Submission guidelines
Contents
Instructions for Authors
Types of Papers
You may submit contributions at any time. Accepted contributions will be published electronically at short notice (“Online First”) and will generally then appear in the next print edition. If you have any other questions or plan to write a contribution, please contact the editor in advance.
Please guarantee that the quality of English in all document sources will meet the standards required by the international publishing industry. The responsibility for any typing errors, etc., lies with the author(s). Please refer to our complete list of instructions for authors and guest editors. Please use Springer’s LaTeX macro package and choose the formatting option “twocolumn”. (LaTeX marco package, https://media.springer.com/full/springer-instructions-for-authors-assets/zip/468198_LaTeX_DL_468198_220518.zip)
- Technical Contribution
Submissions should be interesting to the general AI audience. Special terms should be introduced and explained in the context in which they are used. Articles must be original and should not have been submitted or published elsewhere. All submitted contributions will be reviewed by at least two technical experts. A typical contribution has up to 20 printed pages in the KI journal (including graphics and references). It must be written in English and can be submitted at any time.
Contact
For questions, please consult the managing editor for this section of the KI journal:
Bernd Ludwig, University of Regensburg, Germany Bernd.Ludwig@sprachlit.uni-regensburg.de
- Systems Description
The KI journal invites submissions describing implemented systems. The systems should implement procedures that are useful in the wider area of AI. A good system description should give a motivation, comprise a clear explanation of the task the system solves, and relate the implementation to scientific results in the addressed sub-field of AI. Furthermore, the architecture, the used subsystems, or libraries could be of interest. It is mandatory for every system description to provide a link from where it can be downloaded. An evaluation of the system on realistic data, perhaps in comparison to competitor systems, clearly strengthens a submission. In addition, authors are encouraged to share benchmarks. The manuscript should address readers with a good general background in AI, who need not be experts in the area in which the described system solves tasks. Papers in this category may be between 4 and 6 pages long. If you have any other questions or plan to write a contribution, please contact the editors in advance.
Contact
For questions, please consult the managing editor for this section of the KI journal:
Lars Kunze, University of Oxford, UK, lars@robots.ox.ac.uk
- Project Reports
The KI journal invites authors to submit reports describing (typically third-party funded) research projects. The most important criterion for acceptance is that the reports are of interest for the audience of the KI journal. In addition to reporting scientific ideas and results, authors are encouraged to share lesson learned about planning, structuring, implementing, and coordinating research projects. The report should address readers with a strong general background in AI, who may, however, not be experts in the topic of the particular project. Papers in this category should not exceed 6 pages in the final KI layout.
Contact
For questions, please consult the managing editor for this section of the KI journal:
Christian Igel, University of Copenhagen, Denmark igel@diku.dk
- Dissertation and Habilitation Abstracts
This section of the KI journal would like to inform readers of recently completed theses (doctoral dissertations or professorial dissertations/habilitations) covering core AI and related topics. In the case of a doctoral dissertation, the thesis needs to have been defended not longer than a year ago and with a grade of at least “magna cum laude”.
A submission should not exceed 4 pages in the KI layout, including images, references, and author’s vita. It must be self-sufficient (being able to stand on its own as a paper), referring to the full thesis for all technical details. The paper should summarize the main questions of the thesis and discuss the fundamental results rather than expanding on formal or implementation details. It should, moreover, explain the relevance of the results for further theoretical and/or practical work. Papers submitted for this section will be reviewed with respect to the KI Journal’s readership.
Contact
For questions, please consult the managing editor for this section of the KI journal:
Anni-Yasmin Turhan, Dresden University of Technology, Germany anni-yasmin.turhan@tu-dresden.de
- AI Transfer
The category “AI Transfer” was created in order to put more focus on current developments that have made their way out of research laboratories. We aim at descriptive articles accessible to the AI community at large; work that is strongly grounded in the needs of end users; or innovative applications in general. Authors with an industrial project or innovative application have the opportunity to present their “product” in a published paper. They can briefly introduce their new products and AI-related aspects, therefore allowing readers to gain a better understanding of current practical applications in AI. It is important that the AI portion of the innovative application or industrial research remains in the foreground. The article will be subject to a scientific assessment based on these criteria. Articles can be more explanatory and less technical and yet maintain high quality. The article will be printed for free. These contributions may be 4 to 8 pages long and are published in the regular KI page layout.
