Scholarly and Research Communication
volume 10 / issue 2 / 2019
Teresa Strong-Wilson, Mindy
Carter, Jérôme St-Amand, & Sylvie Wald
McGill University
Teresa Strong-Wilson is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at McGill University and editor-in-chief of the McGill Journal of Education. Email: teresa.strong-wilson@mcgill.ca
Mindy Carter is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at McGill University and an associate editor at the McGill Journal of Education. Email: mindy.carter@mcgill.ca
Jérôme St-Amand is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at Université du Québec en Outaouais and an associate editor at the McGill Journal of Education. Email: jerome.st-amand@uqo.ca
Sylvie Wald is a PhD Candidate in the Faculty of Education at McGill University and the managing editor of the McGill Journal of Education. Email: sylvie.wald@mcgill.ca
Since it was founded in 1966, the McGill Journal of Education has been a bilingual peer-reviewed, generalist academic journal open to a broad range of topics and concerns related to education. It supports the open access to information movement that is transforming the academic publishing world and the digital technology making it possible for knowledge produced by publicly funded scholars to be widely and easily available. This article reflects on its most significant changes and challenges as a bilingual generalist, open access journal with close ties to McGill, Québec, Canada, and, increasingly, the world writ large.
Keywords Education; Generalist journal; McGill; Open access
Depuis sa fondation en 1966, la Revue des sciences de l’éducation de McGill est un journal académique généraliste, bilingue, évalué par les pairs et ouvert à un large éventail de sujets et de préoccupations relatifs à l’éducation. Il appuie à la fois le mouvement de libre accès à l’information qui est en train de transformer le monde de l’édition académique et les technologies numériques qui assurent une vaste diffusion et un accès facile au savoir généré par des chercheurs financés par l’État. Cet article se penche sur les changements et les défis les plus significatifs auxquels la revue a fait face en tant que publication en libre accès bilingue, généraliste et étroitement liée à l’Université McGill, au Québec, au Canada et, de plus en plus, au monde entier.
Mots clés Revue des sciences de l’éducation de McGill; Éducation; Généraliste bilingue; Libre accès
According to Google, the article that has garnered the greatest attention (62,570 views) in the McGill Journal of Education (MJE) is Pierre-Jérôme Bergeron’s (2017) “How to Engage in Pseudoscience with Real Data.” This interesting altmetric will be revisited throughout this article because of what it says about the journal, who we as a journal are, where we have come from, and who we continue to aspire to be. This article begins with an overall picture of the journal.
Throughout its history as a bilingual generalist journal, the MJE has focused on provoking conversation. Margaret Gillet (1966), the MJE’s first editor, wrote in her opening editorial that the journal aimed to “serve as a stimulus for educational discussion, a forum for ideas, an outlet for research, and a meeting ground for theoreticians and those engaged – at all levels – in the practical business of teaching” (p. 3). The inception of the journal in 1966 coincided with the opening of the Faculty of Education at McGill University. Prior to having a faculty, McGill had an Institute of Education, which published a bulletin. The idea for a journal (versus a bulletin) very much developed out of the new faculty and its intention to enter a wider conversation around education, as Gillet’s opening gambit indicates. For the better part of its life as a journal, the MJE has been conscious of navigating between being the “McGill” journal of education and being a generalist journal of education open to the wider world. When William M. Talley (1985a) took over the reins of the journal, he stated the problem in his opening editorial, asking:
How can a journal published at an English-speaking university in a primarily French-speaking province express the nature and intricacies of the educational concerns in such a distinct milieu and at the same time, address a wide range of educational issues? (p. 1)
Because the journal’s inception was tied so closely to the faculty, it became a venue reflective of that community: its editors all came from the faculty at McGill, many of its authors hailed from McGill, its pages were often given over to issues highly germane to the faculty or the university, and several assistant professors cut their scholarly teeth by guest editing special issues in their research areas. The journal has proudly retained its ties to the McGill name. To our knowledge, no other name was ever entertained. And while for a good part of its history, the journal has decidedly leaned toward publishing research relevant to its milieu of education in Québec, there have been many exceptions. Gillet was especially eclectic, bringing in authors and subjects “trending” (to use a popular term) across continents – Marshall McLuhan, for instance, but also Alexander Sutherland Neill’s Summerhill School project in the U.K. (discussed below). Editor John Harley was among the first to introduce more international topics that would appeal to a wider audience. The direction of the journal began to shift in earnest with editor Ann Beer, who secured the first Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grant and was instrumental in systematically broadening the range of issues in the journal and, in so doing, broadening its reach. She especially reached out to those on the margins who were seeking places to publish. While Indigenous education was a subject that had come up before in the journal, mostly tied to McGill professor Jack Cram’s extensive work with Northern communities, Beer was the first editor to encourage a special issue (in 2002) co-led by an Indigenous guest editor (Kanonhsionni/Hill & Stairs, 2002). The journal has since published many articles by Indigenous authors or allies and has published a special issue on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in education, co-led by a guest editorial team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics and an Indigenous doctoral student (Daniels, Deer, Donald, Lowe, & Wiseman, 2018).
