Editorial

Vale ASET

This is the first issue of the Australian Journal of Educational Technology. Perhaps, in many years time, what you are holding may be a collector's item. What is more important is that this journal will continue to stimulate, to enthuse and, yes, to educate its readers as long as it exists. (ASET, 1985 [1])

There's no doubt that AJET continues very successfully, but the society that initiated the journal no longer exists. Effective end 2005, the Australian Society for Educational Technology has been dissolved. ASET was founded in 1975 and during its 30 year history, ASET and its members promoted educational technology through publications, conferences and local Chapter meetings. Achievements included founding AJET in 1985 and conducting the series of biennial EdTech Conferences. An archival site [2], kindly sponsored by ASCILITE [3] and NetSpot [4], has been established to preserve the EdTech Conference proceedings, and a brief historical record of other activities by ASET that is currently under development.

AJET's first editorial also stated ASET's expectation that "...AJET should be both accurate and scholarly but ... it should not become dessicated." AJET certainly has made the grade with respect to being "accurate and scholarly", but the dictate about "dessicated" may be a challenge!

Figure 1: Some AJET covers produced in A5 format during
ASET's stewardship - issues 2(1), 5(2) and 11(2)

The Production Editor has commenced a small project to add editorials for Volumes 2-12 to AJET's website. When AJET digitising commenced in 1996, editorials were omitted, to economise with the time spent on the task. However, editorials must be preserved, being an important part of the record of what is really happening in journal publishing. Consider this plea from John Hedberg, Editor of AJET, 1986-1996 [5]:

For the next issue at the end of this year, I would welcome other comments and especially reports about developments that have paid off! There must be some light at the end of the tunnel.

AJET's review process: An update

Year of receipt	No. rec'd	No. rejected editorially (b)	No. reject ext review (b)	No. with- drawn (c)	No. pending	No. accept (d)	No. publ- ished	% accep- ted (e)
2003	61	34	14	0	0	13	24	21.3%
2004	97	51	13	2	0	31	21	32.0%
2005	91	39	6	2	22	22	30	-
2006(a)	21	3	0	0	16	2	-	-

1. Data in columns 2-8 is at 16 Mar 2006. We expect to resolve the 22 year 2005 receivals that are pending at 16 Mar by mid-Apr 2006 (our goal is a three month maximum for the review process). The acceptance rate for a year cannot be finalised until after resolving all receivals in the pending category for that year.
2. Some of the rejected articles may appear again as receivals in a subsequent year. The reasons for counting these instances as rejections are to enable a clearer cut off for each year's outcomes, and to align data collection with the editorial advice, used in a significant proportion of cases, 'Reject. Invite resubmission of a revised or expanded work for a new review process'.
3. Withdrawn means withdrawn at the request of the authors.
4. The number of articles accepted from a particular year's receivals does not correspond to the number published in each year, owing to time taken for review and revisions, and fluctuations in the speed of these processes. For example, AJET published 24 articles in 2003, the majority being 2002 receivals.
5. % accepted is calculated from column 2 (No. rec'd) and column 7 (No. accepted).

During 2006 we will pursue the strategies foreshadowed in Editorial 21(4) concerning an expansion of AJET's editorial team, in order to keep the numbers in the 'Pending' category at a level that is fairer to authors and in accord with journal publishing norms. Though we have little evidence at present, review process times is an issue in the competition between journals. Here is some illustrative advertising (turnarounds 'within 10 days'!) from the Journal of Medical Internet Research [7]:

Advantages of choosing JMIR to publish your research:

Fast-track review and rapid publishing: guaranteed peer-review and editorial decisions within 10 days, guaranteed publication within 4 weeks after acceptance (peer-reviewers are paid to deliver rapid and high-quality peer review reports)

Open Access: FREE access, NO subscription required to read articles, first open access journal in health informatics (since 1999)

Authors retain copyright and can republish their work for example as book chapters or their personal homepage (as long as the original publication in JMIR is acknowledged)
...
Author-friendly services and processes...
...
Acceptance rate 40% (as of 2/2004): Save yourself the hassle to send around your paper from journal to journal (and hearing after 6 months that it has not even been sent out for peer-review).... [8]

Roger Atkinson and Catherine McLoughlin
AJET Production Editor and AJET Editor

Endnotes

1. ASET (Australian Society for Educational Technology) (1985). Editorial. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 1(1), 1. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet1/editorial1-1.html
2. ASET Archives. http://www.ascilite.org.au/aset-archives/
3. We are grateful to President Cathy Gunn and the ASCILITE Executive for supporting the creation of this archive.
4. We acknowledge with thanks the excellent support from Allan Christie and NetSpot staff. http://www.netspot.com.au/
5. Hedberg, J. G. (1986). Editorial. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 2(1), ii. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet2/editorial2-1.html
6. Atkinson, R.J. and McLoughlin, C.M. (2005). Editorial. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 21(4), iii-viii. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet21/editorial21-4.html
7. Journal of Medical Internet Research. http://www.jmir.org/
8. Why choose JMIR? http://www.jmir.org/?JMIR_Home:Why_choose_JMIR%3F

Conferences advertised in AJET 22(1)	3-6 December. http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/sydney06/
		AusWeb 2006 Australis Noosa Lakes Resort Sunshine Coast, Queensland 1-5 July 2006 http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/
	10-13 July 2006, The University of Western Australia, Perth WA http://conference.herdsa.org.au/2006/
		ALT-C 2006: The next generation http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2006/ 13th International Conference of the Association for Learning Technology Edinburgh, Scotland, 5-7 September 2006

The Australasian Journal of Educational Technology is a refereed research journal published four times per year by the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE). Members of ASCILITE and ISPI (Vic) receive AJET as a part of their membership benefits.

For details on submission of manuscripts, subscriptions and access to the AJET online archives, please see http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/

For editorial inquiries, contact the Editor, Associate Professor Catherine McLoughlin, School of Education (ACT), Australian Catholic University, PO Box 256, Dickson ACT 2602, Australia. Email: C.McLoughlin@signadou.acu.edu.au, Tel: +61 2 6209 1100 Fax +61 2 6209 1185. For review process, production matters and subscriptions contact the Production Editor and Business Manager, Dr Roger Atkinson, 5/202 Coode Street, Como WA 6152, Australia. Email: rjatkinson@bigpond.com, Tel: +61 8 9367 1133.

AJET is managed by a committee nominated by ASCILITE. Pending 2006 nominations, the interim AJET Management Committee comprises:

Catherine McLoughlin (Editor), Australian Catholic University
Roger Atkinson (Production Editor)
Carolyn Dowling, Australian Catholic University
Mike Keppell, Hong Kong Institute of Education
Lori Lockyer, University of Wollongong
Appointments pending

© 2006. All rights reserved. No part of this journal may be reprinted or reproduced without permission from the publishers. ISSN 1449-3098 (print) 1449-5554 (online).