Contact
For questions, please consult the managing editor for this section of the KI journal:
Daniel Sonntag, German Research Center for AI (DFKI), Oldenburg University, Germany sonntag@dfki.de
- Discussion
Submissions in the category “Discussions” should present scientifically argued personal opinions about topics relevant to artificial intelligence with the intent to start, continue, or complete discussions within this field of research. Contributions can address special areas of research, general research directions in AI, or policies of organisation, structure, orientation, funding, etc. in the specified field. Contributions should refer to the generally accepted state of the art or explicitly challenge it. Opinions can be stated in a provocative but, of course, never personally injuring way. The argument should be presented in a way that is understandable to the general readership. Papers in this section may be 4 to 8 KI pages long, including images and references. In reviewing the submissions the following criteria will apply: how the contribution relates to the state of the art of the field, the quality of the argument and its presentation, and suitability for the readership of the journal.
Contact
For questions, please consult the managing editor for this section of the KI journal:
Daniel Sonntag, German Research Center for AI (DFKI), Oldenburg University, Germany sonntag@dfki.de
- News
In the community news section we publish calls for papers as well as contributions or a report of participation of AI related conferences and workshops. Or other important news related to the German and international AI community. We are open to suggestions for reports of highly relevant events, conferences, workshops. These contributions should not be longer than 1 page and do not receive a DOI.
Contact
For questions, please consult the managing editor for this section of the KI journal:
Britta Wrede, Bielefeld University, Germany bwrede@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
- Interviews
The "Interview" section of our journal is a dedicated platform where we engage with distinguished scientists and experts in the field of artificial intelligence, offering insightful perspectives on specific and contemporary issues. Through these dialogues, we aim to shed light on the latest advancements, theoretical breakthroughs, and practical applications that are shaping the future of AI. Our conversations cover a wide array of topics, including but not limited to knowledge representation, machine learning, robotics, and the ethical considerations of AI development. By providing our readers with access to the thoughts and research of leading figures in the AI community, we strive to foster a deeper understanding and stimulate scholarly discussion among academics, practitioners, and enthusiasts alike. The interviews will be conducted by one of our associate editors.
Contact
For questions, please consult the managing editors for this section of the KI journal:
Ubbo Visser, University of Miami, USA visser@cs.miami.edu
Kai-Florian Richter, Umeå University, Sweden kai-florian.richter@umu.se
Britta Wrede, Bielefeld University, Germany bwrede@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Manuscript Submission
Manuscript Submission
Submission of a manuscript implies: that the work described has not been published before; that it is not under consideration for publication anywhere else; that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – at the institute where the work has been carried out. The publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.
Permissions
Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.
Online Submission
Please follow the hyperlink “Submit manuscript” and upload all of your manuscript files following the instructions given on the screen.
Source Files
Please ensure you provide all relevant editable source files at every submission and revision. Failing to submit a complete set of editable source files will result in your article not being considered for review. For your manuscript text please always submit in common word processing formats such as .docx or LaTeX.
Specific remark
The journal language is English.
You may find further useful information for authors on the KI Journal Website:
Title Page
Please make sure your title page contains the following information.
Title
The title should be concise and informative.
Author information
- The name(s) of the author(s)
- The affiliation(s) of the author(s), i.e. institution, (department), city, (state), country
- A clear indication and an active e-mail address of the corresponding author
- If available, the 16-digit ORCID of the author(s)
If address information is provided with the affiliation(s) it will also be published.
For authors that are (temporarily) unaffiliated we will only capture their city and country of residence, not their e-mail address unless specifically requested.
Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, do not currently satisfy our authorship criteria. Notably an attribution of authorship carries with it accountability for the work, which cannot be effectively applied to LLMs. Use of an LLM should be properly documented in the Methods section (and if a Methods section is not available, in a suitable alternative part) of the manuscript.
Abstract
Please provide an abstract of 150 to 250 words. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references.
For life science journals only (when applicable)
- Trial registration number and date of registration for prospectively registered trials
- Trial registration number and date of registration, followed by “retrospectively registered” for retrospectively registered trials
Statements and Declarations
The following statements should be included under the heading "Statements and Declarations" for inclusion in the published paper. Please note that submissions that do not include relevant declarations will be returned as incomplete.
- Competing Interests: Authors are required to disclose financial or non-financial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Please refer to “Competing Interests and Funding” below for more information on how to complete this section.
