| Summary: | In 2016, Higher Learning Research Communication (HLRC) celebrates its 6-year anniversary. The journal is a collaborative effort amongst Universidad Andrés Bello (Chile), Universidad Europea de Madrid (Spain), Istanbul Bilgi University (Turkey), and Walden University (United States). These four institutions started this journal to provide scholarly focus on international research in higher education, teaching and learning, education policy and practice, and internationalization. It was important that the journal be open access, so that everyone could have immediate and unrestricted access to the latest research. It was also important that the journal be multilingual; we have accepted manuscripts for review in Brazilian Portuguese, European Portuguese, Latin American Spanish, European Spanish, and English. The language capacity of the staff is truly amazing.
As I begin my first year as Chief Editor, I have had the time to reflect on the many accomplishments of HLRC. HLRC has published 88 essays, articles, lections, book reviews, and editorials. Several special issues have been published, including Accreditation (2012); Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure in a Globalized World (2012); Selected Papers from the International Conference on Teaching and Learning (2013); International Perspectives on Retention (2014); and English Medium Instruction (EMI) and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) (2015). We have been fortunate to have essays by scholars such as Drummond Bone, Internationalization (2011); Bill Plater, Quality Assurance (2013); Rogerio Meneghini, Scielo and Open Access Journals (2013); Watson Swail, A Different Viewpoint on Student Retention (2014); and Gonzalo Fernandez-Sanchez, María Olga Bernaldo, Ana Castillejo, and Ana María Manzanero, Education for Sustainable Development in Higher Education: State-of-the-art, Barriers, and Challenges (2014). I greatly appreciate the breadth of scholarship on the latest higher education practices and authors who are writing on issues that are important and relevant to the higher education landscape.
We have also seen some great improvements in our metrics. For example, due to some changes to our website in 2015, we saw a significant increase in visits to the HLRC site and more citations. We have averaged about a 53% acceptance rate, which reflects our adherence to quality standards for publication. We also added more content to the website, including information on copyright, self-archiving policies, conflicts of interest, and publication ethics. The new section on author guidelines provides much clearer information that will help with manuscript preparation and submission. In addition, we are registered with a number of indexation services, such as Google Scholar, and our articles are included in ProQuest Education Journals, Questia, and OJS/PKP Library network. We submitted an application for indexation of HLRC, and we should hear back on this initiative sometime later in 2016.
I look forward to an exciting 2016. We have two special issues planned. The June 2016 special issue on Higher Education, Community Engagement, and the Global Public Good will commemorate the 5-year anniversary of HLRC. In December, there will be a special issue dedicated to Quality Assurance in Higher Education. We continue to also seek the best research that you are doing for publication, as well as book reviews and other kinds of scholarly contributions. I have been working with the editorial staff to reorganize the editorial board to include associate editors; we are also going to be seeking a broad set of peer reviewers from countries around the world upon whom we can call to review manuscripts. It is my goal to help broaden visibility and readership of HLRC and to make it one of the journals of choice for submissions regarding higher education. I invite you to visit the site at www.hlrcjournal.com and browse the titles of previously published manuscripts. If you are interested in joining the editorial board as an associate editor, or if you would like to serve as a peer reviewer, please do not hesitate to contact me. We welcome new doctoral scholars as well as those who are advanced in their doctoral programs who would like to engage in this type of professional development opportunity.
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