About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Digital Education Review (DER)  (2013-9144) is a scientific, open and peer-reviewed journal  published biannualy (June and December) by the Digital Education Observatori (OED) and the Virtual Teaching and Learning Research Group (GREAV) at the University of Barcelona. 

DER is designed as a space for dialogue and reflection about the impact of ICT on education and new emergent forms of teaching and learning in digital environments.

The journal is aimed at researchers, teachers and members of the educational community. And in general to all people interested in the impact and use of ICT in teaching and learning processes.

The aim of the journal is to promote research, reflection, innovation and transfer of scientific knowledge to the scientific and professional Education community.

DER publishes articles in English or Spanish and admits empirical investigations as well as reviews and theoretical reflections.

 

Publication frequency

This journal is published biannually (December & June).

Call for papers is restricted to November and December.

Monographic and special issues have specific calendar and periods.

 

Section Policies

The journal publishes different kinds of articles:

• Peer Review Articles: miscellaneous articles that have passed the double blind peer review process carried out by at least two experts.
• Reviews: short articles about books, software or websides and PhD evaluated by the Editors of the journal.
• Guest and Invited Articles: articles approved by the Editorial Board of the journal.

Monographic or special issues

To submit monographic proposals, please send them to digital.education.review@ub.edu.

Peer Review Process

DER employs double blind peer reviewing, where both the referee and author remain anonymous throughout the process.

Steps of the peer review process:

1. All the authors will receive notification of receipt of the work during November and December (call for papers is open only during November and December).
2. All the manuscripts are initialy evaluated by the editors. Authors of manuscripts rejected at this stage will be informed on January.
3. At least 2 external referees are selected for each paper, according to their expertice, and evaluate the manuscript following a complete report. Language correction is not part of the peer review process.
4. Final report to accept or reject the manuscript will be sent to the author no longer than 6 months after its reception. If changes are requested, the author must confirm if he/she is willing and in a position to make them. If there is no reply or the reply takes more than one month, the journal will consider that the changes are not accepted and the article will therefore be considered rejected.

5. Editors are responsible for the final decision to accept of reject the article and reserve the right to publish the contributions in the issue which they consider most appropriate.

 

Open Access Policy

DER offers the possibility to consult all its content freely, under the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater exchange of knowledge.

DER is an open access journal, the content of which is immediatly open and free. 

The articles published are under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonComerical-NoDerivs 4.0 Spain License.  Authors must agree to Copyright Notice as part of the submission process. Authors retain all rights.

DER does not charge any fees aither for the submission of manuscripts or for the publication of its articles.

 

Declaration of publishing ethics and best practices

Digital Education Review (DER) subscribe the Declaration of publishing ethics and best practices for scientific journals published by the University of Barcelona.

The University of Barcelona promotes the open access publication of digital journals and endeavours to guarantee quality and conscientiousness in the transfer of scientific knowledge. The University is committed to ensuring that the articles it publishes and the publishing process itself observe the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). It is therefore essential that all of the stakeholders in this process—journal editors, reviewers, technical editors and authors—know and act according to the Code.

Journal editors should :

• ensure that the decision to publish is not dependent on the author’s race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic origin, country of origin, citizenship or political persuasion;
• publish regular updates on the responsibilities of authors, submission requirements, the arbitration system used to select the articles and the evaluation criteria to be applied by reviewers;
• publish corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when needed and not make use of any article received for UB-specific research assignments without the author’s consent;
• guarantee confidentiality during the review process, meaning (a) the anonymity of reviewers and authors and the confidentiality of the content of the articles, the reports submitted by reviewers and any other type of correspondence with or between the editorial, consultant and scientific committees and (b) confidentiality in the correspondence between the author and the journal committees or reviewers when the author wishes to clarify, change or complain about some aspect of the article;
• make certain that the integrity of articles already published is respected;
• act swiftly to eliminate from the journal or refuse to publish any article that has been found to plagiarise information from other sources.

Authors should

• understand that they are responsible for all submitted content;
• notify the journal editors of any errors in their published articles so that the appropriate corrections can be made;.
• guarantee that the article and associated materials are original and do not infringe on the rights of third-party authors and, when there are co-authors, guarantee that the consent of all the authors is obtained before the article goes to press.

Reviewers and technical editors should

• apply revisions that are objective, informed, critical, constructive and unbiased, where acceptance or rejection is based only on the work’s relevance, originality, interest to the public in question and compliance with the style and content regulations in the evaluation criteria;
• meet deadlines when this is possible and promptly inform the journal editor when it is not;
• avoid sharing, spreading or reproducing any information from articles still under review without permission from the corresponding journal editors or authors.