Introduction

“EdTech Journals”  (.org, .com, or .net) is primarily intended for use by the community of educational / instructional design and technology professionals who are looking to learn about which scholarly outlets might be appropriate for their research and writing. The list contains nearly 250* journals that are either directly related to educational technology or that have a relationship to the field.

Approximately 32% of the journals listed on the site are open access journals. The other 68% are journals that have articles that can only be accessed through an individual or organizational membership or subscription (though some may have very limited open access offerings).

The site is in a WordPress format that uses a mobile-responsive table which allows it to scale for nearly any device.

Users are able to do the following:

• View the “Abridged” list of journals, on the front page, which shows all available journals, but only has some of the journal data displayed
• Go directly to the GoogleSheet, which displays all data, and can be filtered and sorted
• Make suggestions for site or table changes via a web-based form

Open Access Journal Research

Dr. Ross Perkins and Dr. Patrick Lowenthal (both of Boise State University‘s Department of Educational Technology) conducted research on open access journals in Educational Technology in October 2013. We have presented various results of the study at different academic conferences (AECT 2013, AECT 2014, and AERA 2015). In spring 2015, their article detailing the quantitative results was submitted to the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology; it was accepted for publication in September 2015. The article was published online in spring 2016.

It should be cited as:

Perkins, R. A., & Lowenthal, P. R. (2016). Open access journals in educational technology: Results of a survey of experienced users. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 32(3), 18-37. Retrieved from https://ajet.org.au/index.php/AJET/article/view/2578/1358

Disclaimer: Though we believe we have solid empirical evidence to back our ranking of selected OAJs that appear on the List of Journals page, any ranking is ultimately subjective. The rank shown in the R2013 column is not meant to prove (or disprove) the quality of a given journal, and we strongly discourage any use of it for that purpose.

R2013 Column: The rank shown in the R2013 column is an average of rankings in two parts of an online survey. In Part 1, participants had to select five highly recognized open access journals. These were not placed in rank order within the survey itself. Each journal selected in Part 1 received one point for each time it was chosen, the points were then summed, and finally the journals were put in rank order (but getting the same rank if tied).  In an optional Part 2 of the survey, respondents were presented with a list of the 81 journals and were asked to choose any that they recognized. Again, the number of times a journal was recognized was summed, and the list of journals again put in rank order (again getting the same rank if tied).

The final ranking was calculated using a weighted average. The ranking from Part 1 represents 70% of the final rank shown on the table, whereas the tally from Part 2 comprises 30% of the final rank score. This 70/30 split was chosen based the percentage of persons completing each part of the survey. It should also be noted that Part 1 of the survey also carries more weight because participants had to be more selective about their choices of journals, whereas in Part 2, they could choose any that they recognized.

History

The original “List of Ed Tech Journals” was a web-accessible spreadsheet originally created by Dr. Perkins in September 2008. Further contributions of “open access journals” were made based on a collaborative initiative with Dr. George Veletsianos. Additional journals were added by examining the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and other sources. The list contains both open access journals and number of “traditional,” or print-based journals.

Various aspects of the original list were appended by Ms. Jennifer (Donatelli) Tibbenham. We thank Mrs. Sally Baldwin for her conscientious efforts to gather information about the journals. The site’s mobile-responsive iteration, WordPress functionality, and its connection to a GoogleDrive spreadsheet, and other programming were made possible by Mr. Tony Hetrick

*Original journal count was greater than 270, but updates in Spring 2016 reduced this number, as journals no longer published, or those merged with others, were removed.