Figure 1: Total submissions and acceptance rates,
years 2003-08 and 2009-10, by region or country
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Editorial 27(4)
Roger Atkinson
| 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 (d) | % 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 | 47 | 9 | 5 | 0 | 30 | 30 | 33.0% |
| 2006 | 100 | 59 | 9 | 3 | 0 | 29 | 29 | 29.0% |
| 2007 | 119 | 67 | 14 | 4 | 0 | 34 | 30 | 28.6% |
| 2008 | 127 | 71 | 20 | 1 | 0 | 35 | 42 | 27.6% |
| 2009 | 186 | 95 | 27 | 2 | 0 | 62 | 45 | 33.3% |
| 2010 | 236 | 126 | 25 | 6 | 0 | 78 | 54 | 33.5% |
| 2011(a) | 179 | 78 | 1 | 0 | 85 | 15 | 9 | - |
During the years spanned by Table 1, quite significant economies with editorial staff time have been effected by the retirement of the printed version at the end of 2007 [3], and by the use of an "editorial reject process" (i.e. review advice is composed by AJET Editorial staff, usually within about 10 days of receipt, though some involve longer periods). Another step we took was the withdrawal of the Production Editor from ascilite Conference Proceedings duties after 2009.
Whilst these measures have helped considerably, they were not sufficient. The number of articles in the "Pending column" remains large, and turnaround times for externally reviewed articles are mostly in the 4-5 month range, substantially above our desired benchmark of three months maximum between receipt and outcomes advice to authors. Of course we have sought ways to engage more persons in the conduct of AJET. We are very well served by a large and diverse Review Panel [4], and even in these trying times, the acceptances of our "AJET: Invitation to review an article" invitations remain at a very pleasing high level. However, in relation to the need for Associate Editors to be review process facilitators, advisers to authors and copy editors, progress has stalled (one reason is the all consuming problem of the "Pending" column). The last serious plan for Associate Editors was one advanced as a contribution towards the planning for ascilite Sydney 2010 [5]. Among other matters, this plan sought to highlight the scope for integrating "Program Committee" work for Conferences with AJET's need for a major expansion of its volunteer staffing. It concluded with the paragraph:
AJET's Associate Editor needsThe proposal did not acquire any momentum - if our recollection is correct, we did not receive an acknowledgment. This may have been due to a potentially alarming sentence under the heading "Budget implications" and referring to incentives to attract volunteers, namely "Waiver or discounting of Conference registration fees for 25-30 persons, plus some allowance for travel expenses, may reduce Conference income by $30-35,000" [5]. Nevertheless, the effort to increase AJET's Editorial staffing, and to establish a positive interaction between AJET and the editorial processes for the annual ascilite Conference needs to be restarted.
Although this is a tentative plan, there is a very attractive possibility for using the "Program Committee" proposal, as outlined above, as a developing, testing and inducting pathway for associate editors to support AJET's growth. The culmination could be a special workshop (Catherine has volunteered) conducted at ascilite 2010, as a debriefing and team bonding exercise, from which we could expect the prime candidates to emerge, well-prepared to take up a good share of the rather heavy load at present carried by Roger Atkinson. [5]
On a brighter note, Table 1 shows good progress in a number of the most significant performance benchmarks for AJET. An increase in the number of articles received per year and the maintenance of a "mid-range" acceptance rate has lead to an increasing number of articles published per year. These are positives, although regular publication of such comprehensive data is not a practice followed by the journals generally regarded as AJET's peers (see Editorial 27(2), Figure 1 [6], for a list of AJET's "most influential" or "best known" peers). Whilst no doubt these peer journals compile data similar to Table 1's data, usually it is made available only to the publisher, editorial staff and possibly also the journal's Editorial Board. One potential disadvantage in AJET's regular publication of data as in Table 1 is that AJET's Management Committee, AJET's Editorial Board and ascilite Executive do not have any privileged position, that is access to data that is not made available to AJET's authors, reviewers and readers generally. Some may find that disconcerting.
Another performance benchmark important to projecting AJET as a genuinely "Australasian" journal is maintained in files with cryptic names like "ajet-acc-rate-internat10.xls" (for interpretations of "Australasian", see the 2004 announcement of name change for AJET [7]). Again, it presents data that is not normally made available to all and sundry. Nevertheless, we present an update in the next section.
Figure 1: Total submissions and acceptance rates,
years 2003-08 and 2009-10, by region or country
Notes: Aust is Australia only; NZ Sth Pacific includes Papua New Guinea;Figure 1 suggests mixed progress towards a broader Australasian adoption of AJET as a highly ranked choice for submissions of articles. Nevertheless, we feel encouraged to persist with determination. Apart from the goal of growing AJET and keeping up with our major peers [6], the "Australasian orienting" work makes contributions, albeit very, very modestly small, towards wider community goals such as projecting ascilite into the broader Australasian region, supporting the roles of English language and open access publication of scholarly research, and encouraging the professional development of authors, especially in the developing countries of our region of the world.
SE Asia includes Thailand, Philippines; East Asia includes Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea;
Other Asia includes India, Bangladesh, Pakistan;
Middle East includes Turkey, North Cyprus, Israel, Egypt; Africa includes Mauritius;
UK and Europe includes Eastern Europe, Russia, Cyprus, Georgia;
Other America includes Mexico, Caribbean countries, Central and South America.
Missing data for 2010: Country of origin data not available for 3 submissions, i.e. only 233 of the 236 submissions could be counted.
Roger Atkinson and Catherine McLoughlin
AJET Production Editor and AJET Editor
| Conferences advertised in AJET 27(3) |
 Hobart, 4-7 December 2011. http://www.leishman-associates.com.au/ascilite2011/ | ||
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 Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, 2-5 October 2011. http://www.ut.ac.id/icde2011/ | |||
 | ePortfolios Australia Conference 2011 (EAC2011) Curtin University, Perth, 17-18 October 2011 http://eportfoliosaustralia.word press.com/conference-eac2011/ | ||
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 Adelaide, 24-25 November 2011. http://www.adelaide.edu.au/clpd/aall2011/ | |||
 Singapore, 6-9 December 2011. http://www.cdtl.nus.edu.sg/tlhe/ | |||
The Australasian Journal of Educational Technology (AJET) is a refereed research journal published 7 times per year by the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ascilite). AJET retired its printed version (ISSN 1449-3098) at the end of Volume 23, 2007, and from Volume 24, 2008, the journal is open access, online only (ISSN 1449-5554), and does not have paid subscriptions.
© 2011 Authors retain copyright in their individual articles, whilst copyright in AJET as a compilation is retained by the publisher. Except for authors reproducing their own articles, no part of this journal may be reprinted or reproduced without permission. For further details, and for details on submission of manuscripts and open access to all issues of AJET published since the journal's foundation in 1985, 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: Catherine.McLoughlin@acu.edu.au, Tel: +61 2 6209 1100 Fax +61 2 6209 1185.
For review process, production and business matters, 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. Desktop publishing (PDF versions) and HTML by Roger Atkinson.
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