8 minute read
What is an academic journal?
What does it mean to be the editor of The Australian Educational Researcher Journal?
As Editor-in-Chief of The Australian Educational Researcher, I lead a team of eight Associate Editors, so I don’t act alone, but that said, the final decision over what we publish rests with me. When a paper is submitted to the journal, our Co-ordinating Associate Editor will allocate it to a member of the team to ‘manage’ (as we call it) over its life with the journal. She tries to allocate papers according to our own areas of expertise – the team includes people with many different research interests, including educational psychology, educational sociology, education policy studies, curriculum and pedagogy, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education, mathematics education, literacy education and so on – but sometimes we are also called upon to manage papers outside of our areas. She makes sure that she avoids any known conflicts of interest for the editorial team. So, for example, we don’t manage papers submitted by people who work at the same university as we do, or with whom we have research partnerships, but we also keep a keen eye on that individually.
What does the submission process look like?
Before submitting their paper, authors prepare an anonymised version of the paper, which includes neither their name, nor anything else that might identify them. All papers submitted to the journal are subject to double blind review, meaning that the reviewers don’t know who the author is (although if the paper is published they eventually find out!) and the authors don’t know who the reviewers are.
The first thing we do upon receipt of a manuscript is to read it closely and make a decision about whether it should go out for review. We make this first decision on the basis of whether we think the paper is a good fit for our readership and the aims of our journal, and whether we think the quality of the research and writing makes the paper a potential candidate for publication. If we decide at that point that the paper should not be sent to reviewers, we write the authors some feedback, to give them an idea of what they might do to improve the paper to get it ready for submitting elsewhere.
What does the review process look like?
If we decide that the paper should go for review, then we look for two reviewers who have a good level of expertise in the area of the paper and invite them to review it. If they accept the invitation, we give them four weeks to read the paper, write some constructive feedback to the author and make a recommendation to the Editorial Team. Their recommendation can be ‘Accept’, ‘Request Minor Revisions’, ‘Request Major Revisions’ or ‘Reject’.
In my time as a journal editor, I have never known one paper to be accepted without any revisions, and I could count on one hand the number that are accepted after only minor revisions. The majority of published papers would have been through a round of major revisions and then a further round of minor ones, and sometimes more.
When the reviews come in, the editor managing the paper makes an onbalance decision, based on their own reading of the paper and the comments and recommendations of the reviewers. Sometimes it’s a relatively straightforward matter – for example where both reviewers recommend major revisions and their suggestions for improvement are similar – but sometimes it’s more complex, for example if one reviewer has recommended minor revisions and the other has recommended the paper be rejected. In those difficult cases, especially if the paper isn’t directly in an area where the managing editor or I have great expertise, we will go to a third reviewer to help us make the decision.
What happens if a paper is rejected? How do people deal with rejection?
Rejection is never easy and while in the academic world we tend to grow a ‘thick skin’ relatively quickly – there’s generally a lot of rejection to contend with! In my experience, the sting never really goes out of it. One of the biggest challenges for early career researchers (which is the name we give to people who are within their first five years post-doctorate) is to not let the critique and rejection undermine their confidence in themselves as researchers and academics.
It is really important for early career academics to be well supported as they establish themselves, and good mentoring is a really important part of this. As a journal editor, I can’t prevent people from having their work rejected, but I can ensure that, as far as possible, rejection comes with constructive feedback that both affirms what’s good about the work and provides some tangible and practical advice for how to improve it. That’s one of the things that occupies a lot of time and headspace for me as an editor. I don’t think there’s an academic alive who hasn’t had at least one paper rejected at some point in their career. The trick is to then build on the feedback that comes along with it and not let yourself lose momentum with the work. Putting it ‘in the bin’ is hardly ever the right response, but it can be hard not to sometimes.
Rejection from one journal doesn’t preclude you from reworking the paper and resubmitting it somewhere else – and it’s not always the case that the ‘somewhere else’ is a lesser journal, as sometimes it’s more about the fit between the paper and the journal and the community of readers the journal has. The more experienced we are as academics the better we tend to get at pitching our work to the right journal.
