AUTHOR GUIDELINES

1. Submission and Peer Review Process

Thank you for your interest in our peer-reviewed open access journal. We welcome proposals for different types of systematic reviews, evidence and gap maps (EGMs), and methods research papers for publication in Campbell Systematic Reviews. We aim for our evidence syntheses to be broadly applicable to inform global decisions, hence articles are expected to have a global focus, unless otherwise justified.

This journal uses ScholarOne Manuscripts, an editorial management system. You can find more information about how to submit a proposal, including policies and templates, on the Campbell Website.

Systematic reviews and evidence and gap maps

There are three stages in the production of a Campbell review or a Campbell EGM: (1) title registration, (2) protocol, and (3) review/EGM.

The first step is to complete the Title Registration Form (TRF) online in ScholarOne. The proposed title for your systematic review or EGM should clearly state the scope of the review. This scope should be determined in consultation with key stakeholders including intended end users.

The Population, Intervention, Comparison and Outcomes (PICO) framework is used to guide Campbell TRFs for reviews of intervention effectiveness. If your review question is not intervention-focused, please use an appropriate framework. For example:

For methods reviews: Types of studies, data, methods, and outcomes

For predictive, risk, protective or prognostic factor reviews: Types of studies, participants, predictive/risk/protective/prognostic factors, interventions, outcome measures

For scoping reviews: Population, Concept, Context (PCC) framework + types of study sources or designs

For realist reviews: Context, Mechanism, Outcome (CMO) framework.

Once the submission materials have been prepared in accordance with the Author Guidelines, submit your TRF here.

If you do not have a ScholarOne account, click on the link ‘Create an Account’ beside the User ID field to get started.

For help with submissions, please contact the Managing Editor of a Coordinating Group by email.

This journal does not charge submission fees to authors. Campbell Collaboration covers publishing fees for all accepted articles.

Article Preparation Support

You may find it useful to draft your TRF before submitting it. A template document is available to download here:

Download the title registration form for a systematic review

Download the title registration form for an evidence and gap map

Please note that you will need to submit your TRF as a web form in ScholarOne. If you are using the templates above to draft your TRF, ignore the section about authors’ details. This information will be drawn from the author lookup in ScholarOne if you have accounts already. You will, however, need to attach conflict of interest forms collected from each author in your team.

The editorial process for your review or EGM will be managed by one of Campbell’s Coordinating Groups. The TRF web form in ScholarOne has a drop-down list from which you must select an Editorial Group.

Methods research papers

Campbell methods research papers promote discussion of new and innovative ideas in development in the field of methodology and evidence synthesis, making these approaches available to a broad audience. The views expressed are those of the authors and may not be attributed to Campbell as they do not represent Campbell policy.

Methods research papers should be submitted to the Campbell Methods Coordinating Group using the ScholarOne submission system. Select the article type 'Methods research paper'. These can be submitted as completed papers and do not need a title registration process.

If you would like to discuss submitting a methods research paper, you can contact the Methods Coordinating Group by email: methods@campbellcollaboration.org

Commentary articles

Campbell Systematic Reviews will consider publishing Commentary Articles along with author and editorial rejoinders. Commentary articles may be invited by the editor, or they may be submitted directly via our ScholarOne site here.

Policy and Process

The Editor in Chief and the editorial team of the relevant Campbell coordinating group will assess all commentaries. Commentaries must be germane to the review in question and contribute to deepening the reader’s understanding or advance the science of evidence synthesis. Editors may provide feedback and request revisions to the commentary.

If, after editorial assessment, the commentary is deemed suitable for publication, the original review author team will be provided with the commentary as approved by the editors. They will have 3 weeks (15 working days) to provide a rejoinder, which may also be published as appropriate.

• Commentaries will not be published if they are inappropriate (e.g. illegal, libelous, incorrect, unsubstantiated or rude).
• Names and affiliations will be included. Anonymous commentaries will not be accepted.
• Publication of commentaries and rejoinders is at the editors’ discretion.

Text of the commentary

Commentary articles are expected to be succinct, containing no more than three references. We prefer a length of about 1000 words though the length is at the discretion of the Editor in Chief. All commentaries must be written in English.

Commentary articles should include the title, names and affiliations of all authors and a corresponding email address.

Commentaries need to include a declaration of interest statement which describes any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise, that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity that could be considered a potential source of conflict of interest (refer to Campbell's conflict of interest policy). If the author has no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this within the commentary.

