Editorial

Idle Moment No. 22: Internationalisation revisited

Figure 1: Number of articles in AJET[2] (upper) and HERD[3] (lower),
1997-2007, by first author's region of institutional affiliation

Notes: The classification of countries into the regions Asia-Pacific and Rest of World was based upon Australia Post's charging zones [4]. Data was obtained by inspection of printed copies of the journals. The HERD counts for 2007 are incomplete.

Figure 2: Number of rejections and acceptances from AJET submissions, 2003-2006, by country or region

Aust NZ, SP SEAsia EAsia OAsia ME, Afr UK, Eur US, Ca OAmer

Australia only. New Zealand, South Pacific countries including Papua New Guinea. Including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines. China incl Hong Kong and Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand. Other Asia including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka. Middle East including Israel, Africa including Mauritius. Europe including Eastern Europe, Balkan countries, Russia. USA and Canada only. Mexico, Caribbean countries, Central and South America.

All countries in the 'NZ,SP, SEAsia, EAsia, OAsia' categories are in Australia Post's 'Asia-Pacific' zone. All others are in Australia Post's 'Rest of World' zone [4].

AJET's acceptance rate for 2003-06 was 29.5% (103 acceptances from 349 submissions; see Table 1 in Editorial 23(2) [5] for details). Figure 2 shows that there is a very large, regionally correlated variation in the ratio of acceptances (upper part of each bar) to rejections (lower part of each bar). It indicates quite forcefully that we will have to work harder on securing more acceptances of papers from the regions of the world that are the basis for AJET's aspirations to be a front ranked international journal with an Australasian character. That we are doing, through two main and complementary kinds of activities. Firstly, there is much effort going into formative advice to authors on how to improve their research projects and papers for an international academic readership, especially helping authors with a LOTE background. Secondly, we work continuously on general regional promotion of AJET. If AJET becomes a first submission choice for edtech and ICT researchers in our key regions, instead of a second or third choice (after a US or UK or European journal), as seems to happen often, AJET's acceptance rates for submissions from those regions will increase.

Idle Moment No. 23: Education journal banding study

The aim for the SORTI study was to develop "...esteem measures for Education journals, based on the collective wisdom of the profession." Firstly, we thank the educational researchers whose responses to the SORTI survey accorded AJET a high ranking in 'Area 11'. Secondly, we will resist the temptation to enter into methodological debates, and instead concentrate in this editorial upon the most immediate implications for the management and promotion of your journal. Table 1 lists the SORTI study's 'Area 11' journals in 'Esteem' ranked order [7] (first 27), to seek pointers about comparing print plus online with online only, comparing commercial (closed access) with open access, the Thomson ISI Impact Factor, and establishing an 'International Board'.

Online only journals are well-represented in Table 1, albeit in a 'middling band'. As foreshadowed previously [8], sometime in the relatively near future, AJET will have to make the transition to online only. Table 1's data suggests that we can be confident about a successful transition. Open access journals fare well in Table 1, helping to reinforce our confidence about open access as a key point in differentiating AJET. The Impact Factor [9] is perhaps not as powerful an influence in Table 1 as we had expected, and in any event AJET has obtained an Impact Factor place [5]. Lastly, in the 'International Board' column, we have described AJET's staus as 'Pending'. It is a matter which can be addressed relatively quickly. We are preparing urgently an analysis of Editorial Board compositions for the leading journals in Table 1, and a number of kindred journals, as a basis for a list of AJET Board invitees and a statement of duty expectations, for recommendation to AJET's Management Committee. We do have a well-established review routine with a large Panel of reviewers containing a very good level of international and front line practitioner representation, which is very important for AJET [10], and we will seek to have it complemented by the proposed new Board.

Although the matter of an Editorial Board for AJET was noted by AJET's Management Committee during its 23 April to 4 May 2007 meeting as an action item, it was not sufficiently advanced or important to present to Society members and readers in our Editorial 23(2) report on Committee's resolutions [5]. The reason for an international Editorial Board for AJET suddenly becoming an urgent matter can be seen in SORTI's 'QScore' tables [11]. In Area 11 (Educational Technology/ Computing/ ICT), conversion of 'EScore' (Table 1) to 'QScore', on the basis that "ISI rating and having an international editorial board were taken to be additive indicators of journal quality" [6], impacted upon AJET's ranking. This was knocked down from second to third by Computers & Education [12], an Elsevier journal with 8 issues per year costing US$341 for a personal subscription and US$1,749 for an institutional subscription. Not cheap, but it has an Impact Factor and an international Board, and in 2007 published about 124 articles amounting to about 2104 pages.