By and large, most of the authors publishing in the MJE are from Canadian universities or organizations; since going online, it is attracting more international submissions from all over the world: the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South America, as well as (most recently) China. The topic of education in Québec, though, remains one that the journal actively explores through its general and special issues, except that instead of being written predominantly by English scholars, articles are by Francophone scholars, which seems only appropriate in a bilingual journal.
In 2013, the MJE migrated from an in-house editorial board to an international editorial advisory board, which functions to promote the journal, perform outreach (including by encouraging quality submissions), provide intellectual direction (e.g., on digitization, open access, or on special issues), and identify reviewers. The board was recently updated, adding new scholars that offer greater representation internationally, with particular attention to including those from Francophonie on the recommendation of our French editors. The process included surveying continuing editorial board members for suggestions on increasing visibility and accessibility. We plan to use this information and board to further our discoverability and accessibility.
Board members may be asked to review a manuscript (e.g., in case of a split decision), but the MJE mostly relies on its editorial board to help the journal attract quality submissions as well as recommend reviewers. We rely on our extensive bank of reviewers (experts) to evaluate the suitability of a manuscript for publication. The journal has more than 2,000 English and French reviewers. In the past two years (2016-2017), it has used the services of 173 reviewers, most of whom are Canadian academics (84%) working in English (56%); however, thanks to the French co-editors, the number of French reviewers has been growing rapidly. The U.S. and France dominate international representation (29% each), followed by Switzerland (11%), and Australia and the U.K. (7% each). There are reviewers from Austria, Belgium, Finland, Senegal, and South Africa. We avoid using the same reviewers within a two-year period so as to enhance journal quality. We ask reviewers to evaluate a manuscript for its: 1) content and significance, 2) methodology and argument, and 3) writing and presentation. Reviewers then provide a recommendation: accept, revisions required, revise and resubmit, or decline. We want feedback to be constructive. Reviewers
are asked to provide assessments that: (a) stimulate the process of revision, thereby facilitating better articles and an earlier publication date, (b) provides the editor, faced with conflicting recommendations, with a basis for making an informed decision, and (c) provides feedback to authors which can contribute to their professional development. (MJE, n.d.-b, para. 3)
Reviewers have six weeks in which to complete their review. They are sent automatic reminders and personalized requests, and regularly complete two rounds of review on a manuscript. We are highly appreciative of our reviewers, most of whom return generously detailed feedback highly useful to both author and consulting editor, resulting in higher quality articles.
Our commitment has always been to high-quality scholarship: well informed, ethical, relevant, and innovative. The current mandate, posted on the website, reads:
The McGill Journal of Education (MJE) is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary, open access, bilingual scholarly journal published three times a year. Embracing a broad conception of education, the MJE is dedicated to connecting educational research, theory, policy and practice by inviting thoughtful and critical submissions from scholars and practitioners working in diverse areas of education and learning in Quebec, Canada and internationally. (MJE, n.d.-a, para. 1)
The journal publishes articles (research articles, conceptual pieces, literature reviews), Notes from the Field, MJE Forum pieces, and book reviews. It encourages submissions on topics that range from “formal, non-formal, informal, or incidental forms of teaching and learning; from preschool to adult education; in a range of social settings within and outside of school, and community/popular education contexts” (MJE, n.d.-a, para. 1). The MJE presently publishes three times a year: two general issues and one special issue. It started out publishing twice a year and began publishing three times a year in 1978. However, the number of special issues per year has varied. Most (as of 1999) have been guest edited; prior to that time, MJE editors often served as “special issue” editors, gathering articles on a similar topic. In 2013, we formalized the process by which special issue requests are vetted. Given the number of requests we receive, which is many more than we can accommodate with our present policy of one special issue a year, we recently decided, on the initiative of Vincent Boutonnet, a French associate editor, to pilot a streamlined mini special issue contained within one general issue a year. Since its inception, the journal has been anchored by its commitment to being a generalist journal and of seeking ways to keep the conversations open.