Retrospective Registration (Campbellization)

Authors are welcome to submit proposals for a Campbell review on the basis of a protocol or review published elsewhere. The author must be willing to make changes to meet the Campbell standards as well as responding to action letters from the Campbell peer review processes. The systematic review must not be a duplicate of a version published elsewhere.

Please contact the Managing Editor of the relevant Coordinating Group to inquire about Campbellization.

Updating a Campbell systematic review

If you are planning to update a review you have authored, or are interested in updating an existing review, please contact the Managing Editor for the relevant CG. The update must meet current methodological expectations, outlined in the Campbell Standards, regardless of whether the previous review met these standards (e.g., was published prior to these standards being implemented by Campbell).

2. Standards, policies, and peer review

Open Access

Preprint Policy

Please find the Sage preprint policy here.

This journal accepts articles previously published on preprint servers.

Campbell Systematic Reviews will consider review articles previously available as preprints. You may also post the submitted version of a manuscript to a preprint server at any time. You are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article.

Data Sharing and Data Availability

This journal expects data sharing. This entails providing a statement with every submission indicating whether the data is available and if so, how to access it.

The elements of data in a systematic review include the meta-data for included and excluded studies, search strings, data coding sheets (e.g. descriptive data and outcomes) and any data transformations or calculations as well as analytic code (if applicable).

Our goal is to encourage transparency. We recognize that this is a non-trivial amount of work, and that expectations may change in the future.

For Campbell systematic reviews, we expect authors to provide a statement that describes data availability of the following components:

• Search strategies for each database (and other sources, if applicable) with search strings, database names, access platforms, search fields and other limitations/settings
• Full digital citations with unique identifiers (e.g. PubMed IDs, digital object identifiers (DOI) or author, title, year, journal, volume, pages) for all records excluded at full text and included in the final review
• Coding/data extraction for study characteristics and outcomes (e.g. a database describing each study and all extracted descriptive information and results). This may include sharing of the API (e.g. EPPI-Reviewer allows sharing the API, which enables dynamic access to the most up to date dataset).
• Analytic code, if used, such as reproducible input data and statistical code for data preparation, details of any calculations or transformations and meta-analyses. This may not be relevant if authors used a statistical software package, which is described in the main report.

We encourage links to external repositories in your data availability statement if the data is available. These links should be referenced in your Campbell Systematic Reviews article.

We also encourage and welcome research on the optimal methods and standards for sharing data to allow future testing of reproducibility and replicability of our reviews.

Review Sage’s Data Sharing policy where you will be able to see and select the data availability statement that is right for your submission.

Funding

You should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. You are responsible for the accuracy of your funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature.

Authorship

All listed authors should have contributed to the manuscript substantially and have agreed to the final submitted version. Review editorial standards and scroll down for a description of authorship criteria.

ORCID

It is strongly encouraged that all co-authors ensure their ORCID IDs are linked to their accounts in the submission system prior to article acceptance, as this is the only way to have their ORCID ID present on the published article. ORCID IDs cannot be added to manuscripts after acceptance/publication. Please note that each co-author must log in to the submission system to add their own ORCID ID to their account. To add an ORCID ID, edit your account, click the link when prompted, and sign into your ORCID account to validate your ID. You will then be redirected back to the submission system and your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata.

Please create an ORCID ID if you do not already have one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

Reproduction of Copyright Material

The manuscript must be your original work, you must have the rights to the work, and you must have obtained and be able to supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, including figures, illustrations, tables, lengthy quotations, or other material previously published elsewhere.

Main Text File

You can submit your article through ScholarOne as a Microsoft Word file, using the relevant Campbell Word templates that you will receive when your title is registered. If figures and tables are to be published with the article, you should include them within the article.

If you have additional materials that need to be published, these can be submitted as a supplementary file with additional details, tables, and figures. We expect data sharing, so these files can include data files also.

See the Campbell website for submission templates.

Use of software or tools to conduct evidence synthesis

We encourage the use of software designed to support systematic review or EGM production, including software which incorporates machine learning or artificial intelligence. Explicit referencing of the software used, including any validation performed and its application, is required. We recognize that guidance and tools are constantly evolving, and we encourage authors to use and refer to the most up-to-date tools and guidance.

Campbell Standards

The Campbell standards guide the conduct and reporting of systematic reviews of intervention effectiveness. They are the building blocks of a high quality systematic review, and most of the items are straightforward to implement.

We recommend using available guidance from Campbell or other organizations (e.g. JBI has guidance for scoping reviews), and we recommend using appropriate reporting guidelines for the article type you are submitting (for example, PRISMA and its different extensions for different types of review or data, available at EQUATOR Network.

