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Editorial

AJET's new Management Committee

Discussions are proceeding amongst ASCILITE Executive and AJET's editorial team on the formation of a new Management Committee for AJET. This will replace the previous joint ASCILITE and ASET Committee that became redundant upon the dissolution of ASET at the end of 2005. The new Committee is likely to include Convenors of previous ASCILITE Conferences, previous Editors of AJET, and Executive nominees. A detailed announcement will appear in AJET 21(4) editorial.

Length of AJET articles

Writing editorial notes on specifications for the lengths of articles is not the most exciting of topics. Nevertheless, it is a topic that warrants a continuous watching brief by editors of scholarly publications. To begin with, in our case there is a somewhat mundane problem in production: filling each issue as close as possible to the practical limit of about 150 pages imposed by our use of C5 envelopes (229 x 162 mm). These provide the most economical format for Australia Post [1] distribution of the printed version of AJET (A5 format, 210 x 148 mm) to Australian subscribers and ASCILITE members. The thickness of 150 pages of 80 g/sq m paper plus covers is about 8.5 mm, which amounts to a tight squeeze for C5 prepaid envelopes. During the years 1999 to 2005, AJET's articles remained at average lengths that allowed up to 7-8 articles per issue (range 18.1-19.2 pages, calculated annually), but in 2006 to date, we have averaged 21.0 pages per article. This 'blowout' is one factor that has prompted the brief review of length specifications summarised in Tables 1 and 2.

Table 1: Some illustrative examples of length specifications

TypeAcronymAccessLength specification
JournalAARLOpenManuscripts should not exceed 5000 words
AEROpenPaper length should be approximately 5,000 to 6,000 words...
AJETOpen5000-8000 words (MS Word count)
ALT-JSubsPapers should not exceed 5,000 words
BJETSubs...should not normally exceed 4000 words including references
CALL-EJOpenFull length articles should not exceed 5,000 words
CJLTOpen...should not exceed 6500 words
DESubsArticles should not exceed 7,000 words
e-JISTOpen...normally be between 2000 and 6000 words
EROpenArticles should run from 5,000 to 7,500 words...
HERDSubs5,000-7,000 words (including tables, figures, references etc).
JALNOpenNo statement on length.
JETSOpenFull length articles (between 4000 and 7000 words)
JCMCOpen...should be roughly 7,000-10,000 words.
ProceedingsAARE 2006Open...about 15 pages maybe 20 pages limit, ...about 7000 words.
ASCILITE 2006OpenFull papers (typically 8-10 pages); Concise papers (max 4 pages)
ASCILITE '05, '04Open10 pages (full) or 4 pages (concise)
AUQF2006Open...no more than four A4 pages or 2000 words in length,...
AusWeb06Open...full papers (3,500 to 5,000 words)
HERDSA '06Open3000 words
HERDSA '03Open3000-4000 words
ODLAA '05Open...between 3000 and 4000 words
ODLAA '03OpenFull papers... 10-12 pages... Short papers.. 5-7 pages plus references.
TLF '06, '05Open...no more than 5000 words (same in 2005)
TLF '04, '03Open...no more than 3000 words (same in 2003)

Table 2: References for Table 1

AcronymFull nameURL
AAREAustralian Association for Research in Education http://www.aare.edu.au/confpap.htm
AARLAustralian Academic & Research Libraries http://alia.org.au/publishing/aarl/
AERAustralian Educational Researcher http://www.aare.edu.au/aer/about.htm
AJETAustralasian Journal of Educational Technologyhttp://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/
ALT-JALT-J: Research in Learning Technology http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/09687769.asp
ASCILITEAustralasian Society for Computers in Learning
in Tertiary Education		 http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences.html
AUQFAustralian Universities Quality Forum http://www.auqa.edu.au/auqf/2006/
AusWebAustralasian World Wide Web Conferencehttp://ausweb.scu.edu.au/
BJETBritish Journal of Educational Technology http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0007-1013&site=1
CALL-EJCALL-EJ Online http://www.tell.is.ritsumei.ac.jp/callejonline/
CJLTCanadian Journal of Learning and Technologyhttp://www.cjlt.ca/
DEDistance Education http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/01587919.asp
e-JISTe-Journal of Instructional Science and Technology http://www.usq.edu.au/electpub/e-jist/
EREducational Researcher http://www.aera.net/publications/?id=317
HERDHigher Education Research and Development http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/07294360.asp
HERDSAHigher Education Research and Development
Society of Australasia		 http://www.herdsa.org.au/conferences.php
JALNJournal of Asynchronous Learning Networks http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/jaln/index.asp
JCMCJournal of Computer-Mediated Communicationhttp://jcmc.indiana.edu/
ODLAAOpen and Distance Learning Society of Australiahttp://www.odlaa.org/
TLFTeaching and Learning Forum http://lsn.curtin.edu.au/tlf/tlf-pubs.html

Tables 1 and 2 represent a 'quick' selection from a large list of journal and conference proceedings that may be relevant for educational technology researchers [2], rather than a systematic stratified sample. However it does indicate that AJET is similar to its peer journals, and that conference proceedings tend to specify similar to somewhat shorter lengths (AJET's A5 page size is approximately equal to 0.5-0.6 A4 pages for a typical conference's specification of length and format). Some conferences specify shorter lengths, e.g. HERDSA, or specify two classes, e.g. ASCILITE.

Figure 1

Figure 1: Distribution of AJET article lengths, 20(1) to 22(3) inclusive

Whilst AJET's length specification appears reasonable when compared with others, it's really necessary to monitor actual lengths, as illustrated in Figure 1. A significant proportion of AJET articles exceed 8000 words. Having noted that, does it matter? Pending further investigation, here is some sound advice from AARE [3]:

Deciding the length of a paper is an academic maturity test for intending presenters and is related inextricably with the topic being treated. The issue is how many words does it take to write a manageable "chunk" or piece of work. Precedence could be taken from the discipline imposed by journal articles, shorter rather than longer.

Roger Atkinson and Catherine McLoughlin
AJET Production Editor and AJET Editor

Endnotes

  1. Australia Post. http://www.auspost.com.au/
  2. See AJET, http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/about/ref/references.html, for lists of related journals and conference proceedings.
  3. Australian Association for Research in Education. How long should a "paper" be? [verified 5 Sep 2006] http://www.aare.edu.au/conf2006/faq.htm

Conferences
advertised
in AJET 22(3)		 ASCILITE 2006 logo

3-6 December. http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/sydney06/

ASCILITE logo

Awards 2006
for exemplary use of electronic technologies in teaching and learning in tertiary education
http://www.ascilite.org.au/awards.html


education.au conference logo

Global Summit 2006
Technology Connected Futures

17-19 October 2006, Sydney, Australia
http://www.educationau.edu.au/globalsummit2006

Evaluations and Assessment Conference 2006 logo
Curtin University of Technology, Perth, 30 Nov - 1 Dec 2006. http://lsn.curtin.edu.au/eac2006/

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
See Editorial 22(3) (above) for advice on AJET's new Management Committee
Copyright in individual articles contained in Australasian Journal of Educational Technology and its predecessor title is vested in each of the authors in respect of his or her contributions. Copyright in AJET is vested in ASET (1985-86), AJET Publications (1987-1996), ASCILITE and ASET (1997-2005), and ASCILITE (from 2006).

© 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).

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