Editorial : What is Expected of your Paper Manuscript Submission ?

The main objective of the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research (JTAER) is to publish the results of high quality original and innovative research concerning electronic commerce and related fields, both theoretical and applied. The field of electronic commerce is understood as an inherently interdisciplinary area of research and practice, having an investigative and analytic purpose. Electronic commerce objectives include the study of the phenomena related to practices and processes enabled by communications, Web and mobile technologies in private and public organizations, as well as, social, legal, educational and cultural issues, and information privacy and security, among many other relevant topics of interest in this rapidly changing field. Therefore, electronic commerce includes components of different fields, such as, computer science, psychology, economics, organizational theory, management, sociology, and the natural sciences, among others. However, the main topic of a paper should always be fully related to the electronic commerce field in order to be within the scope of JTAER.

Therefore, before submitting your work, please ensure that your paper manuscript is within the scope of JTAER, since we outright reject those papers out of scope.You must also prepare and submit a signed letter specifying that the submitted paper manuscript is your own research, original, and has not been submitted somewhere else.Please, find the Author Guidelines in JTAER website and strictly follow these to format your paper manuscript.Please, place emphasis on the style of citations and the format of the list of references.For example, the list of references must be ordered alphabetically by author surname.We do not review papers out of format.Therefore, every paper manuscript submission should include: 1.A paper manuscript strictly formatted according to the Author Guidelines (manuscript file).
2. A signed originality letter specifying that the paper manuscript is your own research, original, and has not been submitted somewhere else (originality letter file).
A quality research study must be original, have focus and rigor, and should be founded on quality and well-accepted previous research in order to have scientific value, and provide a valid contribution to the research community.A paper of high quality should be based on a justified motivation, have clear objectives and research questions, and a rigorous, well-defined and established methodology in order to reduce the probability of a bias or errors in the research process.A research study must be also well structured, well written and well presented for researchers and practitioners to perceive good value on it.Since the quality of your research paper manuscript and the editorial turnaround time of your submission are essential to us, at JTAER we have developed and implemented criteria for screening paper manuscripts submitted to us.Therefore, when doing your research, preparing and writing your paper manuscript, please check that your research study and its presentation meet the following quality standards expected at JTAER: Clarity of writing.First, the paper must be well written, using a clear and easy to understand language.There are numerous books and papers providing advice on how to increase the quality of scientific writing, e.g.[3] .Grammar and style issues should be strongly taken into account, e.g.usage of noun data and information (which does not have plural), and the usage of abbreviations (e.g.abbreviations should be used consistently, and usage of too many abbreviations should be avoided).Grammar and style are of high concern for non-native English authors [10] .It is recommended that such authors use the services of professional English translators, who should check both the grammar and the style of language.In addition, scientific jargon ought to be avoided as much as possible [8] Adequate paper structure.The paper structure must be logical, and should follow the IMRaD (introduction, methods, results, and discussion) format [11] Number of websites and scientific papers provide useful instructions related to the paper structure (e.g.The Purdue University Online Writing Lab).In some cases, detailed recommendations regarding structure are provided, but they should be taken as a guidance and not as a strict direction.For example, Pejic-Bach [7] recommends that the conclusion could be structured in the following manner: (i) summary of research and conclusion; (ii) comparison with previous research; (iii) short description of practical implications; and (iv) summary of paper limitations and directions for future research.
Theoretical and practical contributions.The paper must have a clear elaboration of relevant theoretical contribution to accumulated knowledge, both in introduction and discussion part of the paper.The introduction should outline the planned theoretical contributions of the paper in relation to previous research.Discussion should provide the detailed comparison of the paper results to the same previous research already mentioned in the introduction.Most of the papers will gain practical implications relevant for managers and technical experts, and good practice is to present them in the discussion part [9] .However, in order to have theoretical contributions, the topic of the paper must be original, i.e.., .notjust repeating previous research on a new technology.
Theoretical foundations.The scope of literature review must be appropriate and provide a robust theoretical foundation for the research presented in the paper.Association for Information systems provide a useful overview of theories in information systems research [1] , and more structured outlook to theories in information systems is provided by Gregor [4] Authors should provide a structured overview of previous relevant research, and provide clear elaboration on how their research is related to previous work of other authors.In some cases, research will not be related to existing theories (e.g.technology acceptance theories), or authors will extend existing theories, e.g.[2] .
Sound methodology.The methodology must be elaborated and presented with sufficient details and rigor.Methodological part of the paper should elaborate data, research instrument, validity of research and methods used.
Research can be conducted on qualitative or quantitative data, or their combination, e.g.[6] .Research instrument should be presented in structured manner, and it should be elaborated how it was developed, e.g. its relation to previous research and/or theoretical foundations.Validity of the research should be discussed [5] , and it is recommended that guidance related to specific methodology is followed.For example, validity will be elaborated in different manner for regression type of analysis and for qualitative analysis of case studies.
Although there are different paths towards the proficiency in scientific writing (e.g. using experiential learning, working in teams with more experienced coauthors, receiving and writing reviews), the most important starting point is careful reading of high-quality scientific papers.Therefore, authors should also read already published papers of high quality, with the goal to recognize the practical application of the above-mentioned directions of good scientific writing.

Screening of Papers: The First (and Sometimes the Last) Step in the Paper Evaluation
The JTAER quality standards (clarity of writing, adequate paper structure, theoretical and practical contribution, theoretical foundations, and sound methodology) are used in the screening of the manuscripts, which is the first step (and sometimes the last step) in the review process.
Each paper manuscript received at JTAER is initially screened by a senior peer with high expertise in the topic.The journal's screening process plays an important role in reducing the editorial turnaround time, providing early feedback to the author, and ensuring the quality of the theoretical and applied research that is published at JTAER.Only those manuscripts that meet the journal´s formatting and submission criteria, and which are accepted by the screener are passed on to at least three reviewers with expertise in the field.
The screener is expected to evaluate the paper manuscript based on the above-described quality criteria, and provides short comments for the author, to justify the decision, which could be: (i) send to further review, (ii) revise and resubmit, or (iii) reject.In case of revise and resubmit or reject decision, author is informed about the reasons for such decision, in the form of screener's comments highlighting the main problems of the paper based on the six quality standards.However, the screener is not expected to edit the manuscripts or to provide suggestions.
Only in case the screener recognizes that the paper has embedded the journal quality standards, the paper is sent to the reviewers, who conduct anonymous, independent review, based on the broader perspective of the specific