Please see the relevant sections in the submission guidelines for further information as well as various examples of wording. Please revise/customize the sample statements according to your own needs.
Text
For LaTeX submissions we encourage authors to use the Springer Nature LaTeX template when preparing a submission.
Please ensure you provide all relevant editable source files at every submission and revision.
Text Formatting
Manuscripts should be submitted in LaTeX. We recommend using Springer Nature’s LaTeX template and choosing the formatting option “[iicol]”.The submission should include the original source (including all style files and figures) and a PDF version of the compiled output.
Word files are also accepted.
Headings
Please use the decimal system of headings with no more than three levels.
Abbreviations
Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.
Footnotes
Footnotes can be used to give additional information, which may include the citation of a reference included in the reference list. They should not consist solely of a reference citation, and they should never include the bibliographic details of a reference. They should also not contain any figures or tables.
Footnotes to the text are numbered consecutively; those to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data). Footnotes to the title or the authors of the article are not given reference symbols.
Always use footnotes instead of endnotes.
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section on the title page. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.
References
Citation
Reference citations in the text should be identified by numbers in square brackets. Some examples:
1. Negotiation research spans many disciplines [3].
2. This result was later contradicted by Becker and Seligman [5].
3. This effect has been widely studied [1-3, 7].
Reference list
The list of references should only include works that are cited in the text and that have been published or accepted for publication. Personal communications and unpublished works should only be mentioned in the text.
The entries in the list should be numbered consecutively.
If available, please always include DOIs as full DOI links in your reference list (e.g. “https://doi.org/abc”).
- Journal article
Gamelin FX, Baquet G, Berthoin S, Thevenet D, Nourry C, Nottin S, Bosquet L (2009) Effect of high intensity intermittent training on heart rate variability in prepubescent children. Eur J Appl Physiol 105:731-738. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-008-0955-8
Ideally, the names of all authors should be provided, but the usage of “et al” in long author lists will also be accepted:
Smith J, Jones M Jr, Houghton L et al (1999) Future of health insurance. N Engl J Med 965:325–329
- Article by DOI
Slifka MK, Whitton JL (2000) Clinical implications of dysregulated cytokine production. J Mol Med. https://doi.org/10.1007/s001090000086
- Book
South J, Blass B (2001) The future of modern genomics. Blackwell, London
- Book chapter
Brown B, Aaron M (2001) The politics of nature. In: Smith J (ed) The rise of modern genomics, 3rd edn. Wiley, New York, pp 230-257
- Online document
Cartwright J (2007) Big stars have weather too. IOP Publishing PhysicsWeb. http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/11/6/16/1. Accessed 26 June 2007
- Dissertation
Trent JW (1975) Experimental acute renal failure. Dissertation, University of California
Always use the standard abbreviation of a journal’s name according to the ISSN List of Title Word Abbreviations, see
If you are unsure, please use the full journal title.
Authors preparing their manuscript in LaTeX can use the bibliography style file sn-basic.bst which is included in the Springer Nature Article Template.
Tables
- All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
- Tables should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
- For each table, please supply a table caption (title) explaining the components of the table.
- Identify any previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference at the end of the table caption.
- Footnotes to tables should be indicated by superscript lower-case letters (or asterisks for significance values and other statistical data) and included beneath the table body.
Artwork and Illustrations Guidelines
Electronic Figure Submission
- Supply all figures electronically.
- Indicate what graphics program was used to create the artwork.
- For vector graphics, the preferred format is EPS; for halftones, please use TIFF format. MSOffice files are also acceptable.
- Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.
- Name your figure files with "Fig" and the figure number, e.g., Fig1.eps.
Line Art
![](https://media.springer.com/full/springer-instructions-for-authors-assets/gif/332564_line-bw.gif)
- Definition: Black and white graphic with no shading.
- Do not use faint lines and/or lettering and check that all lines and lettering within the figures are legible at final size.
- All lines should be at least 0.1 mm (0.3 pt) wide.
- Scanned line drawings and line drawings in bitmap format should have a minimum resolution of 1200 dpi.
- Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.
Halftone Art
![](https://media.springer.com/full/springer-instructions-for-authors-assets/jpg/332563_halftone-gray-color.jpg)
- Definition: Photographs, drawings, or paintings with fine shading, etc.
- If any magnification is used in the photographs, indicate this by using scale bars within the figures themselves.
- Halftones should have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi.
