Editorial 24(5) (original) (raw)

Impact factor and education journals: a critical examination and analysis

International Journal of Educational Research, 2006

Scientific journals are the primary mode of formal communication in science. The ISI Impact factor, a bibliometric indicator that measures the citation rate of the ''average'' article in a journal, has been widely used for the assessment of the quality of scientific production of individuals, research teams or institutions. The purpose of this paper was to present the impact factor, examine the main limitations in its calculation and applications and to give a general overview of the impact factor of education journals for the period 2000-2005. Several problems related to the calculation of the impact factor have raised serious concerns about its validity and usefulness. Our findings suggest that education journals included in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) represent about 11% of the active, referred, academic journals. Education journals have relative low impact factors, in absolute values and in comparison to other Social Science categories. Application of the intraclass correlation coefficient showed that journals belonging to the ''Education and Educational Research'' category had relative stable impact factor values for the examined 6 years. This was not the case for the journals from the ''Education, Special'' category. It was concluded that the use of impact factor for the evaluation of journals, articles and researchers should be done with considerable care. r

Canadian and International Education Journal Index

Canadian and International Education/ …, 2007

It was in 1994, when Douglas Ray and David Radcliffe were co-editors of the Canadian and International Education Journal (CIEJ) that the idea of an Index for the journal was advanced. The task was initially planned for 1996, and as research associate to Douglas Ray, I was selected to compile this Index. However, Education for Human Rights, later published by the International Bureau of Education, UNESCO, then the third edition of the Social Change and Education in Canada a textbook for the Faculty of Education took away all my 20hour/week time. It is thirteen years later that, as Administrative Assistant to the Journal Editor, that I could realize the dream. That was Suzanne's idea to get the Index published in this special third issue of Volume 36, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Comparative and International Education Society of Canada. I was lucky to have the unfailing assistance and support of Ms. Chen Jie, and of Mr. Mohsen Mahmoudi. Both were equally dedicated to the job, eager to contribute long hours for this work, and above all, were never afraid to ask for clarification. Without them, this Index would not have been completed. I would like to acknowledge here the hard work and serious research of Ms. Chen and of Mr. Mahmoudi. They have done their best. Some mistakes and errors that may come to your attention are solely mine. This Index includes all issues of the CIEJ, from volume 1 to volume 36. Each entry has the author(s)'s name (s) and the title of the article. We tried to have the region, country, provinces or states as the first keyword, situating the article's scope within its geographical area(s). The keywords are kept within a reasonable length. Articles in French have also their "mots-clés" to facilitate the searches. At the end of the Index, you will find the three Proceedings of the Society (1967, 1968, and 1970), during its founding period. We could not locate the other two (1969 and 1971) and indeed, cannot ascertain whether they were ever produced. We hope that you will find in this Index some of the necessary sources for your research, and the team would like to invite you to send us your comments and suggestions so the next Index will benefit from all and for all.

Content Analysis of the Papers in 2015 High-Impact A-Class SSCI Journals

It was aimed in this study to reveal the general tendency of studies in the field of education by examining the papers in the high-impact A-class SSCI journals, to which qualified papers are accepted from all round the world, in terms of their dependent-independent variables, sample or study groups, research designs, data collection instruments, and data analysis techniques. The descriptive survey model was used in the research. The population of the research was all the journals surveyed in the field of educational sciences by SSCI. The journals and papers examined were selected with the purposive sampling method. 169 papers from six journals were subjected to examination within the scope of the research. Descriptive analysis and content analysis methods were used for analyzing the data. It was consequently seen that the papers used dependent variable of " student " the most which was followed by " teacher. " The most studied variable along with " student " was " academic performance. " It was found that a quite large number of dependent variables were used in the papers examined. It can be understood that studies on students among all study groups occupied the largest place, which was followed by teachers. It was seen that quantitative data analyses and experimental research studies was addressed more in the papers. Several documents and tests were mostly preferred as data collection instruments. It was noticed that the most used data analysis method was the regression analysis. Finally, some recommendations were developed in accordance with the research results.

A profile of education journals

2009

ABSTRACT Once a research project has been completed, one of the most prestigious forms of publication is a journal paper. In the current outputs-driven environment there is not only increasing pressure to publish, but to publish in 'top tier'journals. However, there is little comprehensive information about the range and scope of refereed research journals in education.

Australian Education Journals: Quantitative and Qualitative Indicators

Australian Academic & Research Libraries, 2009

This paper reports on a study which applied citation-based measures to Australian education journals. Citations data were drawn from two sources, Web of Science and Scopus, and these data were used to calculate each journal's impact factor, h-index, and diffusion factor. The rankings resulting from these analyses were compared with draft rankings assigned to the journals for Excellence for Research in Australia (ERA). Scopus emerged as the citation source most advantageous to these journals and some consistency across the citation-based measures was found. Introduction and background Recent initiatives in the way research is funded in Australian higher education, firstly the Research Quality Framework (RQF) and now Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA), have prompted many disciplinary groups in the sector to focus on journal ranking and the use of citations as a measure of quality and impact, respectively. Together these comprise the cornerstone of ERA's method to assess research outputs in the form of journal articles. This paper reports on the findings of a study which, like several earlier studies, has examined a selection of Australian journals to determine their impact. 1-4 It differs from previous research in that ERA's draft list of ranked journals is available to compare tier ranking with citation-based metrics for those journals included in the study. Furthermore, the citation data used to calculate impact measures were drawn from two sources, Web of Science and Scopus, enabling additional comparisons to be drawn. In this study, Australian journals in the discipline of education are examined, extending the authors' previous investigations of social science and humanities journals. 5-7 Two papers released in December 2008, ERA Indicator Principles and ERA Indicator Descriptions, provided the higher education sector with a general outline of the indicators to be applied in the ERA process (commencing in 2009). 8, 9 Assessment of journal articles will be based on a list of ranked journals and citation data, the latter being drawn from 'the most appropriate citation data supplier for each discipline'. 9 These indicators, among others, will be tested in the first ERA round for the discipline cluster Physical, Chemical and Earth Sciences (PCE). However, citation data is not being used as an indicator in the second cluster being assessed, Humanities and Creative Arts (HCA), due the lack of available, reliable citation data in these disciplines. Instead, peer review will be applied to 20% of the research output reported. 10 At the time of writing no information is available regarding the specific indicators to be applied in the cluster Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences (SBE), in which the education discipline is located. In the opinion of the current authors the likelihood that citation data will be used in the SBE cluster is high, for two reasons. Firstly, the cluster includes a number of disciplines that are relatively well

An analysis of the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology 2013-2017

Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2018

The Australasian Journal of Educational Technology (AJET) changed its editorial policy in 2013, to focus on higher education research and on improving journal submissions. This study analyses all articles (n = 256) in AJET from 2013-2017 to determine if there has been any change in research topics, methodologies, citations, and authorship since this editorial change, and compares findings to the analysis by Hadlock et al. (2014). The present analysis revealed that the percentage of combined methods research has doubled, although the top 10 most cited articles continue to be predominantly interpretative and inferential. Research has become more student-centred and focused particularly on online collaborative learning environments, and teacher skill and knowledge development, although research gaps exist in mobile learning and gamification. The results also highlight a lack of international collaboration amongst authors, and this is an area for future research.