Methodological Expectations of Campbell Collaboration Intervention Reviews (MECCIR)

The MECCIR guidelines were replaced with the Campbell standards in 2024. You can still download and review them for more detailed guidance to support review production.

Campbell conduct and reporting standards checklists for evidence and gap maps

Evidence and gap maps (EGMs) should follow the EGM conduct and reporting standards checklists.

Additional Methods Guides

Searching for studies: a guide to information retrieval for Campbell systematic reviews

This guide (a) identifies the key issues faced by reviewers when gathering information for a review, (b) proposes different approaches in order to guide the work of the reviewer during the information retrieval phase, and (c) provides examples that demonstrate these approaches.

Guidance for producing a Campbell evidence and gap map

This guidance is intended for commissioners and producers of Campbell evidence and gaps maps (EGMs), and will be of use to others also producing evidence maps. The guidance provides an overview of the steps involved in producing a map.

The Equity Checklist for Systematic Review Authors

Campbell is committed to promoting assessment of equity considerations in systematic reviews and evidence synthesis that we publish. This tool developed by the Campbell and Cochrane Equity Methods Group may help authors when considering equity in their review. It may also be helpful to use the PRISMA-Equity checklist for reporting.

Click here to download the Equity Checklist.

Reference Style

This journal uses APA reference style.

Figures and Supporting Information

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures, and graphs in electronic format, please read Sage’s artwork guidelines.

Figures supplied in color will appear in color online.

Please ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures, or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Frequently Asked Questions page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

Plain language summary

A plain language summary (PLS) is an optional addition that can be submitted for any article type that requires an abstract. The plain language title (approx. 50 words) and plain language summary (no more than 650 words) should describe the article using non-technical language, making it accessible to a wider network of readers. More information and guidance on how to write a PLS can be found on our Author Gateway.

The plain language summary (PLS) should convey the same information as the Abstract but in a completely different language and tone. It should summarize your scientific study, its results, and their broader relevance without using jargon so that it is understandable by scientists from outside of your discipline, as well as science journalists and science educators.

PLS are published directly below the scientific abstract and are open access making it available online for anyone to read. Peer review of the PLS will be conducted following our PLS reviewer guidelines. When submitting, authors should enter their plain language title and plain language summary into the box provided in the submission system when prompted. The PLS does not need to be provided in the manuscript text or as a separate file. If you are not submitting a PLS with your submission, please enter “N/A” in each box.

If you need professional help writing your Plain Language Summary, please visit our Author Services portal.

For more information on how to prepare a plain language summary, please see this page

Peer Review

This journal operates under an opt-in transparent peer review model. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are peer reviewed by at least two anonymous content reviewers, an Information Specialist and a Methods Editor. Papers will only be sent to referees if the Editor of the Coordinating Group determines that the paper meets the appropriate quality and relevance requirements.

In-house submissions, i.e. papers authored by Editors or Editorial Board members of the Coordinating Group, will be sent to Editors unaffiliated with the author or group and monitored carefully to ensure there is no peer review bias.

This journal supports Transparent Peer Review. You have the choice to opt-out during the submission process. By submitting to this journal, you have the choice to agree that the reviewer reports, their responses, and the editor’s decision letter will be linked from the published article to where they appear on Web of Science in the case that the article is accepted. Reviewers can choose to remain anonymous unless they would like to sign their report.

Appeals and Complaints

Authors may appeal an editorial decision if they feel that the decision to reject was based on either a significant misunderstanding of a core aspect of the manuscript, a failure to understand how the manuscript advances the literature or concerns regarding the manuscript-handling process. Differences in opinion regarding the novelty or significance of the reported findings are not considered as grounds for appeal. To raise an appeal, please contact the journal by email, quoting your manuscript ID number and explaining your rationale for the appeal. The editor’s decision following an appeal consideration is final.

To raise a complaint regarding editorial staff, policy or process please contact the journal in the first instance. If you believe further support outside the journal’s management is necessary, please refer to Sage’s Complaints and Appeals Policy.

Guidelines on Publishing and Research Ethics in Journal Articles

The journal requires that you include in the manuscript details of IRB approvals, ethical treatment of human and animal research participants, and gathering of informed consent, as appropriate. You will be expected to declare all conflicts of interest, or none, on submission. Please review Sage’s Publication Ethics Policies.

This journal follows the core practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and handles cases of research and publication misconduct accordingly.

