2014 Annual Report

2015-02-16

Current Issues in Education

2014 Annual Report

 

Dear authors, reviewers, and readers of Current Issues in Education:

 

The 2014-2015 CIE editorial staff would like to thank you and express their gratitude and appreciation to everyone who helped to make our Volume 17 with its three issues in 2014 possible. Current Issues in Education would not exist or function without the commitment of many people who volunteer their time to the everyday procedures as well as the long-term future of the journal. As we transition into the 2015 publication year and prepare to open Volume 18, we would like to reflect on the past year, which was full of changes for the journal. To reflect on and account for the journals development in more detail, we have also decided to expand our annual Highlights to an Annual Report. In the following, you will find information on

  • Overview of Developments
  • Submission and Publication Rates
  • Time to Publication
  • Impact and Visibility
    • Google Analytics
    • Academic Conferences
    • Social Media
    • Indexing
    • Participants
    • Goals for 2015

 

General Overview of Developments

2014 was a year of marked changes some planned, some unexpected for Current Issues in Education. We had to say goodbye to many long-standing members of the editorial staff, among them most notably Executive Editors Melinda Hollis and Elizabeth Reyes, as well as Assistant Executive Editor Kevin Raso, due to graduation and other positive academic reasons. We wish them all the best as they tackle the next steps in their careers. Melinda in particular was invaluable for the journal in her years of excellent leadership, providing stability and continuity, starting new initiatives, and setting a high standard for journal management and professionalism. Constantin Schreiber took over as Executive Editor at the beginning of 2014 and, after the departure of Co-Executive Editor Elizabeth Reyes in August 2014, currently is the only Executive Editor (typically, two Executive Editors work side to side). Constantin and his fellow staff members hope to be able to live up to the example set by Melinda and her colleagues and predecessors.

Current Issues in Education experienced significant editorial staff turnover in the first half of 2014 in particular, much of which was due to graduations of long-standing editors and other academic circumstances that are part of the workings of a student-run journal, but some of which was unexpected. The consequence was a shortage of (experienced) staff in the second half of 2014. To consolidate and focus on the already submitted manuscripts, we announced a submission hiatus in September, which was in effect until February 1st, 2015. During this hiatus, the journal did not start working on new submissions and instead focused on the recruitment and training of new editorial staff, as well as a general consolidation of its efforts. Since then, Assistant Executive Editors Anna Montana Cirell and Niels Piepgrass, as well as Authentications Editor Tray Geiger have joined the executive editorial staff. CIE is also very grateful for the continued, excellent service of Lucinda Watson as Copy Editor. The editorial staff in general has undergone almost a complete replacement this past year (80% of the Spring 2014 editorial staff left and was replaced), which bodes well for the future of the journal as many of the new editors might stay with the journal for years and thus will be able to provide new insights as well as continuity.

Administratively, the journal has joined a new initiative within Arizona State University ASU), the exXchange Scholarly Communications Group (SCG), which serves all the journals run out of the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at ASU. An example of this support is that SCG currently provides social media services for CIE. In the summer of 2014, the website of Current Issues in Education also moved to a new server. This was a positive move looking at the long-term development of the journal, but it also caused problems with our Archives, which are still in the process of being restored after many technical issues and delays. We expect our Archives to be restored fully, or at least as much as possible, by May 2015.

 

Submission and Publication Rates

The following data reflects information on publications, submissions, and acceptance rates for CIE in 2014:

  • We published three issues in volume 17 (2014), in which 17 articles were published.
  • 143 manuscripts were received.
  • The acceptance rate among manuscripts for which final decisions were made in 2014 was 19%.
  • 41 manuscripts are currently under review (as of February 2015).

 

Time to Publication

With the hard work and support of our editorial staff and our dedicated peer reviewers, we have been able to provide the following time to publication data in 2014:

  • 3-14 day average for internal review
  • 115-day average for blind peer review (from initial submission date to author contact with first round manuscript decision and reviewer feedback)
  • 260-day average time to publication (from initial submission through blinded review, revisions, second review, and publication)

Please note that due to the significant staff turnover, time to first round decision/publication numbers in 2014 were lower than in average years: In 2013, we had a 70-day average for blind peer review and 167-day average time to publication. With increased and trained staff, we expect to get back to or at least close to these numbers in 2015. In addition to the hard work of the editorial staff, also reflects our efforts to welcome more peer reviewers to join us in the challenging and important work that we do at CIE.  We will continue to reach out to potential peer reviewers who serve as faculty members at both national and international universities.

