About the Journal

Aims & Scope

The Journal of Higher Education Athletics & Innovation (JHEAI) (ISSN 2376-5267) is devoted to becoming a premier higher education resource for scholars and practitioners. JHEAI strives to publish scholarship on a range of topics that employ various methodological approaches to investigating intercollegiate athletics's role within higher education institutions. The mission of JHEAI is to provide early career researchers and authors from underrepresented groups with an opportunity to showcase their innovative, relevant, and timely research in the rapidly changing fields of sport and higher education.

Sponsoring Organization & Publishing Partners

Supported by the University of Oklahoma Libraries, this journal was launched in 2016. Financial support for JHEAI is provided by the University of Oklahoma Intercollegiate Athletics Administration (IAA) Graduate Program.

Publishing Frequency

JHEAI publishes twice every academic calendar year. Previously, Volume 1 was bundled over seven years. Beginning with Volume 2, JHEAI switched to publishing biannually following an academic calendar year to align with the best practices of the traditional release cycle, with volumes published every spring and fall.

Open Access Publishing Model

JHEAI provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. All content in JHEAI is freely available without charge to the user or their institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative's definition of open access. 

Users may subscribe to the journal at no cost by clicking on the “Register” link in the top right-hand corner of the journal. By registering and creating an account, users may opt in to being notified via email when new volumes are published.

Additionally, there is no cost for authors to submit manuscripts. JHEAI does not charge any article processing fees (APCs) for any submissions or publications. Additional information and author guidelines can be found on the Submissions page.

All articles will be made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC-BY-NC-ND) License. By granting a CC BY-NC-ND license in their work, authors retain copyright ownership of the work, but they give explicit permission for others to download, reuse, reprint, distribute, and/or share the work, as long as the original source and author(s) are properly cited (i.e., a complete bibliographic citation and link to the JHEAI website). No permission is required from the author(s) or the publishers for such use. The license allows for commercial use. 

If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. According to the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND license, any reuse or redistribution must indicate the original CC-BY-NC-ND license terms of the work. Exceptions to the application of the CC BY-NC-ND license may be granted at the author(s)’ discretion if reasonable extenuating circumstances exist. Such exceptions must be granted in writing. For coordinating use permission you may contact the author directly.

Copyright & Licensing

Authors who publish with the JHEAI must agree to the following terms:

License

You retain the copyright for your work. Unless otherwise noted, works published in JHEAI are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (CC BY-NC-ND). By granting a CC BY-ND license in their work, authors retain copyright ownership of the work, while allowing others to This license enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.

You hereby grant to us a worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable license to reproduce, distribute, and display the edited manuscript in the JHEAI (and other publications prepared by us or on our behalf) in any media now or hereafter known (including without limitation electronic publications such as the Internet, Google Scholar, and social media).

Author Confirmations

We do not restrict your distribution or use of the manuscript following publication in JHEAI. In fact, we encourage it with our built-in social media share buttons. However, we have the right to publish the manuscript first on our journal website. Thus, the foregoing licenses are exclusive to us prior to our publication of the manuscript. You have the right to convey the foregoing licenses.

1. The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
2. If the work has been previously published or is pending public dissemination of the manuscript, the author must inform JHEAI prior to publication. This includes without limitation any publications or acceptances by other journals or disseminations via websites or conference proceedings.
3. Unless otherwise noted, works published in JHEAI are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0) International License.
4. The Author confirms and warrants that:
1. The work is original to the author.
2. The work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher.
3. If the work has been previously published in any form, the author has informed the Editors.
4. The work contains no libel or other unlawful matter.
5. Any images, photos, tables, or charts are either free from copyright or the author has obtained written permission from the original copyright holder so as not to infringe any third-party copyright, publicity/privacy right, or other proprietary right.
5. The Author agrees to hold the Editors and Publishers harmless from any breach on the part of the author of the above qualifications. The Author shall defend and indemnify JHEAI against all claims based on any alleged breach of your confirmations in this contract.

Compensation: You have free, open access to unlimited copies (PDF) of any article published online in the JHEAI. You will not receive a royalty or other monetary return from the JHEAI for using the article.

Entire Contract

This contract is the sole and exclusive agreement between the parties regarding the manuscript and supersedes all prior conversations and understandings regarding its subject matter. This contract may be modified or supplemented only by a mutually signed writing.

Privacy Statement

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

Plagiarism Statement

JHEAI is committed to advancing original work and has a ZERO tolerance policy for plagiarism. Please be sure to comply with the following:

1. It is the author(s) responsibility to ascertain that they have submitted an entirely original work, giving due credit, by virtue of proper citations, to the works and words of others where they are used.
2. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is not acceptable.
3.  To avoid self-plagiarism, material quoted verbatim from the author(s)’ previously published work or other sources must be placed in quotation marks.
4. Authors can submit a manuscript previously published in abstract form, such as in the proceedings of an annual meeting or conference. 
5. In the case of a paper previously published in the proceedings of a conference or other meeting, the similarity of the paper submitted for journal publication with its previous version must not be more than 40%. The author will be required to mention such a case to the managing editor during the submission process. 

Plagiarism and AI Policy

1. Disclose and describe the use of any Natural Language Processing (NLP) systems (such as ChatGTP) in writing the manuscript text or generating ideas for the manuscript.
2. Accept full responsibility for the text’s factual and citation accuracy and originality.
3. Authors should maintain transparency and openness concerning who used the system, the time and date of the use, the prompts used to generate the text, the sections containing the text; and ideas in the paper resulting from NLP use.