Artificial Intelligence Generated Content tools

Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) tools — such as ChatGPT and others based on large language models (LLMs) — cannot be considered capable of initiating an original piece of research without direction by human authors. They also cannot be accountable for a published work or for research design, which is a generally held requirement of authorship (as discussed in the previous section), nor do they have legal standing or the ability to hold or assign copyright. Therefore — in accordance with COPE’s position statement on AI tools — these tools cannot fulfill the role of, nor be listed as, an author of an article. If an author has used this kind of tool to develop any portion of a manuscript, its use must be described, transparently and in detail, in the Methods or Acknowledgements section. The author is fully responsible for the accuracy of any information provided by the tool and for correctly referencing any supporting work on which that information depends. Tools that are used to improve spelling, grammar, and general editing are not included in the scope of these guidelines. The final decision about whether use of an AIGC tool is appropriate or permissible in the circumstances of a submitted manuscript or a published article lies with the journal’s editor or other party responsible for the publication’s editorial policy.

For more information, please see Sage’s Artificial Intelligence policy.

Author Contributions

For all articles, the journal mandates the CRediT (Contribution Roles Taxonomy)—more information is available on our Author Services site.

3. Article Types

Article Type	Description	Word Limit	Abstract / Structure	Other Requirements
Title registration forms	Proposals of the rationale / objectives and methods of new systematic reviews or evidence and gap maps	1500 limit	Yes, Structured	Conflict of interest forms
Protocols of systematic reviews or evidence and gap maps	Detailed description of the rationale / objectives and methods of new systematic reviews or evidence and gap maps	No limit	No, Structured	Campbell standards checklist (as appropriate) EGM checklist (as appropriate) IRB Statement Conflict of interest forms
Systematic Reviews	Comprehensive reviews of the literature, including intervention reviews, predictive/risk/protective/prognostic factor reviews, scoping reviews, methods reviews, realist reviews, review of reviews, rapid reviews	No limit	Yes, Structured	Data Availability Statement IRB Statement Campbell standards checklist (as appropriate) PRISMA statement (with any relevant extensions) is optional Conflict of interest forms
Evidence and gap maps	Systematic mapping of evidence and visual presentations of available evidence relevant to a specific research question	Yes, Structured	Data Availability Statement IRB Statement EGM checklist (as appropriate) Conflict of interest forms
Methods Research Paper	Methods research, tutorials or commentaries on methodology for evidence synthesis	3500 limit	No, unstructured	Data Availability Statement IRB Statement Conflict of interest forms
Editorial	Proposals or invited editorials will be reviewed by the Editor in Chief	1000 limit	No	Conflict of interest forms
Commentaries	Evidence-based opinion pieces involving areas of broad interest and invited commentaries.	broad interest or invited 1000 limit	No	Conflict of interest forms

4. After Acceptance

First Look

After your paper is accepted, your files will be assessed by the editorial office to ensure they are ready for production. You may be contacted if any updates or final files are required. Otherwise, your paper will be sent to the production team.

Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment

When an accepted article is received by Sage’s production team, the corresponding author will receive an email asking them to login or register with Sage Journals: Licensing & Payment portal. You will be asked to sign a publication license at this point.

Copyright & Licensing

WALS + Full Open Access

Campbell Systematic Reviews is a gold Open Access journal: authors of accepted papers do not pay an Article Publication Charge since publication fees are covered by Campbell Collaboration. All papers are published under a Creative Commons license. This journal uses the CC-BY Creative Commons License. Note that certain funders mandate a particular type of CC license be used. For more information on this journal’s APCs and licensing policy, please visit the journal’s Open Access page.

OnlineFirst

Upon publication, articles are available as full text HTML or PDF in the OnlineFirst portion of the journal’s website prior to inclusion in an issue and can be cited as references using their Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number.

Proofs

Authors will receive an e-mail notification with a link and instructions for accessing HTML page proofs online/with their proofs included as a pdf. Authors should also make sure that any renumbered tables, figures, or references match text citations and that figure legends correspond with text citations and actual figures. Proofs must be returned within 48 hours of receipt of the email.

Author Name Change Policy

In cases where authors wish to change their name following publication, Sage will honor requests to update the paper. For more information, please read Sage’s Name Change policy.

Correction to Authorship

In accordance with Sage’s Authorship Policies and the Committee on Publication Ethics’ guidance, Campbell Systematic Reviews may authors to correct authorship on a submitted, accepted, or published article if a valid reason exists to do so. You may access Sage’s Authorship Change Request Form here.