 

Impact and Visibility

Google Analytics

The CIE website experienced an average of 6,729 unique visitors per month, 86.4% of which were new visitors, while the remaining 13.6% were returning visitors. The majority of CIEs readers are accessing the site from the United States (58%). Other larger groups of readership come from countries all over the world, including The Philippines, India, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, Turkey, China, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Spain, The Netherlands, Germany, Hong Kong, Greece, Brazil, Singapore, Israel, Mexico, Thailand, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Russia, and others.

 

Academic Conferences

In 2014, CIE Executive Editors represented the journal at two conferences: First, in March 2014, Constantin Schreiber presented at the Comparative and International Education Societys (CIES) 2014 annual meeting in Toronto, Canada, by organizing a panel discussion with other journal editors under the title How to publish and get published: An introduction to working with and for open access and/or student-run journals. Then Constantin Schreiber and Elizabeth Reyes participated in the Journal Talks at the American Association for Educational Researchs (AERA) annual meeting in Philadelphia, PA and attended a meeting with other editors from student-run journals to exchange experiences and perspectives.

 

Social Media

We regularly share links to newly published CIE articles and other important journal news on Facebook and Twitter. Follow us on http://www.facebook.com/cieasu and @CIE_ASU. You can also find us on Academia.edu: http://asu.academia.edu/CurrentIssuesinEducationCIE. We hope that social media will continue to help attract readers, authors, and reviewers to CIE.

 

Indexing

Since 2012, CIE has been indexed in all of the following directories:

  • Cabells Directory of Publishing Opportunities (Educational Psychology and Administration)
  • Directory of Open Access Journals
  • Educational Research Abstracts Online
  • Education Research Global Observatory
  • EBSCOhost
  • ERIC
  • Genamics JournalSeek
  • H.W. Wilson
  • SCImago Journal Ranking
  • Ulrichs Periodicals Dictionary

 

Participants

Registered Users, Readers, and Reviewers

Over the course of the 2013 publication year, we increased our number of registered readers by 383 subscribers and our number of registered users by 418 to 2,749 total. It is worth noting here that you do not have to be a registered user to read the articles that CIE publishes. We also increased the number of reviewers who volunteer to serve in the blind review process and currently have about 1,700 registered peer reviewers in our database. If you have not already done so, we invite and encourage you to register on CIE's website to join in our scholarly work in the 2015 academic year. If you are interested in serving CIE as a peer reviewer you can also contact the Spring 2015 Executive Editor, Constantin Schreiber, at cie@asu.edu.

 

Goals for 2015

  • We will continue to publish articles on a revolving basis (i.e., they are published as soon as they are ready for publication after the peer review and editing processes) and produce one volume per year and three issues per volume. Issue No. 1 spans the ASU Spring semester (January May). Issue No. 2 spans the ASU summer months (May/June August/September). Issue No. 3 spans the ASU Fall semester (August/September December).
  • We will also continue to add new editorial staff with the goal of being back at 2013 numbers by the time Volume 17.3 is published.
  • Given the new editorial staff and the potential addition of more editorial staff, we aim to lower the average time for peer review and average time to publication to 2013 levels or better.
  • In an effort to continue to recruit top reviewers, we will review our reviewer data base and recruit new reviewers, particularly for research areas of high need for the journal.
  • Another key goal is to fully restore the CIE archives, which were misplaced after moving to a new server this past year.
  • The journal also aims to improve the way in which it measures its impact with the goal of providing more comprehensive and detailed statistics on users, readers, downloads, and other useful information in the 2015 Annual Report.
  • CIE will also again be represented at the AERA Journal Talks, this time in Chicago, IL and a pre-conference journal session with other journal editors.
  • Finally, we plan to increase CIE's visibility further by improving the dissemination of information about our journal to the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College community locally and to academic research globally, particularly through the increased use of the services of the edXchange Scholarly Communications Group and the development of our use of social media and other means of online outreach.

 

 

To conclude, we once again extend our thanks and appreciation to all of the authors, reviewers, readers, graduate staff, volunteers, faculty, and support service personnel who dedicated their time and expertise, to Current Issues in Education. We thank you all for your continued support of and are looking forward to an outstanding 2015 publication year!

 

 

*This report was compiled by Executive Editor Constantin Schreiber to document the development of Current Issues in Education in the 2014 publication year (Volume 17) and to outline the target trajectory in 2015 (Volume 18). Please direct any questions to cie@asu.edu.