FROM THE AUTHORS
We feel extremely privileged to share this opportunity to learn about Dr Mockler’s work in academia, as well as developing a deeper understanding of the process involved in developing the highest quality academic journals. The opportunity to research this paper and interview Dr Mockler taught us about the submission, review and rejection process. It enabled us to gain further insight into the elite world of academia, and how it is relevant to our everyday experiences. This project has inspired us to begin our ‘Junior Journal Club’, where we are able to explore the world of academia and further develop inquiring minds alongside our peers. We hope to encourage a generation that is well informed and educated regarding academic journals, as they are often inaccessible or difficult to understand for the vast majority of the population.
Global skills in Religion and Ethics
BY MARY NICOLAS
In an increasingly globalised world, there is a call to offer an education that reflects the shift in our society with a holistic curriculum that prepares students for life beyond school in the 21st century. At the core of my own teaching philosophy is the belief that students need opportunities to embark on a learning journey in which they are not told what to think or how to think, but rather to be equipped with the skills necessary to become critically thinking and empathetic global citizens.
The skills needed to succeed in today’s environment supersede content knowledge. A global set of transferable skills is necessary for students to be able to thrive beyond the classroom. After reading Oxford University’s position paper (2020) on ‘Global Skills’, I was prompted to enrol in the online course ‘Global Skills: Empowering 21st Century Learners’ through the University’s Department for Continuing Education. Global skills are grouped by Oxford University into five clusters: Communication and Collaboration; Creativity and Critical thinking; Intercultural Competence and Citizenship; Emotional Selfregulation and Wellbeing; and Digital Literacies, which make up a ‘Learner Portfolio’, much like the International Baccalaureate’s (IB) Learner Profile, through which the IB aims to develop “inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect” (2017). These global skills allow an individual to think critically, solve problems and work collaboratively.
Twenty-first century learning is central to Pymble’s philosophy, making the development of global skills an essential component of our four strategic pillars; Academic Intelligence, Social Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence and Digital Intelligence, which are collectively designed to prepare students for success in a rapidly changing world. This is achieved through embedding 21st century skills - otherwise known as the ‘6 Cs of Deep Learning’ (Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Creativity, Citizenship, Character) - into the curriculum. Each of these frameworks and their respective competencies highlight the importance of human connection and wellbeing. An environment that supports deep learning is one that promotes social and mental wellbeing, in turn optimising the student learning experience.
Global skills are a vital part of education for today’s students. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2018), this
presents an opportunity and a challenge, whereby students must learn to engage in a more interconnected world through appreciating, understanding and benefitting from cultural differences - a lifelong process that education can shape. This speaks to my heart as an educator and as a parent.
Religion and Ethics as taught at Pymble is therefore positioned to prepare students for 21st century learning as it is a skills based subject with a focus on deep learning. In 2020, Year 7 students had the opportunity to engage in a pilot unit on Aboriginal Spirituality and Belief Systems, designed by Jacinta Wells, Head of Religion and Ethics. The learning intention for this unit lies within the dimension of Citizenship, whereby students develop an understanding and empathy towards diverse worldviews and values. In particular, we focused on the values of our First Nations Peoples and how they interact with the world around them, both in the past and the present. We achieved this aim by engaging students with a pre-polling of their knowledge on Aboriginal Spirituality and Belief Systems in order to establish our baseline of growth. The pre and post polling reflected that student knowledge and understanding improved with a 60 minute lesson with respect to the learning intention.
100
64%
0
5%
5% (1)
17%
5% 5%
17% (3) 64% (11) 5% (1) 5% (1)
Year 7 Aboriginal Spirituality and Belief Systems Pre Poll
100
86%
0
0%
0% (0)
0% 6% 6%
0% (0) 6% (1) 86% (13) 6% (1)
Year 7 Aboriginal Spirituality and Belief Systems Post Poll
