Workshop on the Role of Journals in Developing the Education Research Knowledge Base November 11, 2003
DISCLAIMER: This is an unedited verbatim transcript of the Workshop on Peer Review of Education Research Grant Applications: Implications, Considerations, and Future Directions prepared by CASET Associates and is not an official report of National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, or National Research Council (collectively “National Academies”). Opinions and statements included in the transcript are solely those of the individual persons or participants at the conference, and are not necessarily adopted or endorsed or verified as accurate by The National Academies. Please note that the presentations below may be subject to copyright restrictions of the individual presenters.
8:30 am	Welcome and Overview
	Lauress Wise, HumRRo, and Committee Chair
	Lisa Towne, Study Director
Session 1. Defining the Territory
Education researchers publish in a wide range of journals. How many are there? What kinds of issues do they cover? Who runs them? Who reads them? From where are they available? Are they considered high quality? How does this portrait compare to scholarly publishing in medicine or business? This session will orient the discussion of the role of journals in education research by presenting a descriptive analysis of inclusion in major information centers (e.g., Educational Resources Information Center and the Social Sciences Citation Index of the Institute for Scientific Information) and of citation patterns.
	Moderator
	David Klahr, Carnegie Mellon University and member of CORE	Bio
8:45 am	Barbara Schneider, University of Chicago and member of CORE	Bio	Remarks	Presentation
9:15 am	Q&A
Session 2. Quality and Coherence in Publishing: A Roundtable
In a moderated discussion, editors, publication committee members, peer reviewers, and others from a range of fields, disciplines, and journals will explore how publication policies and practices—and the resources and infrastructure that support them—promote or inhibit the development of a high quality, coherent knowledge base in education, including comparisons to other fields. Specific issues to be explored in this context include publication criteria, peer review processes and quality of reviews, the selection and role of publication committee members and editors, revise & resubmit policies, acceptance rates, publication bias, abstract standards, data submissions, and the publication of replications, re-analyses, and syntheses.
	Moderator
	Robert Floden, Michigan State University and member of CORE	Bio
	Participants
	Bridget Coughlin, Managing Editor, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences	Bio
	Richard Duran, Chair, American Educational Research Association Publications Committee	Bio
	Catherine Emihovich, (past) Editor, Anthropology and Education Quarterly	Bio
	Glenn Firebaugh, (past) Editor, American Sociological Review	Bio
	Lynn Liben, Editor, Child Development	Bio
	Margaret McKeown, Editor, American Educational Research Journal	Bio
	Edward Silver, Editor, Journal for Research in Mathematics Education
	Gary VandenBos, Publisher, American Psychological Association	Bio
10:00 am	Moderated Discussion: Focus on Quality
11:00 am	Moderated Discussion: Focus on Coherence
Noon	Q&A
Session 3. Strategic Directions: Emerging Issues and Trends
Systematic Reviews. One important way to promote the development of a coherent knowledge base in education is to conduct systematic reviews of high quality research. The ability to conduct systematic reviews depends quite strongly on quality writing, structured abstracts, and other such criteria and is mitigated by problems like publication bias. How can journals provide the necessary tools for such reviews?
	Moderator
	Kay Dickersin, Brown University and member of CORE	Bio
	Participants
	Judy Sebba, Department for Education and Skills, UK	Bio	Remarks	Presentation
	Hannah Rothstein, Baruch College, City University of New York	Bio	Remarks	Presentation
1:30 pm	Presentations
2:15 pm	Q&A
Technology, Communication & Audience. The internet, hardware and software capabilities, and other technologies offer new avenues for scholarly communication, the development of data banks, and wide and rapid dissemination of research—including non-research audiences like policymakers and practitioners. But it also makes quality control difficult and raises copyright issues. What are the benefits and costs, and how can journals strike the right balance?
	Moderator
	Joseph Tobin, Arizona State University and member of CORE	Bio
	Participants
	Gary Natriello, Teachers College, Columbia University	Bio	Remarks	Presentation
	John Willinsky, University of British Columbia	Bio	Remarks
3:00 pm	Presentations
3:45 pm	Q&A
4:15 pm	Wrap Up