Combination Art
![](https://media.springer.com/full/springer-instructions-for-authors-assets/jpg/332562_combined.jpg)
- Definition: a combination of halftone and line art, e.g., halftones containing line drawing, extensive lettering, color diagrams, etc.
- Combination artwork should have a minimum resolution of 600 dpi.
Color Art
- Color art is free of charge for online publication.
- If black and white will be shown in the print version, make sure that the main information will still be visible. Many colors are not distinguishable from one another when converted to black and white. A simple way to check this is to make a xerographic copy to see if the necessary distinctions between the different colors are still apparent.
- If the figures will be printed in black and white, do not refer to color in the captions.
- Color illustrations should be submitted as RGB (8 bits per channel).
Figure Lettering
- To add lettering, it is best to use Helvetica or Arial (sans serif fonts).
- Keep lettering consistently sized throughout your final-sized artwork, usually about 2–3 mm (8–12 pt).
- Variance of type size within an illustration should be minimal, e.g., do not use 8-pt type on an axis and 20-pt type for the axis label.
- Avoid effects such as shading, outline letters, etc.
- Do not include titles or captions within your illustrations.
Figure Numbering
- All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
- Figures should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
- Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).
- If an appendix appears in your article and it contains one or more figures, continue the consecutive numbering of the main text. Do not number the appendix figures,"A1, A2, A3, etc." Figures in online appendices [Supplementary Information (SI)] should, however, be numbered separately.
Figure Captions
- Each figure should have a concise caption describing accurately what the figure depicts. Include the captions in the text file of the manuscript, not in the figure file.
- Figure captions begin with the term Fig. in bold type, followed by the figure number, also in bold type.
- No punctuation is to be included after the number, nor is any punctuation to be placed at the end of the caption.
- Identify all elements found in the figure in the figure caption; and use boxes, circles, etc., as coordinate points in graphs.
- Identify previously published material by giving the original source in the form of a reference citation at the end of the figure caption.
Figure Placement and Size
- Figures should be submitted within the body of the text. Only if the file size of the manuscript causes problems in uploading it, the large figures should be submitted separately from the text.
- When preparing your figures, size figures to fit in the column width.
- For large-sized journals the figures should be 84 mm (for double-column text areas), or 174 mm (for single-column text areas) wide and not higher than 234 mm.
- For small-sized journals, the figures should be 119 mm wide and not higher than 195 mm.
Permissions
If you include figures that have already been published elsewhere, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) for both the print and online format. Please be aware that some publishers do not grant electronic rights for free and that Springer will not be able to refund any costs that may have occurred to receive these permissions. In such cases, material from other sources should be used.
Accessibility
In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your figures, please make sure that
- All figures have descriptive captions (blind users could then use a text-to-speech software or a text-to-Braille hardware)
- Patterns are used instead of or in addition to colors for conveying information (colorblind users would then be able to distinguish the visual elements)
- Any figure lettering has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1
Generative AI Images
Please check Springer’s policy on generative AI images and make sure your work adheres to the principles described therein.
Supplementary Information (SI)
Springer accepts electronic multimedia files (animations, movies, audio, etc.) and other supplementary files to be published online along with an article or a book chapter. This feature can add dimension to the author's article, as certain information cannot be printed or is more convenient in electronic form.
Before submitting research datasets as Supplementary Information, authors should read the journal’s Research data policy. We encourage research data to be archived in data repositories wherever possible.
Submission
- Supply all supplementary material in standard file formats.
- Please include in each file the following information: article title, journal name, author names; affiliation and e-mail address of the corresponding author.
- To accommodate user downloads, please keep in mind that larger-sized files may require very long download times and that some users may experience other problems during downloading.
- High resolution (streamable quality) videos can be submitted up to a maximum of 25GB; low resolution videos should not be larger than 5GB.
Audio, Video, and Animations
- Aspect ratio: 16:9 or 4:3
- Maximum file size: 25 GB for high resolution files; 5 GB for low resolution files
- Minimum video duration: 1 sec
- Supported file formats: avi, wmv, mp4, mov, m2p, mp2, mpg, mpeg, flv, mxf, mts, m4v, 3gp
Text and Presentations
- Submit your material in PDF format; .doc or .ppt files are not suitable for long-term viability.
- A collection of figures may also be combined in a PDF file.
Spreadsheets
- Spreadsheets should be submitted as .csv or .xlsx files (MS Excel).
