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Behind the door: a critical look at the process of publication in Educational Studies in Mathematics

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Abstract

To commemorate the 100th volume of Educational Studies in Mathematics (ESM) we invited all past and current editors to reflect on the journal’s trends and internal processes. We complemented these discussions with comparisons of submitted and published manuscripts by countries of submitting authors. We found disparities in representation of articles from different countries and various attempts editors use to address such disparities. The analysis of internal editorial processes illustrates how editorial autonomy is exerted and raises questions about the necessity for higher editorial accountability, while maintaining the necessity of independent scientific judgment. We close the article with an open invitation to take up important questions about publication processes and their connection to the scholarship that is valued.

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Notes

  1. See Gutiérrez (2013) and Wagner (2015).

  2. Community colleges are U.S. post-secondary institutions tasked with multiple functions (e.g., certification, vocational training, and transfer to a university) and that draw from a population that has, for a variety of reasons, traditionally been denied access to high-quality education.

  3. https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030156350

  4. Available at: http://publicationethics.org/files/Ethical_guidelines_for_peer_reviewers_0.pdf

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the editors of ESM for their thoughtful responses to our questions. Further, we thank Heather Anslow for her work on demographics; Pat Herbst and members of the Research on Teaching Mathematics in Undergraduate Settings (RTMUS) at the University of Michigan, for comments on earlier drafts of this article; and support staff at Springer for supplying background information used in this manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Vilma Mesa

  2. University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada

    David Wagner

Authors
  1. Vilma Mesa
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  2. David Wagner
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Vilma Mesa.

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Appendix. Directions to reviewers

Appendix. Directions to reviewers

When reviewers are ready to submit their appraisal of the manuscript, they have to first indicate if they consent to transfer their information and their comments to other journals to which the manuscript could be re-routed (If this submission is transferred to another publication, do we have your consent to include your identifying information? and If this submission is transferred to another publication, do we have your consent to include your original review?). The default answer is “No.” Next, they are asked to provide confidential information to the Editor in a section labeled “Comments to Editor:” that includes the questions below. Immediately following this section, there is one labeled “Comments to Author,” where reviewers include their full comments. There is also an option to upload a document.

Dear Reviewer,

In addition to your evaluation of the submission, the editor will greatly appreciate a short summary of it.

The summary can be given in the form of answers to the following questions about the scientific quality of the submitted article and the quality of presentation.

Choose your answers among: “Yes,” “No,” “Not relevant,” or “See comments.”

Summary Review Sheet:

============================================================

SCIENTIFIC QUALITY

  1. 1.

    Is this article clearly an educational study in mathematics?

  2. 2.

    Does it make an original contribution to mathematics education?

  3. 3.

    Are the aims of the article made clear, and are they formulated sufficiently early in the article?

  4. 4.

    Are the aims of the article fulfilled?

  5. 5.

    If applicable, are the aims, hypotheses and methodology of the research, reported in the article, clear and reasonable?

  6. 6.

    Does the article provide a well-founded and cogently argued analysis?

  7. 7.

    Do the conclusions follow from the data and/or the argument?

  8. 8.

    Does the article take appropriate account of previous work?

  9. 9.

    Is it accessible and interesting to an international readership?

QUALITY OF PRESENTATION

  1. 10.

    Does the title give a clear indication of the focus of the article?

  2. 11.

    Does the abstract summarise the article clearly and concisely?

  3. 12.

    Is the language of the article sufficiently fluent and clear?

  4. 13.

    Are the illustrations and tables necessary and acceptable?

  5. 14.

    Are the references adequate and are they all necessary?

  6. 15.

    Could the essential content be presented more concisely (particularly if the article is more than 20 pages in length)?

ADVICE TO EDITORS

  1. 16.

    The article is

    1. (a)

      acceptable for publication in its present form;

    2. (b)

      acceptable for publication with minor revisions;

    3. (c)

      worthy of reconsideration after major revision;

    4. (d)

      not acceptable for publication but a different article based on the same research can be resubmitted;

    5. (e)

      not acceptable for publication.

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Mesa, V., Wagner, D. Behind the door: a critical look at the process of publication in Educational Studies in Mathematics. Educ Stud Math 101, 301–324 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-019-09900-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10649-019-09900-y

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