The Journal of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Guidelines for Reviewers

JoSoTL accepts submissions from anyone interested in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. The review of these submissions follows a double-blind process where the reviewers do not know the identity of the authors, nor do the authors learn the identity of the reviewers.

The following Guidelines for Reviewers were originally written by Randy Isaacson, the charter Managing Editor. They have since been updated and edited by the Editorial Board. The spirit of the discussion below remains. Authors and reviewers are encouraged to also see our Reviewer's Rubric.

We, the Editorial Board, believe it is important for all of us to share a general definition of, and criteria for evaluating, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. If your experience is similar to ours, you have probably had in-depth discussion, debates, or maybe full-blown arguments about what qualifies as scholarship. We encourage you to share what you have learned about teaching with others within, and across, disciplines to advance our understanding of the teaching - learning process.

We hope to have essays in every issue of JoSoTL that continue the discussion. We would like to begin our discussion with a quote from Lee Shulman, president of the Carnegie Foundation, which describes scholarship as disciplined inquiry and invention that has clear characteristics whether the scholarship be discovery, integration, application, or teaching

"For an activity to be designated as scholarship, it should manifest at least three key characteristics: It should be public, susceptible to critical review and evaluation, and accessible for exchange and use by other members of one’s scholarly community. We thus observe, with respect to all forms of scholarship, that they are acts of mind or spirit that have been made public in some manner, have been subjected to peer review by members of one’s intellectual or professional community, and can be cited, refuted, built upon, and shared among members of that community. Scholarship properly communicated and critiqued serves as the building blocks for knowledge growth in a field." (p. 5 in Shulman, L., 1998, Teacher portfolios: A theoretical activity. In N. Lyons (Ed.), With portfolio in hand: Validating the new teacher professionalism, pp. 23-37. New York: Teachers College Press.)

One of the primary goals of JoSoTL is to offer a forum to collect the building blocks of knowledge in the scholarship of teaching and learning and to offer colleagues from all disciplines the opportunity to help us build a better understanding of teaching and learning. We hope to offer many avenues for people to get involved in the discussion including essays, classroom action research, and formal research articles, as well as threaded discussion sites for each article. To begin the discussion it is important for JoSoTL to offer quality scholarship to engage readers in thoughtful reflection.

Since the goal of JoSoTL is to advance the scholarship of teaching and learning it seems appropriate to build on the work of colleagues within the SoTL community. Charles Glassick, Mary Huber, and Gene Maeroff in their book Scholarship Assessed: Evaluation of the Professoriate (1997, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass) outline six qualitative standards that have been used to evaluate many types of scholarship. We have designed our Reviewer's Rubric to use these criteria in evaluating submissions.

Clear Goals

All scholars must be clear about the goals of their scholarship. What is the purpose of the scholarship and are the goals clearly stated?

Adequate Preparation

All scholars have the background knowledge and skills to successfully investigate the problem. Does the scholar have the prerequisite skills to thoroughly investigate the problem?

Appropriate Methods

Scholarship must be carried out in a competent manner for the results to have credibility. Did the scholar use the appropriate procedures to investigate the problem?

Significant Results

One of the most critical criteria in judging the quality of scholarship is whether scholarship can be used as the building blocks of knowledge in the field. Scholarship may not always result in "significant" results but to have quality the results must inform scholars in the field. Does the scholarship help build the knowledge base in the field?

Effective Presentation

To have quality it is essential that scholarship be accessible by the intellectual or professional community. There are many forums that provide opportunities for the review and critique by colleagues with each medium having different criteria for effectiveness. Does the scholarship meet the standards or quality for the medium in which it is presented?

Reflective Critique

All scholarship must create an opportunity for collegial critique but it is also essential for the scholar to reflect on the scholarship and learn from the results. Insightful reflection is a necessary step in quality scholarship. Is there evidence that the scholar has learned from the experience and can apply this knowledge to future problem?

The diversity of submissions (formal research articles vs. classroom action research vs. essays) may make some criteria more significant for certain types of submissions but we believe the six criteria put forward by Glassick, Huber, and Maeroff (1997) are an important part of the scholarship of teaching and learning. After using the criteria you may find yourself reflecting on how you would like to see them modified. Please feel free to send the editors any feedback you have about the criteria you have used in reviewing your two paper.

Reviewers will receive a Microsoft Word document attachment of the articles for their review. Please review the articles and include any notes, suggestions, feedback on the rating sheet or on a review copy maintained electronically (using MS Word's Track Changes feature). After you have completed your review, please e-mail a copy of the attached rating sheet to the managing editor (with comments and your final rating of the submission.

We also have one other request. One of the main purposes of our electronic journal is to encourage discussions on the scholarship of teaching on many levels. To facilitate this discussion (and distinguish our journal from a paper journal) we will have discussion sites for each published article and we would like each reviewer to begin the discussion by submitting two questions for each article they rate as acceptable. These questions are intended to begin a discussion site and will be included with the article as the first entry in a threaded discussion. As you are reading the article think of the questions the article raises, not only in your discipline but across disciplines. What concerns do you have with the data collection or interpretation? How could the results be generalized across disciplines? Do the findings hold for other populations of students? What questions does the article raise and how might they be tackled in the future?

When I am reading a journal article I frequently think, "I wish this person was right here so I could ask them about this finding, or why they collected the data in this way, or did they think about interpreting the results in light of this theory." At professional conferences we can ask these questions but with paper journals there is not an opportunity to ask the questions that pop into our heads as we read. But with an electronic journal we can ask those questions and we are hoping JoSoTL will invite readers to be actively involved in a discussion about these questions. Your questions will begin the discussion so as you review each article please reflect on the questions the article raises in your mind . . . and put them down on paper. If the paper is accepted for publication we will forward your questions to the authors (only the questions, this will remain a blind review) and allow the author to be the first person to "jump into" the discussion.

To view documents and related items posted for this electronic journal, you will need a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader. A free copy can be downloaded from the Adobe website.