Specialized Formats
- Specialized format such as .pdb (chemical), .wrl (VRML), .nb (Mathematica notebook), and .tex can also be supplied.
Collecting Multiple Files
- It is possible to collect multiple files in a .zip or .gz file.
Numbering
- If supplying any supplementary material, the text must make specific mention of the material as a citation, similar to that of figures and tables.
- Refer to the supplementary files as “Online Resource”, e.g., "... as shown in the animation (Online Resource 3)", “... additional data are given in Online Resource 4”.
- Name the files consecutively, e.g. “ESM_3.mpg”, “ESM_4.pdf”.
Captions
- For each supplementary material, please supply a concise caption describing the content of the file.
Processing of supplementary files
- Supplementary Information (SI) will be published as received from the author without any conversion, editing, or reformatting.
Accessibility
In order to give people of all abilities and disabilities access to the content of your supplementary files, please make sure that
- The manuscript contains a descriptive caption for each supplementary material
- Video files do not contain anything that flashes more than three times per second (so that users prone to seizures caused by such effects are not put at risk)
Generative AI Images
Please check Springer’s policy on generative AI images and make sure your work adheres to the principles described therein.
Ethical Responsibilities of Authors
This journal is committed to upholding the integrity of the scientific record. As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) the journal will follow the COPE guidelines on how to deal with potential acts of misconduct.
Authors should refrain from misrepresenting research results which could damage the trust in the journal, the professionalism of scientific authorship, and ultimately the entire scientific endeavour. Maintaining integrity of the research and its presentation is helped by following the rules of good scientific practice, which include*:
- The manuscript should not be submitted to more than one journal for simultaneous consideration.
- The submitted work should be original and should not have been published elsewhere in any form or language (partially or in full), unless the new work concerns an expansion of previous work. (Please provide transparency on the re-use of material to avoid the concerns about text-recycling (‘self-plagiarism’).
- A single study should not be split up into several parts to increase the quantity of submissions and submitted to various journals or to one journal over time (i.e. ‘salami-slicing/publishing’).
- Concurrent or secondary publication is sometimes justifiable, provided certain conditions are met. Examples include: translations or a manuscript that is intended for a different group of readers.
- Results should be presented clearly, honestly, and without fabrication, falsification or inappropriate data manipulation (including image based manipulation). Authors should adhere to discipline-specific rules for acquiring, selecting and processing data.
- No data, text, or theories by others are presented as if they were the author’s own (‘plagiarism’). Proper acknowledgements to other works must be given (this includes material that is closely copied (near verbatim), summarized and/or paraphrased), quotation marks (to indicate words taken from another source) are used for verbatim copying of material, and permissions secured for material that is copyrighted.
Important note: the journal may use software to screen for plagiarism.
- Authors should make sure they have permissions for the use of software, questionnaires/(web) surveys and scales in their studies (if appropriate).
- Research articles and non-research articles (e.g. Opinion, Review, and Commentary articles) must cite appropriate and relevant literature in support of the claims made. Excessive and inappropriate self-citation or coordinated efforts among several authors to collectively self-cite is strongly discouraged.
- Authors should avoid untrue statements about an entity (who can be an individual person or a company) or descriptions of their behavior or actions that could potentially be seen as personal attacks or allegations about that person.
- Research that may be misapplied to pose a threat to public health or national security should be clearly identified in the manuscript (e.g. dual use of research). Examples include creation of harmful consequences of biological agents or toxins, disruption of immunity of vaccines, unusual hazards in the use of chemicals, weaponization of research/technology (amongst others).
- Authors are strongly advised to ensure the author group, the Corresponding Author, and the order of authors are all correct at submission. Adding and/or deleting authors during the revision stages is generally not permitted, but in some cases may be warranted. Reasons for changes in authorship should be explained in detail. Please note that changes to authorship cannot be made after acceptance of a manuscript.
*All of the above are guidelines and authors need to make sure to respect third parties rights such as copyright and/or moral rights.
Upon request authors should be prepared to send relevant documentation or data in order to verify the validity of the results presented. This could be in the form of raw data, samples, records, etc. Sensitive information in the form of confidential or proprietary data is excluded.
If there is suspicion of misbehavior or alleged fraud the Journal and/or Publisher will carry out an investigation following COPE guidelines. If, after investigation, there are valid concerns, the author(s) concerned will be contacted under their given e-mail address and given an opportunity to address the issue. Depending on the situation, this may result in the Journal’s and/or Publisher’s implementation of the following measures, including, but not limited to:
- If the manuscript is still under consideration, it may be rejected and returned to the author.
