Authors: Click the Make a Submission button to create an account (if needed) and begin the submission process.
Reviewers: You can indicate your willingness to review an article for MJUM on this online form.
The Minnesota Journal of Undergraduate Mathematics focuses on original mathematical research done primarily by undergraduate researchers in all areas of mathematics and its applications. Faculty may be involved in the research and writing, through advising, mentoring, and editing, but the majority of the original work and writing must be completed by students.
Students must have completed the research while undergraduates, although they do not need to be undergraduates at the time of submission. Each paper must be sponsored by a sponsor familiar with the work who will write a letter of support. Normally the sponsor would be a faculty member who supervised the research, but it could be any professional mathematician who has discussed the work with the student, and given feedback about the results and the writing.
Part of our mission is to mentor undergraduates about the publication process. Submissions should be made by the students, not the sponsors. The editors will communicate with the students and will often provide more informal feedback than other journals. Although many of the articles are refereed by faculty around the country, we also give graduate students a chance to review articles and learn about that aspect of the process.
Before a submission is considered for publication, it will undergo a peer review. In general, each submission will be evaluated by two reviewers, who will remain anonymous to the author(s). The reviewers may be graduate students, faculty, or other mathematicians whose expertise is relevant to the content of the paper.
Reviewers are asked to comment on a number of criteria, including:
Is the mathematics in the paper correct?
Is it original, and substantial enough for publication in this journal?
Is it well written, including an introduction with appropriate background to place the work in context?
As a journal of undergraduate mathematics research, the requirement of substantial original research will not be measured by the same standard as other journals. However, a well written, common solution to a standard homework problem in a popular textbook would not meet this criterion.
Reviewers will send their comments to an editor, who will pass the results on to authors. Reviewers may recommend that the journal:
Accept the article for publication, perhaps with minor edits.
Conditionally accept the article, requiring the authors to address certain issues. This would generally involve submitting an updated version so the reviewers can verify the issues have been resolved.
Decline to publish the article. Any such recommendation would include an explanation, and perhaps encouragement that additional work could justify resubmission in the future.
If the reviewers recommend not publishing an article, but feel additional (significant, not minor) work could lead to a publishable paper, the editors may choose to assign a status of "Revise and Resubmit" to the paper. In this case the paper is no longer considered "submitted" to MJUM, and the authors can either submit it elsewhere, or follow the suggestions for changing their paper and resubmitting it here.
Reviewers will generally have four weeks to complete their evaluation, but the process could take many months. The editorial board will make the final decision about whether to publish an article.
Articles will be published continuously, with volumes corresponding to academic years, July through June. Articles will be published as they are accepted, with each volume corresponding to a calendar year.
This journal 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.
Publisher
University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing
Sponsors
School of Mathematics
Math Center for Educational Programs (MathCEP)
Institute for Mathematics and its Applications
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The copyright of these individual works published by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing remains with the original creator or editorial team. For uses beyond those covered by law or the Creative Commons license, permission to reuse should be sought directly from the copyright owner listed on each article.
