submitted per the Submission Guidelines.
  • The submission has not been previously published, nor has it been before another journal for consideration.
  • The author grants the Journal the authority to publish the article as an Open Access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution, NonCommercial, NoDerivatives license (CC BY-NC-ND).

Selection for Publication

  • Authors and artists will be alerted by an editor as to whether their submission has been accepted, declined, or if a revision is requested.
  • If a revision is requested, authors or artists must carefully consider and respond to the referee comments, and resubmit, adhering to editorial deadlines.
  • (Journal submissions only) After the first round of peer review, where peer reviewers and authors / artists remain anonymous, authors / artists will be given the option to engage in an open dialogue with peer-reviewers, and to co-curate and integrate (in collaboration with the openwork editorial committee) selections of these exchanges into published issues.
  • (Journal submissions only) Authors of accepted papers will receive proofs of their article after the decision is sent. Timely attention to proofs will ensure the article is prepared in time for publication of the next issue.

Resubmissions

Submissions not accepted for publication because they did not fit the scope of the issue’s themes may be resubmitted for future issues. If you would like to resubmit, please include a cover letter detailing when you originally made your submission and the comments you were provided.

Gallery Submission Guidelines

To submit your work to the Gallery, please use this Google Form. All submissions require a 150-word abstract that provides a brief description of the work, as well as a publicly accessible link to the work that shows where it was previously premiered or published.