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Journal of Political Science Education Editors’ Report, 2019–2020

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2020

Victor Asal
Affiliation:
University at Albany, State University of New York, Editor in Chief
Mitchell Brown
Affiliation:
Auburn University, Coeditor
Mark L. Johnson
Affiliation:
Minnesota State Community and Technical College, Coeditor
J. Cherie Strachan
Affiliation:
Roger Williams University, Coeditor
Joseph W. Roberts
Affiliation:
Central Michigan University, Coeditor
Waffah Ahmed
Affiliation:
University at Albany, State University of New York, Managing Editor
Mirren Galway
Affiliation:
University at Albany, State University of New York, Managing Editor
Olivia Vecchio
Affiliation:
University at Albany, State University of New York, Managing Editor
Stephanie Bickerstaff
Affiliation:
Auburn University
Tatevik Khachatryan
Affiliation:
Roger Williams University
Chiara Sinigaglia
Affiliation:
Roger Williams University
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Abstract

Type
News
Copyright
© American Political Science Association 2020

INTRODUCTION

The editorial team for the Journal of Political Science Education has now been running the journal for the last four years with support from APSA and specifically from Jon Gurstelle, Director of Publications at APSA. In our fourth year working on the journal the process has gone well and we have a good team of managing editors and editorial assistants at the University at Albany, Auburn University and Roger Williams University.

Table 1 Authors by Gender

Parentheses–Percentage of Total including coauthors, all original submissions

Table 2 Authors by Rank

Parentheses–Percentage of Total including coauthors, all original submissions

Table 3 Authors by Country of Submission

Parentheses–Percentage of Total including coauthors, all original submissions

Table 4 Authors by Type of Institution

Parentheses–Percentage of Total including coauthors, all original submissions

Table 5 Types of Submission

Parentheses–Percentage of Total, all original submissions

Table 6 Manuscript Decision (Original Submissions)

* This is the percentage of all rejected manuscripts, not of all new manuscripts Parentheses–Percentage of Total, all original submissions

Table 7 Reviewer Statistics

Table 8 Average Reviewer Turnaround Time

Table 9 Top Reviewers for JPSE

Table 10 Editorial Board by Gender

Parentheses–Percentage of Total

Table 11 Editorial Board by Country

Table 12 Editorial Board by Rank

Table 13 Editorial Board by Institution

Table 14 Current Citation Rights

Table 15 Comparison

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR FOURTH YEAR

Now ending the fourth year of our running of the JPSE as an APSA-wide journal we have seen submissions go up. This year we received 10.6% percent more submissions than last year. We are getting a good amount of submissions from authors for all four sections of the journal with the most going to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) section, then Political Science Instruction, then Books, Teaching Tools, & Educational Resources and Reflections on Teaching and the Academy. In the past year, we have made progress on our effort to be more involved in social media with our twitter handle (@JPSE_Editors) tweeting out articles as they are released and other pedagogy related issues. That being said, we plan to make the twitter handle more active in this coming year and hopefully increase our follower count. Last year at this time we had 300 followers and this year we have 582 followers. Our decision last year to forgo special issues given that we often did not get enough submissions on time to fill the issue has not harmed submissions to the journal at all. We believe our decision to go with special sections instead has been successful. An example of a very useful special section is “Careers in Political Science at Community Colleges” that appeared in Volume 16 Issue 1.

This last year for published articles 52% of the authors are women (see Table 1). In terms of the rank of the authors of published articles we have a wide diversity receiving submissions from all ranks of professors as well as lecturers, students and administrative personnel. We have received the most submissions from assistant professors (29%) followed closely by associate professors (25%). The majority of our submissions come from public universities (58%), followed by private universities (32%). Impressively, every single reviewer asked in this past year has said yes to doing a review. In terms of publicizing the journal we will once again have a “meet the editors” roundtable at this year’s APSA Annual Meeting. In sum, our team has enjoyed this year and we are looking forward to continuing to grow the journal and its outreach as an APSA-wide journal.

STAFFING

Our staff at the Journal of Political Science Education consists of five co-editors who are using a portion of their time to work as a team as well as specifically on their own section of the journal. Three student managing editors and three editorial assistants work part time on the journal. Our current managing editors are Waffah Ahmed, Mirren Galway, and Olivia Vecchio who will be continuing this year. All three managing editors are students at the University at Albany, SUNY. Tatevik Khachatryan and Chiara Sinigaglia, students at Roger Williams University and Stephanie Bickerstaff at Auburn University, are currently serving as editorial assistants and will continue to do so this coming year.

PRODUCTION AND DELIVERY

Author Demographics

The demographic distribution of the Journal of Political Science Education authors are reported in tables 1, 2, and 3. Currently 52% of our article authors are women and 48% are men —an almost even split. Our articles’ authors are spread across different ranks with assistant professors being responsible for more submissions than any other rank again this year with 29% of articles. Tenured faculty are responsible for 41% of articles which is a 10% increase from the previous year. As one can see from the table 3, 14.5% of our submissions were from international authors, an increase of 1.7% in international submissions from the previous year. Like last year, submissions came from eight countries other than the United States. Table 4 shows the distribution of authors by type of institution for accepted papers.

Content and Treatment of Manuscripts

Table 5 shows the percentage of articles submitted that were directed at being submitted as original articles (both SoTL and Political Science Instruction sections), review articles, and reflection articles. The number of manuscripts submitted has increased from 81 last year to 84 this year. Table 6 shows the manuscript decisions for manuscripts. Our current rejection rate is 31%—the same as last year. Table 7 presents information on reviewer statistics. The percentage of completed reviews has increased from 66% last year to 100% this year. Table 8 provides data on average reviewer turnaround time. This year on average, our editorial board’s turn around rate was around 47 days while the reviewer turnaround time was about 42 days. ■

Figure 0

Table 1 Authors by Gender

Figure 1

Table 2 Authors by Rank

Figure 2

Table 3 Authors by Country of Submission

Figure 3

Table 4 Authors by Type of Institution

Figure 4

Table 5 Types of Submission

Figure 5

Table 6 Manuscript Decision (Original Submissions)

Figure 6

Table 7 Reviewer Statistics

Figure 7

Table 8 Average Reviewer Turnaround Time

Figure 8

Table 9 Top Reviewers for JPSE

Figure 9

Table 10 Editorial Board by Gender

Figure 10

Table 11 Editorial Board by Country

Figure 11

Table 12 Editorial Board by Rank

Figure 12

Table 13 Editorial Board by Institution

Figure 13

Table 14 Current Citation Rights

Figure 14

Table 15 Comparison