Increased Australian interest in journal rankings has been stimulated by the Research Quality Framework (RQF) [13] drawing nearer and nearer to having a real impact upon scholarly publishing. The aim for Australia's RQF is "develop the basis for an improved assessment of the quality and impact of publicly funded research and an effective process to achieve this" [DEST, 13]. A grand aim, but for journals and editors, the devil is in the detail. Take, for example, this description (you need to know that "A research 'outlet' refers to the avenues in which an output appears, such as journal name, conference, book publisher, theatre, art gallery, etc") [14]:

What is Research Outlet Analysis?
Research outlets will be classified into four tiers against which output counts will be presented to the Assessment Panels. The distribution of the tiers is expected to vary slightly across disciplines, however, they will approximate: Tier A* (top 5%), Tier A (next 15%), Tier B (next 30%) and Tier C (bottom 50%).

Outlets are to be ranked according to the quality of the outputs appearing in them, not their importance to the discipline.[14]

How are the ranked outlet lists developed and agreed?
The outlet rankings are developed and agreed by relevant discipline bodies, not DEST. [14]

Discipline	Ranking Organisation
Education Studies; Curriculum Studies; Professional Development of Teachers; Other Education;	Australian Association for Research in Education; Centre for the Study of Research Training and Impact (SORTI). Rankings can be viewed at http://www.newcastle.edu.au/centre/sorti

So, that takes us back to the beginning of this Idle Moment No. 23! Journal banding survey seems to translate to Research Outlet Analysis and the result, in RQF newspeak, is the ranked outlet list.

As all authors will tend to make the initial submissions of their work to a Tier A* (top 5%) or Tier A (next 15%) journal, the years ahead for editors and journals are likely to be years of blood, sweat and four tiers [16].

Idle Moment No. 24: Growth rates for some leading journals

Figure 3: Number of pages per year for five leading educational technology journals. See Table 1 for full names and URLs. Page counts are from each journal's website, excluding Roman numbered pages but including book reviews and other non-Roman page numbered content. The 2007 counts are complete, as at 17 October 2007, for all except ETS.

Roger Atkinson and Catherine McLoughlin
AJET Production Editor and AJET Editor

Endnotes

1. AJET Editorial 20(3). http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet20/editorial20-3.html
2. AJET. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/
3. Higher Education Research and Development (HERD). Taylor & Francis Group. http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/07294360.asp
4. Australia Post. International Easy Guide. http://www.auspost.com.au/internationalpost/resources/pdf/EasyGuideMarch2007.pdf
5. AJET Editorial 23(2). http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet23/editorial23-2.html
6. Centre for the Study of Research Training and Impact (SORTI) (2007). Education journal banding study: A summary of methodology. University of Newcastle, Australia. http://www.newcastle.edu.au/centre/sorti/Banding/mehtod.html
7. SORTI (2007). Ranked lists of journals in the 26 areas within Education by Esteem . http://www.newcastle.edu.au/centre/sorti/files/Esteem%20ranking%20by%20area.pdf
8. AJET Editorial 23(3). http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet23/editorial23-3.html
9. Thomson Scientific. The ISI Impact Factor. http://scientific.thomson.com/free/essays/journalcitationreports/impactfactor/ (see also other references listed under http://scientific.thomson.com/free/essays/ )
10. AJET. Panel of reviewers. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/about/rev-panel-current.html
11. SORTI (2007). Ranked lists of journals in the 26 areas within Education by a Quality measure. http://www.newcastle.edu.au/centre/sorti/files/QScore%20ranking%20by%20area.pdf
12. Computers & Education. http://www.elsevier.com/locate/issn/03601315
13. DEST (Department of Education, Science and Training) (2007). Research Quality Framework: Assessing the quality and impact of research in Australia. [viewed 14 Oct 2007] http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/research_sector/
    policies_issues_reviews/key_issues/research_quality_framework/default.htm
14. DEST (2007). Frequently Asked Questions: Bibliometrics. [viewed 14 Oct 2007] http://www.dest.gov.au/NR/rdonlyres/8F12ADCB-C221-421E-A128-2C344CD58BDF/18516/FAQBibliometrics.pdf
15. DEST (2007). Rankings Contacts. http://www.dest.gov.au/NR/rdonlyres/92FDBE2E-B011-4286-AF50-795B7C1599AD/18965/RankingsContacts16Oct07.pdf
16. After Sir Winston Churchill, 13 May 1940. See (for example) http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/churchill.htm or http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=391

Conferences advertised in AJET 23(4)	2-5 December 2007 http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/
		ALT-C 2008: Rethinking the Digital Divide Leeds, UK, 9-11 September 2008 http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2008/
	Keynote speaker Norman Mailer Pulitzer Prize Winning Author, Journalist and Playwright Keynote speaker Marc Prensky The Original "Digital Natives" Author 19th International Conference on College Teaching and Learning 14-18 April 2008, Jacksonville, Florida Submission deadline 30 Nov 2007 http://www.teachlearn.org/

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 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.

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).

© 2007. 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).