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EcoEdDL Author Guidelines

The Ecological Society of America welcomes your:

  • Lecture, Laboratory, and Field Activities
  • Figures, Tables, and Datasets
  • Photographs and Collections of Photographs
  • Course Syllabi
  • Illustrations

General Guidelines for Resources:

  • Adherence to the field of ecology
    Does this submission fit within ecology?
  • Scientific accuracy
    Is the science presented in the resource accurate?
  • Quality
    Does the submission contribute to education in ecology? Has the author included appropriate guidance for other faculty who would use the resource? Are the underlying concepts described in terms familiar to a faculty member?
  • Instructional value
    Does the submission introduce students to disciplinary concepts, scientific techniques, and/or science as a process? Is it clear what students should learn from this resource? Is the submission appropriate for the intended audience?
  • Description of classroom use
    Has the author included guidance for applying the resource to education? What should students know and be able to do after viewing the resource?

Additional Guidelines for Figures, Images and Illustrations

Submissions should be clear, of reasonably high resolution (300 DPI) and the subject should be easily detected. The underlying concept should be described in terms familiar to a layperson.

Image subjects sought include:

  • Noteworthy organisms, communities, and ecosystems
  • Ecological interactions
  • Human impacts on ecological communities/systems, including management and restoration
  • Research methods and techniques (field or lab)

Collections of Photographs

If you have numerous photographs you would like to submit, we ask that you select a few and write those up for submission.  We would really appreciate any time you can put into writing up a few photographs and submitting them to us, especially if the photographs represent a part of the discipline you’re particularly familiar with. If you would like assistance with writing descriptions for a series of photographs to create an image collection or narrative, please contact education@esa.org 

4DEE Video & Media Database

Interested in finding Ecology-related videos to enhance your teaching? Looking for ways to incorporate 4DEE-aligned videos in your lectures? Do you want to contribute entries to the Video & Meida Database?

Suggest a Video for the Database

Incorporating 4DEE

Background

Ecology Education has turned 4D. Preparing students to think about complex ecological problems requires integration of multiple dimensions. As a result, integration across two or more dimensions is key to the 4DEE framework and resources that teach or showcase this integration is especially needed. Learning activities or other resources submitted to EcoEdDL should address how ESA’s Four-Dimensional Ecology Education (4DEE) framework is incorporated. 

However, ESA recognizes that resources may sometimes have a focus on particular dimensions independently. EcoEdDL welcomes submissions that are not integrated across dimensions so long as the ecological context or connection is clearly identified and fully described. Often learning activities or resources provide this ecological context by focusing on CECs. However, activities and resources could also center on another dimension, for instance HEI, which provides an ecological context along that dimension. 

The four dimensions of the 4DEE framework are:

  • Core Ecological Concepts (CEC)
  • Ecology Practices (EP)
  • Human-Environment Interactions (HEI) and
  • Cross-Cutting Themes (CCT)

The possible combinations for integration are:

  • CEC x EP
  • CEC x HEI
  • CEC x CCT
  • HEI x EP
  • HEI x CCT
  • CCT x EP
  • CEC x EP x HEI
  • CEC x EP x CCT
  • CEC x HEI x CCT
  • HEI x EP x CCT
  • CEC x EP X HEI x CCT

Using the 4DEE framework as a guide, authors are asked to

1) describe how learning activities submitted incorporate one or more of the four dimensions and/or
2) how integration across dimensions is accomplished, if applicable.

Formatting

  • Please limit files types to those that are commonly available e.g. MS Office suite, PDF, JPG, PNG. Maximum file size is 10MB.
  • Figures and Tables / Photos and Illustration files in GIF or JPG format with a maximum width of 800 pixels will be accepted.
  • Learning Activities: Authors should format their activity using the EcoEdDL Learning Activities Template

Terms and Conditions

Authors must submit copyright free material or have received written permission to use copyrighted material. Authors must indicate which items are copyrighted and submit the written permission.

Authors will retain copyright and be able to publish their work elsewhere with the understanding that resources submitted to EcoEdDL must conform to the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.  

This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms (https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/cclicenses/).

This license excludes copyrighted material incorporated by the author with permission.  For those seeking to use copyrighted material, please be advised that you may need to apply for your own permission to use that material depending on the license that authors obtained for the material.

Review of Submissions

Two anonymous peer reviewers review each submission prior to publication, managed by EcoEdDL Resource Editors. This peer review policy applies to all resource types except course syllabi, and photographs and illustrations, which are subject only to editorial review.

EcoEdDL SubmissionTemplates

Questions?

Email: education@esa.org

EcoEdDL and the 4DEE initiative is supported in part through several grants from the National Science Foundation over the years between 2001 – 2026.