About the Journal
The Journal of Neuroeducation (JONED) is online and biannual (February and July), linked to UB-EDU1ST Chair of Neuroeducation. Was born in 2020.
Focus and Scope
Neuroeducation as an academic discipline arises from the intersection between the fields of knowledge of neuroscience, cognitive psychology and education, and their other related disciplines. Embracing this idea of interdisciplinarity, the Journal of Neuroeducation, linked to the UB-EDU1ST Chair of Neuroeducation, has been created with the intention of building bridges between the scientific community and the educational community. JONED is an online and biannual (February and July) journal. For this reason, although the focus of the journal is specially oriented to the educational field, it accepts work carried out in academic or scientific research centres that favour these relationships.
This initiative aims to share evidence, practices and neuroscientific and educational ideas to develop and consolidate the union between neuroscience and education. We want to use this symbiosis as a motor for the evolution of local and global educational systems, and also for the specific educational projects of the learning centres. The users of this journal have, therefore, as a common objective, the improvement of inclusion and preparation of people in a constantly changing world, which requires learning in a dynamic and adaptive way throughout life. With this objective, why not also turn educational centres into 'regular' research centres, where teachers themselves develop their didactic proposals with neuroscientific foundations and evaluate their impact, feed on scientific and educational research carried out by other specialists and communicate their results for common enrichment? This would provide a great deal of data on which to base and improve our teaching practice.
We firmly believe from the journal that for the transformation of education it is important to turn it into a science of learning, where the educational practice is based on systematic quantitative and qualitative evidence of its impact on students and people in general. For this reason, the purpose is to emphasize the fit of learning situations that can be generated with the great advances of recent decades in the study of the neurobiology of the brain. This is materialized through the discoveries of brain mechanisms such as neuroplasticity, attention, the role of emotions generated in the limbic system, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation through the dopaminergic system, the executive functions of the prefrontal cortex or the debated generation of new neurons even in adulthood. And also on emphasizing the implementation of learning strategies that improve the quality and effectiveness of learning, whether of a competence or content type. Some of these are, for example, those related to metacognition, spaced and distributed learning, active learning or social learning.
Since the intention of the journal is to build bridges between the scientific community and the educational community, articles must satisfy both scientific rigour and the fact that they can be read and understood by the educational community. This implies the need to use a language that is rigorous but accessible to people without specific training in neuroscience for the educational community, and equally rigorous but accessible in pedagogy for the scientific community.
In addition, the journal has a special interest in bringing this evidence, practices and ideas to young people, through the section Neuromads which publishes summaries of the works, carried out by the authors themselves, presented in an attractive and close way for adolescents. We encourage all members of the scientific and educational communities to submit their papers and ideas that are relevant to the fields of neuroscience and learning science, educational and cognitive psychology and didactics. Also in the diversity in education, including aspects of gender, collective or nationality, difficulties and diagnosable disorders, as well as socio-economic aspects that influence learning, with the clear intention of contributing to the dilution of these barriers and the cooperative growth of education systems.
Peer Review Process
Peer review process
All the information related to the articles submitted for publication in the Journal of Neuroeducation is kept under absolute confidentiality during the submission, review and publication process. Therefore, anonymity is guaranteed in the documents that make up the double-blind review process.
After a text has been submitted (except for the Editorial section), the Editor appoints a member of the Editorial Board to guide the review process. The Board member selects, in turn, a minimum of two external reviewers (two young reviewers in the case of the Neuromads section). More than two may be added in case of discrepancies in the external reviewers' reports. The external reviewers submit their written evaluations, which he or she then reviews to determine whether the article will be accepted (i) as it is, (ii) with minor revisions, (iii) temporarily rejected but with suggestions for improvements so that it can be resubmitted, or (iv) definitively rejected with reasons that objectively explain this decision. Generally, the corresponding author can expect an initial response within four weeks. Reviews can be accompanied by an opinion/suggestions on the educational materials if included.
Ethical guidelines for reviewers
We strictly adhere to the criteria specified by COPE, OASPA, WAME, and DOAJ for ethical academic publication with maximum transparency. Therefore, we expect our external reviewers to also follow the following ethical requirements:
- Declare conflicts of interest before starting to review.
- If not available, decline the invitation in a timely manner and, if possible, recommend alternative external reviewers.
- If you have accepted an invitation, complete the review and submit the report within the deadline.
- Prepare a thorough review report, detailing both your general impression of the article and specific comments on certain parts of it.
- Report any suspected misconduct to the editors for further investigation;
- Keep assigned texts confidential.
- Sign both names if a colleague was invited to complete the review together.
We recommend that reviewers consult the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Reviewers when reviewing texts submitted to the Journal of Neuroeducation.
Evaluation of Reviews
To guarantee the quality of the reviews and the adequate management of the time for the review process, these will be evaluated with a score from 1 to 5 by the associate editor in charge of the manuscript, giving an average accumulated score to the user who collaborates as a reviewer in the journal.
