This brief post on where someone should publish in Technology Enhanced Learning has been prompted by an ex-colleague asking me for some advice. So I thought a public post on this and why you would or would not want to publish in Technology Enhanced Learning, if you are about to undertake a project or have undertaken a project. Remember you will need ethics, if you are publishing data about people.

Firstly, you have to have research that should add something to what’s already been published – why do you want to publish? Often projects and subsequent articles for publishing don’t review the recent literature to date (and anything seminal in addition), nor do they have the pedagogic rationale (Kirkwood and Price, 2013) and are not pedagogy first, as I refer to previously and are technology led, solutions looking for teaching and learning problems.

If you did want to publish in field of Higher Education and Technology Enhanced Learning, then Professor Malcolm Tight, University of Lancaster. in an article for the Times Higher Supplement (2018), mentions there are 86 higher education journals, but 28 are the ‘most reputatable’. These are listed below.

Malcolm Tight’s key higher education journals

  • Academic Medicine
  • Accounting Education
  • Active Learning in Higher Education
  • Advances in Health Sciences Education
  • Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education
  • Community College Review
  • Higher Education
  • Higher Education Policy
  • Higher Education Quarterly
  • Higher Education Research & Development
  • International Journal of Doctoral Studies
  • International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education
  • Internet and Higher Education
  • Journal of College Student Development
  • Journal of English for Academic Purposes
  • Journal of Higher Education
  • Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management
  • Journal of Hispanic Higher Education
  • Journal of Studies in International Education
  • Medical Education
  • Minerva
  • Quality in Higher Education
  • Research Evaluation
  • Research in Higher Education
  • Review of Higher Education
  • Studies in Higher Education
  • Teaching in Higher Education
  • Tertiary Education and Management

Source: Malcolm Tight, “Higher education journals: their characteristics and contribution”, Higher Education Research & Development, 2017

If you are looking at the field of Technology Enhanced Learning specifically, then the following list below is a pretty comprehensive list, with Impact Factor. I have been told that it’s best to look at the submission guidelines and depending whether it’s research or an opinion or lesson learnt article will also be a factor if the journal is right for you to publish.

Impact Factor and Technology Enhanced Learning Journals

Impact Factor (IF) and 5-Year IF have been provided for a journal where available, these are several years old now. IF of a journal is the average number of citations received per paper published in that journal during the two preceding years. Similarly, 5-year IF is the average number of times articles from a journal have been cited in the past five years.

