Submissions

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, or RTF document file format.
Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines.
If the article manuscript is sent for peer-review, it is anonymised, i.e. the identity of the author is not revealed in the text or in the metadata of the file.

Author Guidelines

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.

Finnish-language papers must be accompanied by an English abstract (Summary or Abstract) of up to 200 words. Anonymised manuscripts should be provided, as well. Manuscripts should apply the APA 7 referencing system. The recommended maximum number of references is approximately 20, and length of manuscript max 7000 words (including reference list, excluding abstract).

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

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (2024, April 22). Understand, educate, protect: UNESCO´s blueprint for the ocean. https://www.unesco.org/en

Other remarks

Authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process.

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 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 article, such as report.

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 copy.

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.

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.

Special issue: Music Education Technology for the Future World

We welcome full-text submissions in English, Finnish and Swedish. Articles should meet general research article criteria. The maximum length is 7,000 words (including references, abstracts excluded). All proposals will be double-blind peer-reviewed, and required revisions will be checked by three referees with relevant topical or methodological expertise.

Authors are responsible for anonymization of their manuscripts. Manuscripts should be submitted following the FJME referencing style guidelines. For further instructions, please read the guidelines for contributors.

Please submit your text as a MS Word document. In accordance with the current policy, the journal issue becomes full open access within a year from the publication. All authors have the right to parallel publish the article’s Author Accepted Manuscript version in a repository immediately on publication with a CC BY-ND license.

The deadline for full-text submissions is 15 February 2025.
The deadline for resubmission after requested revisions is 15 April 2025.

Peer-reviewed articles

We publish peer-reviewed articles in the Articles section, which must comply with the journal's editorial and publishing policies.

Reports

Non-peer-reviewed reports and reviews are published in the Reports section.

Other texts

We publish in this section book reviews, keynotes, conference reports, current research projects, and other current issues in music education.

Copyright Notice

By submitting a manuscript to The Finnish Journal of Music Education, authors agree to abide by the rights and obligations set forth in this copyright notice.

Publishers: The Faculty of Music Education, Jazz, and Folk Music at the Sibelius Academy of the University of Arts Helsinki and The Finnish Society for Arts Education Research.

The Author gives FJME exclusive right to publish the Writing or other text in accordance with the necessary corrections and editorial work required, in printed form, electronically printed and in electronic form

The Article, Report or other text will be published in the printed version of FJME and it can be stored electronically and placed on the internet or other public data network for reading and printing, as well as, where appropriate, converted to suit a variety of hardware and software platforms.
The Author transfers and assigns the copyright on the above Article, Report or other text throughout the world. The transfer of rights include the right to reproduction and publication of the Article or other text, including the right to re-release the Article or other text, as well as the right to make the Article or other text available to the public and translate it. The Author gives FJME the right to transfer or assign the abovementioned rights. FJME may assign these rights to national and international licensed databases of scientific publications or publishing houses (e.g. Ebsco, RILM). No financial compensation is paid to the Author in case of transfer of the rights.
Author may use any part of the Article or other text in his or her own works, such as reviews, books, lectures, press releases, etc.
By this Agreement the Author warrants that the Article or other text is the Author’s original work that has not been published before and is not currently being offered to another publisher. The Author warrants that the Article or other text does not infringe upon the rights of others. If extracts from copyrighted works are included (e.g. drawings, photos and images), it is understood that the Author has obtained a permission from the copyright owners and will credit the sources in the Article or other text. The permission from the copyright owners must cover republishing the content in printed and electronic form.
For jointly authored Articles or other texts, all authors should be informed of the terms of this copyright transfer. The corresponding Author shall bear the responsibility for designating the co-author(s), informing them about the content of this Agreement and receiving the necessary authorizations to this Agreement on behalf of the co-author(s).
All authors have the right to parallel publish the article´s Author Accepted Manuscript version in a repository immediately on publication with a CC BY-ND licence. However, the article may not be published in the final form of the Publisher (Publisher’s lay out) until one year after the original publication. Link and reference to the original article must be given when parallel publishing and all citations directed to FJME.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in The Finnish Journal of Music Education site will be used exclusively for this journal's stated purposes and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

The University of the Arts Helsinki, the Finnish Society for Research in Arts Education, and the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies (TSV) are joint controllers of personal data. The respective responsibilities of The University of the Arts Helsinki and the Finnish Society for Research in Arts Education as Journal Managers and the Federation of Finnish Learned Societies as Site Administrator are described in the Journal.fi Privacy Policy.

The contact person for matters concerning the use of personal data in this journal are the chief editors of The Finnish Journal of Music Education Tuulikki Laes and Taru Koivisto fjme[at]uniarts.fi.

The data protection officer of University of the Arts is Minna Eskola, tietosuoja@uniarts.fi, +029 447 394, address: PL 1, 00097 Taideyliopisto.