A Guide to Publication in Educational Technology

I just made a presentation at the AECT/SICET International Conference in Anaheim, California. The presentation entitled “Publish or Perish: Publishing Scholarly Articles in Educational Technology.” I thought the presentation went very well. The presentation was prepared to assist university faculty members and graduate students in preparing and submitting manuscripts for publication in academic journals in educational technology. The intent is to facilitate publication, research and other creative activities in the field of educational technology.

The presentation was based on the result of a survey study from the editors of various journals. I conducted the online journal survey in April 2007. Seventy editors from various journals worldwide related to educational technology were identified and invited to participate in the survey. After 6 weeks and several follow-ups, 42 editors completed the survey online with a usable return rate of 60 percent.

The survey had 27 items and provided useful publication information which included journal title, name of editor, email address, frequency of issue, publication format, circulation, audience, acceptance rate, refereed/non refereed journal, number of readings, desired length of articles, preferred style, submission and review process, and publishing fee if any.

The results indicate that most of educational technology journals publish 4 issues per year. Sixty-three percent of the educational technology journals are published in printed format. The acceptance rate varies and ranges from 9% to 80%. The average acceptance rate is about 32%. Ninety-three percent of the journals surveyed are refereed and only 7% are non-refereed. The number of readings required by the editorial review board ranges from 1 to 8 times with an average of 2.7 times. On the average, it takes about 12 weeks for receiving editorial decision and another 20 weeks for getting an article to publish. All educational technology journals participated in the survey have open submission policy and 95% of these journals have author’s guidelines available online. Most educational technology journals prefer APA style (74%) and allow an electronic submission (95%). Seventy-nine percent of these journals provide editorial assistance to help authors revise their manuscripts. Ninety-five percent pay no honorarium to authors. However, 69% of the journals provide complimentary issue to authors.

There are several types of educational technology journals that publish varying types of articles for a variety of audiences. Authors should determine the audience, types of articles published in the journal, types of journal, acceptance rate, time for editorial decision, and desired length of article prior to preparing and submitting a manuscript. I think my survey provides these helpful information to those who want to publish their papers in the field of educational technology, especially to graduate students and junior faculty who are pursuing tenure and promotion. The complete information on all participated editors and their journals is available online at http://dragon.ep.usm.edu/~yuen/journal/search.php Authors can use the search tools provided on this Web page to find the journal information before deciding on the target journal.

Finally, if you are an editor and want to include your journal in my database, please feel free to email me. I will be glad to provide you a URL for submitting your journal information online.