Journal Title & URL First Issue Impact Factor (IF) 2011 /         5-Year IF
American Journal of Distance Education – 1987 – / –
Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education – 1975 0.841 / –
Australasian Journal of Educational Technology – 1985 1.517 / –
British Educational Research Journal – 1975 1.495 / –
British Journal of Educational Technology – 1970 2.098 / –
Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology – 1986 – / –
Computers & Education – 1979 2.621 / 2.970
Computers in Human Behavior – 1985 2.293/2.476
Contemporary Educational Psychology – http://bit.ly/11pWgqm 1976 2.204/3.000
Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education – http://bit.ly/11qo9i2 2000 – / –
Distance Education – http://bit.ly/15UzCwm 1980 0.974 / –
Education and Information Technologies – http://bit.ly/16cStT5 1996 – / –
Educational Psychology in Practice – http://bit.ly/11qj3Ct 1985 – / –
Educational Research – http://bit.ly/14lhHig 1958 0.48 / –
Educational Research and Evaluation – http://bit.ly/12Nuc33 1987 – / –
Educational Research Review – http://bit.ly/10FQxSm 2006 2.333 / –
Educational Technology Research and Development – http://bit.ly/11pYeqT 1953 1.085/-
Ethnography and Education – http://bit.ly/Y2hJqD 2006 – / –
IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies – http://bit.ly/14lwmtE 2008 – / –
Indian Journal of Open Learning – http://bit.ly/14I44tF 1992 – / –
Innovations in Education and Teaching International – http://bit.ly/ZvAIef 1964 0.794 / 1.012
Innovative Higher Education – http://bit.ly/Yh1Ezn 1976 – / –
Instructional Science – http://bit.ly/12Uvvxg 1972 1.828 / –
Interactive Learning Environments – http://bit.ly/15Unj3b 1990 1.163 / –
Interdisciplinary Journal of E-Learning and Learning Objects – http://bit.ly/15N3niF 2005 – / –
International Journal of Advanced Corporate Learning – http://bit.ly/182Z2Eh 2008 – / –
International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning – http://bit.ly/187Ni6i 2006 2.243 / 3.000
International Journal of Higher Education Research – http://bit.ly/ZvIDbc 1972 1.061 / –
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies – http://bit.ly/12tAbsR 1994 1.171 / 1.968
International Journal of Education and Development using ICT – 2005 – / –
International Journal of Educational Research – http://bit.ly/ZppMi2 1986 – / –
International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning – http://bit.ly/11IXtL3 2006 – / –
International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning – http://bit.ly/10hCxqn 2009 – / –
International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation – 2007 – / –
International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning – http://bit.ly/12IUrH5 2008 – / –
International Journal on E-Learning – http://bit.ly/ZMZhTn 2002 – / –
International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning – 2000 – / –
Internet and Higher Education – http://bit.ly/ZROBQa 1998 1.015 / –
Journal of Computer Assisted Learning – http://bit.ly/Y22BJN 1985 1.464 / –
Journal of Computing in Higher Education – http://bit.ly/ZzSe1V 1989 – / –
Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching – 1995 – / –
Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia – http://bit.ly/YZTcj9 1996 – / –
Journal of Educational Research – http://bit.ly/14lkojE 1991 – /1.486
Journal of Educational Technology and Society – http://bit.ly/17mLKEm 1998 1.011/-
Journal of e-Learning and Knowledge Society – http://bit.ly/ZN0mdU 2005 – / –
Journal of Information Technology and Application in Education – http://bit.ly/187KM01 2012 – / –
Journal of Interactive Learning Research – http://bit.ly/15N5VwY 1997 – / –
Journal of Interactive Media in Education – http://bit.ly/Y2g1FG 1996 – / –
Journal of the Learning Sciences – http://bit.ly/ZL889x 1991 2.000 / 3.081
Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research – http://bit.ly/15YauV5 2012 – / –
Journal of Research on Technology in Education – Direct access not available, search journal title in iCat 1990 – / –
Journal of Science Education and Technology – http://bit.ly/15UgiPL 1992 0.865 / –
Journal of Technology and Teacher Education – http://bit.ly/ZfcEbQ 1997 – / –
Journal of Workplace Learning – http://bit.ly/14HPuSL 1997 – / –
Learning and Instruction – http://bit.ly/ZfHH7p 1991 3.732 / 3.727
Learning, Media and Technology – http://bit.ly/ZMNJ2u 1975 1.000 / –
MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching – http://bit.ly/YgJ4HN 2005 – / –
Open Learning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning – http://bit.ly/15Ms5zE 1986 – / –
Practitioner Research in Higher Education – http://bit.ly/Y2kp7q 2007 – / –
Research in Learning Technology – http://bit.ly/15XEYXd 1993 – / –
Research Papers in Education – http://bit.ly/ZAqr1j 1986 0.511 / –
Technology in Society – http://bit.ly/YZnceX 1979 – / –
Technology, Pedagogy and Education – http://bit.ly/18201HM 1992 – / –

 

When to publish?

This is an interesting one. I was told a while back by a Professor of Education that when to publish and be successful depends on the Research Excellence Framework (REF). As you get closer to the REF (next one is 2021, so we are two years at the time of writing this blog post), you get people who want to publish 3 and 4 star journal articles, so anything less isn’t usually published (in journals that are high impact factor, see above). It’s seen as harder to get published, the closer you are to REF. You can of course still publish, but in journals that don’t have a high impact factor, if your only aim is to get published.

As with all these things, in depends what you are trying to do with your publication and so the why, where and when of publication is very important.

Hopefully this is useful, let me know your thoughts and experiences via the comments below or contact me via Social Media.