A vision that focuses on diversity and broader impact

Abstract

The Journal of Research in Science Teaching (JRST) has made an easy transition from one editorial team to the next. We thank the outgoing editorial team, led by Coeditors Fouad Abd-El-Khalick and Dana L. Zeidler and Managing Editor Elizabeth C. Niswander, for its exemplary work and dedication to JRST. You can read their Editors' report in Issue 58, Volume 2, which summarizes their tenure. From their 5-year editorship, we have inherited a strong journal in terms of infrastructure and good standing as an international journal focused on cutting-edge science education research. In our editorial as incoming coeditors, Volume 57, Issue 2, we communicated our vision for the journal where we outlined three strategic foci: (1) promoting equity and diversity of the JRST community; (2) leading efforts to establish disciplinary norms, criteria, and expectations relative to the evolving landscape of open access and open science across the publishing industry; and (3) building a stronger presence for JRST within the modern media environment such that JRST-published research achieves broader reach and impact for the improvement of science education practice and policy. Over the next few months, we will expand upon these areas while also updating you on what is happening in the publishing world that will have an impact on the decisions we make as Coeditors and your work as scholars. First, we are focused on advancing equity and diversity in the peer review process, which starts with the composition of our editorial team. We introduced our Managing Editor and Editorial Assistants in our first editorial. Here, we introduce the Associate Editors (Table 1). Collectively, they have a vast knowledge base relevant to contemporary issues in science education. With theoretical, methodological, epistemological, and philosophical diversity, their expertise and standing in the field represent a multiplicity of perspectives to support the vision we have for promoting diverse scholarship, which comes from having a diverse editorial team. As a group, we represent the most diverse group of Editors and Associate Editors who have served JRST. This is critically important because we believe the cultural diversity of our team communicates an important message to the global science education community about our commitments to diversity, inclusivity, and representation; a more diverse editorial team also denotes the increasingly diverse membership of NARST and the JRST readership. We know the process of publishing can be challenging, not only for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty but also for seasoned scholars in submitting their work to the journal. We have been working closely with our Wiley team to update and provide information for submitting your manuscripts. We found many places where the criteria were not consistent, and we thank our community for pointing out some of these places. There is a checklist for authors to review before and upon submitting their manuscript to ScholarOne Manuscripts™. Preparing your manuscript according to these guidelines is an equity issue for us. This means that formatting your manuscript according to the 10-item checklist allows for equitable formatting requirements, which also helps later in the management and production processes to prepare manuscripts promptly for early view. We encourage all authors to view the Author Guidelines before submission of their manuscripts. JRST is a world-class research journal, and our goal is to improve upon the journal's excellence. In doing so, we intend to maintain its very strong reputation; improve readership; increase its impact factor; and broaden the community of scholars who conduct research, read, and review for JRST. We are committed to preserving JRST as a venue that values a range of important and forward-thinking scholarship related to the teaching and learning of science, including scholarship with diverse and critical theoretical frameworks, methodologies, commitments, and perspectives. As an example of meeting our goal of broader access, we are piloting Visual Abstracts and Research Briefs to share on our social media outlets. These resources are short bits of information for educational stakeholders outside of the immediate research community and are written with an educated layperson in mind. Freely share this information to educators, policymakers, and organizations you feel will benefit from these highlights of recent publications in the journal. We are appreciative of those who review for the journal, and we invite a broader community of reviewers to participate in the peer-review process. We welcome you to nominate yourself and others to be reviewers, to accept invitations to review and to engage with us in challenging our collective work as a worldwide organization for improving science teaching and learning through research with the ultimate goal to help all learners achieve science literacy. You can reach us through the journal's new email address: [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @JRSTpub.