META: Guidelines for authors

Each issue of the META magazine includes popular scientific contributions that describe research activity that is carried out on the supercomputer facilities, novel usage of these facilities, computationally and data-intensive applications, and new user communities. Also contributions about new hardware and software technologies, international projects with Norwegian participation, expert opinions, etc. are included.

The META magazine appears 3-4 times per year. Each issue has 20-24 pages. We currently distribute more than 1000 copies per issue.

Below, you find some general guidelines on how to write a contribution for META:

• Language. The language is English.
• Contents. Authors have considerable freedom in defining the contents of their contribution. The contents should be interesting for a wide audience, including researchers and engineers, users of the national infrastructure, university management, funding angencies (e.g., research council), etc. The scientific contribution must be understandable for a non-expert audience.
• Structure. Each (scientific) contribution typically includes:
  • Title.
  • A short introduction of 3-4 sentences (ingress).
  • Introduction with background/context/historical information.
  • Socio-economic relevance of the (scientific) problem.
  • Description of the (scientific) problem, a description of the methods and algorithms used (not technical, but describing the main approach), the challenges in particular with respect to computation and data management, important results.
  • An outlook into the future and concluding remarks.
  The text should be divided in sections, each with a short heading (1-4 words). However, the author is free to choose an alternative structure when that is considered more appropriate.
• Mathematical formulae should be avoided.
• Length. The length of a contribution is typically 2-4 pages. One page (with text only) has ca. 750 words.
• Format. The text should be sent to us in a common editable format, e.g., ASCII (txt), Word (doc, docx) or OpenOffice (odt).
• Figures. The author is encouraged to accompany the article with several relevant pictures, figures and/ or diagrams. A minimum quality (dpi) is required by the publisher. A picture should be accompanied by 1-2 sentences explanation (caption). Pictures can be provided in commonly used formats like .jpg, .png, .ps, .eps, .tif and .ai. Please do not embed the pictures in the text but send them separately. Make sure that there are no copyright problems with any of the pictures, state any source that must be referenced, or state what action needs to be taken to avoid copyright issues.
• Picture of author. Each contribution is accompanied with a small (passport-like) picture and the affiliation of each author.
• Supplementary information. There is usually space for one or more separate boxes with short supplementary information. This can for example be for the definition of a term that is used in the article and that is important for the reader to understand, acknowledgments, references to literature and links to other information. The number of items (e.g., references) in such boxes should be kept small. These boxes are usually added at the end of the article and are small in size.

Layout. The author need not deal with the layout of the contribution, but preferences and suggestions are welcome. Once we have received the contribution, we will edit it but keep changes to a minimum. Author(s) will be asked to approve the final version (in final layout) before it goes to print.

Every so often, a special section in META is reserved for the Speaker's Corner. Here, someone is invited to express his/her concerns, opinions, etc. about computational science, e-Science and infrastructure. The contribution to Speaker's Corner is typically two pages. The author is free to choose the theme.

Previous issues of the magazine can be found at www.notur.no/publications/magazine