Saturdays are always full of… emotions and cleaning! Tonight I watched another ALT 2021 session entitled “Getting published in ‘Research in in Learning Technology’: A Workshop with the editors” with speakers: Sarah Honeychurch, James Brunton, and Louise Drumm – all professors and editors. They are all editors for the journal Research in Learning Technology. Honeychurch talked about the journal and all the topics that are published in Research in Learning Technology. They are an open access journal that started in 1993, and they have rolling publications! Honeychurch mentioned that they were closed for submissions last year because of heavy volume! They are peer reviewed and they check for originality. For reviewers, they are integrated with Publons – which I have enjoyed. They then did breakout rooms with a cool activity: “decide which of the titles below you would accept or reject for publication in Research in Learning Technology.” I thought that was a clever way of learning about the journal and topics published that is active. After 10-15 minutes, they did a whole group feedback with a prompt: “How did you decide to accept or reject?” The different groups shared their process verbally or in the chat. They spoke about IRB requirements and the power of finding collaborators. Brunton then did an activity that was fun: “quick-fire activity: let’g get desk-rejected” How? In the chat the audience shared no references, no IRB approval… ethics. The editorial team crowdsourced a series of pitfalls for desk rejection: mistaking evaluation for research, not moving beyond single tool-sue in a single scenario, being technologically deterministic, ignoring history and depth of topic… lack of creativity. Brunton asked the audience to keep in mind: “What is the contribution of this article to the literature?” One pitfall that caught my attention was “ignoring the recent developments and parallel research” and Brunton stressed backing up with a robust theoretical angle. The suggestions for publishing in Research in Learning Technology were: follow the journal guidelines, familiarize yourself with published article, and ask the editors. Several times Brunton stated: “ask yourself: what is the hook.” The contribution of the article to the literature should be strong and stated in the introduction. The next breakout room session had the goal of having participants work in their previous teams to agree on an article title and sections. This breakout session was a little longer, providing time for participants to plan and agree on their “submission.” It is fascinating how different journals operate and their expectations. I did not know about this journal and got some ideas!
