Editorial

After 17 years of publication in print format, including 10 years of dual print and online publication, the time has come for Issues in Educational Research to make the transition to an online only journal. The printed version cannot be sustained owing to increasing costs per copy, a factor exacerbated by a decreasing number of copies being ordered, increases in postal expenses, and the need to economise with the amount of honorary work required for producing and distributing copies.

Turning to a positive perspective, after a decade of experience with the online version we are very confident that IIER will be successful with the transition to online only. Identifying with the idea that "this article is printed with 100% recycled electrons" is now much easier than it was only a few years ago, as a whole suite of environmental and conservation concerns have gripped the world. Retiring print for small publications such as IIER is very much in tune with these times.

Another reason for confidence about IIER's transition to online only is found in the Journal banding survey [1]. Late in 2006 the Centre for the Study of Research Training and Impact (SORTI), University of Newcastle, Australia, initiated this survey, aiming to develop "... esteem measures for Education journals, based on the collective wisdom of the profession." [2]. Its findings about rankings of journals are of considerable interest to editors, authors and readers who are concerned with the imminent impact of Australia's Research Quality Framework (RQF) [3] upon academic research publishing activities. From the perspective of IIER, the SORTI survey provided modestly encouraging and pleasing results. In the rankings of over 900 educational research journals, IIER appeared at 101 in the 'Esteem' score [4] and 216 in the 'QScore' [5] (see [2] for definitions).

The nature of the 'modestly encouraging' position for IIER in the SORTI survey is illustrated in Table 1. Whilst IIER ranked equal 19th in the list of 83 journals from all parts of the world classified as 'Area 4: Comprehensive', Table 1 shows that if we consider only Australian and Australasian region comprehensive journals, IIER has a good position. This is certainly the case if we are correct in our long held view that open access is the most viable and sustainable growth direction for journals in general and for IIER in particular. Thus Table 1 suggests to us that IIER has good prospects within the 'Comprehensive' category.

Rank	Journal title and URL	SORTI Escore	Open access	Impact factor	Internat Board
2	Australian Educational Researcher. http://www.aare.edu.au/aer/aer.htm	23.47	Yes	Yes	No
7	Australian Journal of Education. http://www.acer.edu.au/aje/	20.62	No	No	No
13	Asia Pacific Journal of Education. http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/02188791.asp	15.65	No	No	Yes
19	Issues in Educational Research. http://www.iier.org.au/	13.51	Yes	No	No
20	Asia Pacific Education Review. http://eri.snu.ac.kr/aper/	13.51	No	No	Yes
22	Journal of Southeast Asian Education. [last issue 2005] http://www.seameo.org/vl/library/dlwelcome/publications/ejournal/seadex.htm	11.84	No	No	Yes
23	New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies. http://www.nzare.org.nz/publications.html	11.84	No	No	No
24	Change: Transformations in Education [inactive]. http://www-faculty.edfac.usyd.edu.au/projects/change/information.html	11.84	No	No	Yes
31	International Education Journal. http://iej.cjb.net/, http://www.iejcomparative.org/	9.11	Yes	No	No
Notes: For ISI Thomson Impact Factor, see [6]. See [2] for an explanation of the significance of an 'International Board'. 'Australasian region' here means Australia, NZ, South Pacific, SE Asia and East Asia.

However, the realisation of IIER's 'good prospects' will require a redirected and increased effort on a number of journal publishing activities. Briefly, the principal matters include these

• Whilst retiring print removes a major obstacle to increasing the number of IIER articles per year, and frees up some editorial resources, the journal needs a number of associate editors to share the increasing workloads in conducting the review process and copy editing for accepted articles.

• We plan to conduct a free subscription service, basically an emailing list using EdNA's excellent service [7], to notify subscribers about the online publication of each new issue and invitations to contribute to special issues. In the past this function was serviced by postal delivery of the printed version.

• IIER is seeking to develop partnership relationships with kindred professional associations and institutions concerned with publishing educational research journals, especially in the Australasian region of the world. WAIER [8] and other IERs in Australia have provided splendid support, but as scholarly publishing evolves towards a smaller number of larger journals, IIER will benefit from an expanded base.

Further news about IIER's transition to online only will be given in the editorial for IIER Volume 18 Number 1, expected to be published in March or April 2008, and by emailings to subscribers and IER members.

Clare McBeath
IIER Editor
Roger Atkinson
Business Manager and Website Editor

Endnotes

1. SORTI (Centre for the Study of Research Training and Impact) (2006). Journal banding survey. http://www.newcastle.edu.au/forms/bandingsurvey
2. SORTI (Centre for the Study of Research Training and Impact) (2007). Education journal banding study: A summary of methodology. University of Newcastle, Australia. http://www.newcastle.edu.au/centre/sorti/Banding/mehtod.html
3. DEST (Department of Education, Science and Training) (2007). Research Quality Framework: Assessing the quality and impact of research in Australia. [viewed 14 Oct 2007] http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/research_sector/
   policies_issues_reviews/key_issues/research_quality_framework/default.htm
   Two other related and relevant references include:
   DEST (2007). Frequently Asked Questions: Bibliometrics. [viewed 14 Oct 2007] http://www.dest.gov.au/
   NR/rdonlyres/8F12ADCB-C221-421E-A128-2C344CD58BDF/18516/FAQBibliometrics.pdf
   DEST (2007). Rankings Contacts. http://www.dest.gov.au/NR/rdonlyres/92FDBE2E-
   B011-4286-AF50-795B7C1599AD/18965/RankingsContacts16Oct07.pdf
4. SORTI (2007). Ranked lists of journals in the 26 areas within Education by Esteem . http://www.newcastle.edu.au/centre/sorti/files/Esteem%20ranking%20by%20area.pdf
5. SORTI (2007). Ranked lists of journals in the 26 areas within Education by a Quality measure. http://www.newcastle.edu.au/centre/sorti/files/QScore%20ranking%20by%20area.pdf
6. Thomson Scientific. The ISI Impact Factor. http://scientific.thomson.com/free/essays/journalcitationreports/impactfactor/ (see also other references listed under http://scientific.thomson.com/free/essays/)
7. EdNA. edna Lists: Discussion lists for Australian educators. http://www.lists.edna.edu.au/lists/lists/home
8. Western Australian Institute for Educational Research. http://www.waier.org.au/

Please cite as: McBeath, C. & Atkinson, R. (2007). Editorial 17(2). Issues In Educational Research, 17(2), v-vii. http://www.iier.org.au/iier17/editorial17-2.html