The instructions below are specifically directed at authors that wish to submit a manuscript to International Journal of Geographical Information Science. For general information, please visit the Publish With Us section of our website.

The aim of this interdisciplinary and international journal is to provide a forum for the exchange of original ideas, techniques, approaches and experiences in the rapidly growing field of geographical information systems (GIS). It is intended to interest those who design, implement and use systems for monitoring, planning and policy-making. Published research covers applications of GIS in natural resources, social systems and the built environment, and developments in computer science, cartography, surveying, geography and engineering in both developed and developing countries.

International Journal of Geographical Information Science considers all manuscripts on the strict condition that they have been submitted only to International Journal of Geographical Information Science, that they have not been published already, nor are they under consideration for publication or in press elsewhere. Authors who fail to adhere to this condition will be charged with all costs which International Journal of Geographical Information Science incurs and their papers will not be published.

Contributions to International Journal of Geographical Information Science must report original research and will be subjected to review by referees at the discretion of the Editorial Office.

Manuscript preparation
1. General guidelines

• Papers are accepted only in English. Either American or British English spelling may be used. Please use single quotation marks.
• Manuscripts should be compiled in the following order: title page; abstract; keywords; main text; acknowledgments; appendices (as appropriate); references; table(s) with caption(s) (on individual pages); figure caption(s) (as a list).
• Abstracts of up to 500 words are required for all papers submitted.
• Each paper should have two to five keywords.
• Section headings should be concise and numbered sequentially, using a decimal system for subsections.
• For all manuscripts non-discriminatory language is mandatory. Sexist or racist terms should not be used.
• Authors must adhere to SI units. Units are not italicised.
• When using a word which is or is asserted to be a proprietary term or trade mark, authors must use the symbol ® or TM.
• The length of a paper should reflect the complexity of its content - some ideas can be expressed in a thousand words or so, others take more. As a guide, the average length of research articles in International Journal of Geographical Information Science is 18 published pages (about 5-6,000 words, working on 500 words to a page with provision for tables and figures). Papers that are much longer may be returned without review at the discretion of the editor. Authors should consider submitting appendices, code or extra figures as Supplementary Online Material (see 6, below). Authors planning longer papers or review papers should consult the editor

2. Style guidelines

• Description of the Journal's article style
• Description of the Journal's reference styles
• Guide to using mathematical symbols and equations
• LaTeX template (Please save the LaTeX template to your hard drive and open it for use by clicking on the icon in Windows Explorer)

Word templates

Word templates are available for this journal.
Please open and read the instruction document first, as this will explain how to save and then use the template.

Select the template that is most suitable for your operating system.

If you are not able to use the template via the links or if you have any other queries, please contact authortemplate@tandf.co.uk

3. Figures

• It is in the author' interest to provide the highest quality figure format possible. Please be sure that all imported scanned material is scanned at the appropriate resolution: 1200 dpi for line art, 600 dpi for grayscale and 300 dpi for colour.
• Unlimited colour reproduction is possible in the electronic version of the journal, but the journal has only a limited budget for colour printing. Within this budget, every effort will be made to meet authors'requests for colour reproduction. Where possible authors should, however, design all graphics with greyscale reproduction in mind, being aware that greyscale reproduction of colour images can lead to ambiguous use of greys. Avoid the use of colour and tints for purely aesthetic reasons.
• Figures should be produced as near to the finished size as possible.
• Figures must be saved separate to text. Please do not embed figures in the paper file.
• Files should be saved as one of the following formats: TIFF (tagged image file format), PostScript or EPS (encapsulated PostScript), and should contain all the necessary font information and the source file of the application (e.g. CorelDraw/Mac, CorelDraw/PC).
• All tables and figures must be numbered with consecutive Arabic numbers in the order in which they appear in the paper (e.g. Table 1, Table 2, Figure 1, Figure 2). In multi-part figures, each part should be labelled (e.g. Table 1(a), Table 2(b), Figure 1(a), Figure 2(b)).
• Figure captions must be saved separately, as part of the file containing the complete text of the paper, and numbered correspondingly.
• The filename for a graphic should be descriptive of the graphic, e.g. Figure1, Figure2a.

4. Colour

There are a limited number of colour pages within the annual page allowance. Authors should restrict their use of colour to situations where it is necessary on scientific, and not merely cosmetic, grounds. Authors of accepted papers who propose publishing figures in colour in the print version should consult Taylor & Francis at proof stage to agree on an appropriate number of colour pages. If the colour page budget is exceeded, authors will be given the option to provide a financial contribution to additional colour reproduction costs.

Figures that appear in black-and-white in the print edition of the Journal will appear in colour in the online edition, assuming colour originals are supplied.

5. Reproduction of copyright material

Contributors are required to secure permission for the reproduction of any figure, table or extensive extract (more than fifty words) from the text of a source that is copyrighted or owned by a party other than Taylor & Francis or the contributor. This applies to direct reproduction as well as ‘derivative reproduction', where the contributor has created a new figure or table that derives substantially from a copyrighted source. Authors are themselves responsible for the payment of any permission fees required by the copyright owner. Copies of permission letters should be sent with the manuscript upon submission to the Editor(s).

• Copyright permission letter template

6. Supplementary online material
Authors are welcome to submit animations, movie files, sound files or any additional information for online publication.

• Information about supplementary online material

7. Manuscript submission

All submissions should be made online at the International Journal of Geographical Information Science Manuscript Central site. New users should first create an account. Once logged on to the site, submissions should be made via the Author Centre. Online user guides and access to a helpdesk are available on this website.

Manuscripts may be submitted in any standard format, including Word, PostScript and PDF. These files will be automatically converted into a PDF file for the review process. LaTeX files should be converted to PDF prior to submission because Manuscript Central is not able to convert LaTeX files into PDFs directly. This journal does not accept Microsoft Word 2007 documents. Please use Word' "Save As" option to save your document as an older (.doc) file type.

8. Copyright and authors' rights

It is a condition of publication that authors assign copyright or license the publication rights in their articles, including abstracts, to Taylor & Francis. This enables us to ensure full copyright protection and to disseminate the article, and of course the Journal, to the widest possible readership in print and electronic formats as appropriate. Authors retain many rights under the Taylor & Francis rights policies, which can be found at www.informaworld.com/authors_journals_copyright_position. Authors are themselves responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce copyright material from other sources.

Exceptions are made for authors of Crown or US Government employees whose policies require that copyright cannot be transferred to other parties. We ask that a signed statement to this effect is submitted when returning proofs for accepted papers.

10. Early Electronic Offprints

Free Article Access: Corresponding authors will receive free online access to their article through our website (www.informaworld.com).
Reprints of articles published in the Journal can be purchased through Rightslink® when proofs are received. If you have any queries, please contact our reprints department at reprints@tandf.co.uk.

10. Page charges

There are no page charges to individuals or institutions.

11. iOpenAccess

Authors whose manuscripts have been accepted for publication have the option to pay a one-off fee to make their article free to read online via the International Journal of Geographical Information Science website. Choosing this option also allows authors to post their article in an institutional or subject repository immediately upon publication.

• Further details on iOpenAccess