Evaluation guidelines for reviewers
By registering as a user of the journal -together with registering as an author or reader-, you will be able to access the option of becoming a reviewer. The origin of the reviewers may be external to the journal, although it is also preferably worked so that the reviewers are from an institution other than the publishing entity and/or from institutions other than the institution of the authors. For a systematic peer review, reviewers are asked to fill out an online review report form, which covers the following points when evaluating the text:
Originality and novelty. Manuscripts must deal with the original work of the authors, without any kind of plagiarism or fabrication. No part of the article may have been previously published in any other medium. Exceptionally, translations of articles published in other media may be submitted, provided that the medium where the article was previously published allows it. In this case, the source will be duly cited. On the other hand, the novelty is contained in those researches that indicate a new vision, methods or significant findings for the field of neuroscience, education or cognitive psychology.
Interest and relevance. The work should be of interest to a certain number of readers of the journal, benefit some research communities, and provide an advance in current knowledge.
Scientific soundness. The experimental designs must be consistent with the data to be obtained. Methods of data collection and analysis should follow the technical line of the field or, if they are new, indicate on which they are based. The conclusion of the study must be supported by faithful, logical and reasonable evidence and data. The methods, tools, software and reagents used in the articles should be described in detail so that the result of the study can be reproduced.
Quality of writing and language. Articles should be written clearly and accurately, free of spelling, grammatical and other linguistic inconsistencies.
Neuromads Section Guidelines
As with any scientific article, papers published in the Neuromads Section should also undergo a review process. In this case, however, in addition to peer review to ensure the highest scientific quality, it will also include a review process by young people. For this purpose, the editor shall set a minimum of 2 young reviewers, together with the minimum of 2 reviewers of their assignment.
Young reviewers will evaluate the article for this section following the same review process through the journal's platform. Their evaluation will focus on the following three criteria:
Proximity of the writing. Young reviewers will evaluate the appropriateness of the language to fit their age group. It should be taken into account that this section is aimed at an age range of 12-18 years, and that a language of proximity that can connect with them in a broad way must be guaranteed.
Understanding language and concepts. They will evaluate that the type of general language is understandable and that the specific concepts referred to are clearly defined and explained so that they are correctly understood.
Quality and readability of writing. They will also evaluate under this criterion that the articles are correctly written, giving them criteria to assess the quality of the authors' writing in this context.
We encourage Young Reviewers to include in their review reports any general and specific comments they may wish to make. The editor in charge of the assignment will evaluate the comments made by the Young Reviewers in order to make a decision on the article of the same type as specified above for the rest of the articles.
Publishing editor and reviewers involved in the process
When the articles are published in the journal, the full name and affiliation of the editor and reviewers involved in the process will be included in the final pdf document, as well as the full name and school/institution of the young reviewers, or the name (with no family name) and school/institution if they are under 18.
Open Access Policy
The journal provides immediate free access to content based on the principle that making search available to the public facilitates a broader and more global exchange of knowledge. The publication has no associated cost for the authors. However, we recommend not to freely publish the provisional manuscript documents that are not peer-reviewed out of the journal, and we take no responsibility for their content.
Ethics Statement
The Journal of Neuroeducation (JONED) maintains in its editorial practice rigorous technical and ethical protocols for the publication of papers and shows special interest in avoiding any malpractice in these matters. In this sense, JONED is governed by the following code of ethics:
For editors
JONED follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Code of conduct and best practices guidelines for journal editors. In addition, the following aspects are taken into account:
Editorial decisions are based exclusively on scientific, innovative or disciplinary merit derived from the content of the articles, without discrimination by sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic characteristics, language, religion or beliefs, political or other opinions, membership in a national minority, property, birth, disability, age, gender or sexual orientation of authors or participants in the studies.
All information related to articles submitted for publication in the journal is kept under absolute confidentiality during the submission, review and publication process. Anonymity is therefore guaranteed in the documents that make up the double-blind review process.
For authors
The documents sent to JONED must be original and unpublished, although under certain circumstances translations of the same authorship may be accepted from other media, provided that this medium allows it, through the proposal of the Editorial Director Team. Works may not contain any type of plagiarism, either partial or total. JONED verifies the absence of plagiarism of all submissions through the URKUND platform.
In the corresponding sections of the article, there must be a record (i) of any type of funding, whether from agencies or projects, under which the published study has been carried out; (ii) of the committees or ethical responsibilities under which the research has been carried out; and (iii) of any possible conflicts of interest.
In order to have full authorship of a work, it is necessary:
- have contributed substantially to its conception and design, or to the analysis and interpretation of the data used
- contributed to the preparation of the published document, and
- be able to accurately identify the personal contribution to the research, as well as be able to discuss the main aspects of the article as a whole.
Any person who has collaborated in the work in any other way should be recognized in the section on acknowledgement. The authors have the rights or permission to publish images, photographs, videos and music.
If any error is identified in an article already published, the authors will inform the journal in order to incorporate the relevant corrections.
For reviewers
The criteria for their selection is based on the adequacy between their speciality and the discipline addressed by the article under review, and they are evaluated internally after the review process by the editors in charge of the manuscripts.
The review of the articles sent to the journal is carried out in a critical, honest, constructive and anonymous way through the double-blind system, and encouraging, if appropriate, the training of professionals from different fields in the preparation of research publications.
If the reviewers consider that they do not have sufficient competence, time or consider that there is some kind of conflict of interest, they will immediately inform the editorial team. The reviewers will also notify the editorial team of any similarities between the revised text and other works already published.