- If the article has already been published online, depending on the nature and severity of the infraction:
- an erratum/correction may be placed with the article
- an expression of concern may be placed with the article
- or in severe cases retraction of the article may occur.
The reason will be given in the published erratum/correction, expression of concern or retraction note. Please note that retraction means that the article is maintained on the platform, watermarked “retracted” and the explanation for the retraction is provided in a note linked to the watermarked article.
- The author’s institution may be informed
- A notice of suspected transgression of ethical standards in the peer review system may be included as part of the author’s and article’s bibliographic record.
Fundamental errors
Authors have an obligation to correct mistakes once they discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their published article. The author(s) is/are requested to contact the journal and explain in what sense the error is impacting the article. A decision on how to correct the literature will depend on the nature of the error. This may be a correction or retraction. The retraction note should provide transparency which parts of the article are impacted by the error.
Suggesting / excluding reviewers
Authors are welcome to suggest suitable reviewers and/or request the exclusion of certain individuals when they submit their manuscripts. When suggesting reviewers, authors should make sure they are totally independent and not connected to the work in any way. It is strongly recommended to suggest a mix of reviewers from different countries and different institutions. When suggesting reviewers, the Corresponding Author must provide an institutional email address for each suggested reviewer, or, if this is not possible to include other means of verifying the identity such as a link to a personal homepage, a link to the publication record or a researcher or author ID in the submission letter. Please note that the Journal may not use the suggestions, but suggestions are appreciated and may help facilitate the peer review process.
Authorship principles
These guidelines describe authorship principles and good authorship practices to which prospective authors should adhere to.
Authorship clarified
The Journal and Publisher assume all authors agreed with the content and that all gave explicit consent to submit and that they obtained consent from the responsible authorities at the institute/organization where the work has been carried out, before the work is submitted.
The Publisher does not prescribe the kinds of contributions that warrant authorship. It is recommended that authors adhere to the guidelines for authorship that are applicable in their specific research field. In absence of specific guidelines it is recommended to adhere to the following guidelines*:
All authors whose names appear on the submission
1) made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work;
2) drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content;
3) approved the version to be published; and
4) agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
* Based on/adapted from:
ICMJE, Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors,
Disclosures and declarations
All authors are requested to include information regarding sources of funding, financial or non-financial interests, study-specific approval by the appropriate ethics committee for research involving humans and/or animals, informed consent if the research involved human participants, and a statement on welfare of animals if the research involved animals (as appropriate).
The decision whether such information should be included is not only dependent on the scope of the journal, but also the scope of the article. Work submitted for publication may have implications for public health or general welfare and in those cases it is the responsibility of all authors to include the appropriate disclosures and declarations.
Data transparency
All authors are requested to make sure that all data and materials as well as software application or custom code support their published claims and comply with field standards. Please note that journals may have individual policies on (sharing) research data in concordance with disciplinary norms and expectations.
Role of the Corresponding Author
One author is assigned as Corresponding Author and acts on behalf of all co-authors and ensures that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately addressed.
The Corresponding Author is responsible for the following requirements:
- ensuring that all listed authors have approved the manuscript before submission, including the names and order of authors;
- managing all communication between the Journal and all co-authors, before and after publication;*
- providing transparency on re-use of material and mention any unpublished material (for example manuscripts in press) included in the manuscript in a cover letter to the Editor;
- making sure disclosures, declarations and transparency on data statements from all authors are included in the manuscript as appropriate (see above).
* The requirement of managing all communication between the journal and all co-authors during submission and proofing may be delegated to a Contact or Submitting Author. In this case please make sure the Corresponding Author is clearly indicated in the manuscript.
Author contributions
In absence of specific instructions and in research fields where it is possible to describe discrete efforts, the Publisher recommends authors to include contribution statements in the work that specifies the contribution of every author in order to promote transparency. These contributions should be listed at the separate title page.
Examples of such statement(s) are shown below:
• Free text:
All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by [full name], [full name] and [full name]. The first draft of the manuscript was written by [full name] and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
• Conceptualization: [full name], …; Methodology: [full name], …; Formal analysis and investigation: [full name], …; Writing - original draft preparation: [full name, …]; Writing - review and editing: [full name], …; Funding acquisition: [full name], …; Resources: [full name], …; Supervision: [full name],….
