Submission Guidelines

The International Journal of Instructional Cases invites submission of short cases designed for classroom or boardroom use. Cases may be decision-based or descriptive, and cases from all business disciplines will be considered. Cases may be field-researched or data-driven, and they must be factual. Field-researched cases must include releases. All cases must be accompanied by teaching notes as described below. No fictional or composite cases will be reviewed or considered for acceptance. All manuscripts submitted are to be original, unpublished and not under consideration by any other publishing source.

Please note that there are no submission or publication fees. Prior to submission, authors are advised to check the Publisher Statement for further information about the journal’s policies.

Concise Case

All submissions must be anonymized to preserve the IJIC blind review process. Any documents with author information will be returned for correction. Upon acceptance, all cases will be given an IJIC title page that shows all author details.

Concise cases are designed to be used without advance preparation by students, although advance preparation is encouraged. Cases are limited in length to four pages, not including exhibits or attachments needed for analysis. These might include organization charts, demographic data, thumbnails sketches of products/ people/competitors, maps, product lists, or other necessary materials.

Do not include a synopsis at the beginning or questions at the end. If you have disguised the company or protagonist, indicate so in a footnote on page 1. All cases must be written in the past tense and will be returned for resubmission if not written in the past tense.

Use a 12 point font with one inch margins, single-spaced, with no identifying information in the document. Exhibits should be numbered sequentially, appended to the end of the case, and referred to within the case itself. Avoid internal citations. Instead, use endnotes. If you are using previously published material in an exhibit, you must obtain permission from the original publisher prior to submission.

When submitting a case to IJIC, authors are required to indicate the target audience and discipline.

Expanded Teaching Note

The expanded teaching note is the central component of the case and will be distributed only to instructors. It must include the following elements, without exception:

Abstract – all teaching notes must include an abstract which is made freely available upon publication. The abstract is your case’s elevator pitch and the opportunity to attract potential readers. The abstract should include the following:
- Synopsis, including the challenge faced by the protagonist (maximum 150 words)
- Keywords (maximum of 5, specific to the discipline and content of the case)
- Target Audience and Usage
Learning Objectives (maximum of three). These must be specific, measurable, and action-oriented.
Thought questions (provide at least one for each learning objective).
Theory: Keep this section short, identifying relevant theories but without extensive discussion of them. For example, you might recommend that students should apply a SWOT analysis and Porter’s Five Forces, but do not explain the purpose of these perspectives. Instructors are already familiar with them.
Pedagogy. This is the most important section of the teaching note. Provide a rich description of how the case can be taught most profitably, along with any handouts or teaching materials that will help the instructor encourage solid learning from students.

In addition to your case and teaching note, all IJIC authors are required to submit the following materials.

Required (these may be appended to the teaching note):

5-minute self-test for students. The self-test should exercise students’ critical thinking skills, rather than just asking them to retrieve content from the case in front of them (see p.4 of sample teaching note)
Editable PPT presentation (sample)

Ancillary Materials

In addition, be sure to include at least three of the following teaching methodologies (or other methodology not listed here):

Answers to thought questions if you recommend using them as discussion questions. If you propose a traditional three-board discussion process, provide samples of the three boards with headings used and probable student responses. If your questions require development of spreadsheets or tables, provide completed ones for instructor use.
Role play with a complete description of the specific topic, roles to be distributed, time anticipated for preparation and for running the role play itself, and recommended debriefing process.
Relevant literature can be assigned for student reading ahead of class. If you choose this method, provide full citations and a synopsis of each reading, including its application to the case.
Industry notes can be appended for distribution.
Links to online material such as videos. Describe how to use these, whether in class or in preparation for class. Be certain that the links you provide are durable.
Movies or films can be closely related to cases on the same topic. If you suggest showing a movie in class, provide indications of where to pause the film to encourage discussion or drive home a point. Include a debriefing process.
Guest speakers can enrich a classroom discussion by sharing situations parallel to those in the case. Identify potential generally-available community resources for such speakers (such as Chambers of Commerce and similar organizations).
Games can be developed to provide some experiential learning related to the case. Describe fully the game, rules, anticipated outcomes, and length of time to play.
Written assignments should be clearly defined, including length and complexity desired.
Usage as an exam, either in class or take home, should include exam questions and answers

Epilogue. What really happened? Students will want to know the answer to measure against their own decision or analysis.

Teaching notes that are missing any of these components will not be reviewed.
Submit your case and teaching note in Word files (do not submit pdf files) at Submit a case

Review Process

All manuscripts (both the case and the teaching note) are reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief for appropriateness to the IJIC mission and for adherence to submission guidelines before being sent for blind review by two external reviewers. The target time frame from submission to author feedback is 30 days.

It is our goal to encourage and develop case writers. That will be evident to you from the quality of reviews that you receive, both from the reviewers and from the editor. We are always available to you as a resource for case refinement and to brainstorm improvements.

Cases that have been recommended for revision should be revised and returned within 45 days (extensions will be provided as needed) for an additional review. When the case has been accepted and formatted for publication, it will be released for use and will appear in the volume for the relevant year.

Conflicts of Interest: To avoid any bias in the review process, no author information is shared with reviewers during any stage in the pre-acceptance stage. All IJIC reviewers must raise any potential conflicts of interest when they are invited to review for the journal. Where an author has received prior assistance in the writing of their case from any IJIC stakeholder, including the Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Review Board members, the IJIC Publisher will oversee the review process to avoid any potential risk of conflict