For review articles where discrete statements are less applicable a statement should be included who had the idea for the article, who performed the literature search and data analysis, and who drafted and/or critically revised the work.
For articles that are based primarily on the student’s dissertation or thesis, it is recommended that the student is usually listed as principal author:
Affiliation
The primary affiliation for each author should be the institution where the majority of their work was done. If an author has subsequently moved, the current address may additionally be stated. Addresses will not be updated or changed after publication of the article.
Changes to authorship
Authors are strongly advised to ensure the correct author group, the Corresponding Author, and the order of authors at submission. Changes of authorship by adding or deleting authors, and/or changes in Corresponding Author, and/or changes in the sequence of authors are not accepted after acceptance of a manuscript.
- Please note that author names will be published exactly as they appear on the accepted submission!
Please make sure that the names of all authors are present and correctly spelled, and that addresses and affiliations are current.
Adding and/or deleting authors at revision stage are generally not permitted, but in some cases it may be warranted. Reasons for these changes in authorship should be explained. Approval of the change during revision is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. Please note that journals may have individual policies on adding and/or deleting authors during revision stage.
Author identification
Authors are recommended to use their ORCID ID when submitting an article for consideration or acquire an ORCID ID via the submission process.
Deceased or incapacitated authors
For cases in which a co-author dies or is incapacitated during the writing, submission, or peer-review process, and the co-authors feel it is appropriate to include the author, co-authors should obtain approval from a (legal) representative which could be a direct relative.
Authorship issues or disputes
In the case of an authorship dispute during peer review or after acceptance and publication, the Journal will not be in a position to investigate or adjudicate. Authors will be asked to resolve the dispute themselves. If they are unable the Journal reserves the right to withdraw a manuscript from the editorial process or in case of a published paper raise the issue with the authors’ institution(s) and abide by its guidelines.
Confidentiality
Authors should treat all communication with the Journal as confidential which includes correspondence with direct representatives from the Journal such as Editors-in-Chief and/or Handling Editors and reviewers’ reports unless explicit consent has been received to share information.
After acceptance
Upon acceptance, your article will be exported to Production to undergo typesetting. Shortly after this you will receive two e-mails. One contains a request to confirm your affiliation, choose the publishing model for your article, as well as to arrange rights and payment of any associated publication cost. A second e-mail containing a link to your article’s proofs will be sent once typesetting is completed.
Article publishing agreement
Depending on the ownership of the journal and its policies, you will either grant the Publisher an exclusive licence to publish the article or will be asked to transfer copyright of the article to the Publisher.
Offprints
Offprints can be ordered by the corresponding author.
Color illustrations
Online publication of color illustrations is free of charge. For color in the print version, authors will be expected to make a contribution towards the extra costs.
Proof reading
The purpose of the proof is to check for typesetting or conversion errors and the completeness and accuracy of the text, tables and figures. Substantial changes in content, e.g., new results, corrected values, title and authorship, are not allowed without the approval of the Editor.
After online publication, further changes can only be made in the form of an Erratum, which will be hyperlinked to the article.
Online First
The article will be published online after receipt of the corrected proofs. This is the official first publication citable with the DOI. After release of the printed version, the paper can also be cited by issue and page numbers.
Open Choice
Open Choice allows you to publish open access in more than 1850 Springer Nature journals, making your research more visible and accessible immediately on publication.
Article processing charges (APCs) vary by journal – view the full list
Benefits:
- Increased researcher engagement: Open Choice enables access by anyone with an internet connection, immediately on publication.
- Higher visibility and impact: In Springer hybrid journals, OA articles are accessed 4 times more often on average, and cited 1.7 more times on average*.
- Easy compliance with funder and institutional mandates: Many funders require open access publishing, and some take compliance into account when assessing future grant applications.
It is easy to find funding to support open access – please see our funding and support pages for more information.
*) Within the first three years of publication. Springer Nature hybrid journal OA impact analysis, 2018.
Copyright and license term – CC BY
Open Choice articles do not require transfer of copyright as the copyright remains with the author. In opting for open access, the author(s) agree to publish the article under the Creative Commons Attribution License.
Open access publishing
To find out more about publishing your work Open Access in KI - Künstliche Intelligenz, including information on fees, funding and licenses, visit our Open access publishing page.