One of the journal’s main aspirations has been to help generate conversations. This aspiration is neither original nor remarkable; most journals hope that their content does not lie inert in archives but is talked about, used, debated, and responded to in various ways. However, this is something that the MJE has aimed to do since its inception in 1966, which each editor has put into practice in his or her own way.
In a 1968 issue of the MJE, Gillet published a controversial essay by Neill (1968) (reproduced from the Times Educational Supplement), provocatively called, “Why Have Exams?” It was a polemic against the uselessness of the curriculum: “Rock’n’roll? Good. The music of the school would start with Elvis Presley and Tommy Steele” (p. 31). Starting from student interests does not sound so revolutionary now – rather, more like good pedagogical sense – but at that time, Neill’s Summerhill School upended the entire structure of schooling. Founded in 1921 in the U.K., Summerhill aspired to make the school fit the child rather than vice versa. Students were free to attend classes – or not – according to their interests and inclinations. Teacher candidates at McGill became interested in debating Neill’s ideas and had arranged a special screening of a National Film Board of Canada [NFB] 1967 film about Neill’s school, as Gillet (1974b) reports, reflecting retrospectively on the impact of Neill on education and in particular, on McGill’s students, this in an article she contributed to a special issue devoted to Neill (volume 9, number 1, 1974). All the funds raised by the screening had been sent by the students to Neill. In the wake of the screening, Gillet had also invited students’ written responses, some of which she collected and published in the journal in 1968, pieces such as Arlene Rex’s (1968) “The Student as Lost Sheep.” Gillet sent this MJE issue to Neill, inviting his response, which was fulsome; Gillet (1974b) quotes from his letter in her article. Neill passed away earlier in 1974, which became the occasion for the In Memoriam issue (Gillett, 1974a) (the MJE published several of these in its first three decades). Well-known educational theorist Maxine Greene (Columbia University) contributed her thoughts (Greene, 1974), as did several others, Gillet included. In her piece, Gillet (1974) quoted liberally from her correspondence with Neill, including his sharply critical response to the MJE issue, concluding that whether educators “admire or revile the man,” the fact that he “helped change the nature of schooling in our times” (pp. 23-24) could not be doubted.
Returning to the altmetric with which this article opened, distinctive to the Bergeron piece (as with the Neill piece) was taking an old chestnut and claiming to break it apart. For Neill (1968) it was schooling; for Bergeron (2017), it was the improper use of statistics in education. Bergeron opens by saying that he intends to take on a “Holy Grail” in education: John Hattie’s (2008) Visible Learning. In his book, which has been described as groundbreaking, Hattie synthesized the largest number of meta-analyses and studies on measures of teaching and learning using Cohen’s d (a measure of effect size). “According to the legend,” writes Bergeron (2017),
the Holy Grail is kept in the elusive castle of the Fisher King. When taking the necessary in-depth look at Visible Learning with the eye of an expert, we find not a mighty castle but a fragile house of cards that quickly falls apart. (p. 238)
He then goes on to dismantle Hattie’s methodology. The piece was first published in French in the MJE Forum, so as to stimulate discussion. The MJE Forum (as stated on the website) “offers a forum to educational practitioners, researchers, and/or those involved in community/ies (e.g., activists, organizers, etc) interested in initiating conversations, dialogues, and debates around contemporary issues in education)” (MJE, n.d.-c, para. 1). The Bergeron (2017) piece aroused such interest, especially on social media, that we reissued it the following year, translating it into English; it generated an even greater buzz.
Whereas at one time, readers might have written the editor (e.g., see Gillet, 1971), responses now largely come via social media. Over the past three years, we have piloted using social media (Twitter and Facebook) to highlight research findings, special issues, and MJE Forum discussions. In the process, we discovered how social media could function as an important source of information on what was of greatest interest to MJE readers and prospective authors. Through social media, we diversified and increased our audience by reaching new readers that may not have been previously aware of the MJE’s existence, and also retained current readers by easing the discoverability of new issues and articles. We also piloted the transformation of research findings into thumbnail sketches (snapshots) that could be readily tweeted and communicated on Facebook (Starr & Sanford, 2016). Over the next two years, we plan to streamline this process by developing a protocol for the editorial team and future managing editors to follow. The goal is to use social media to not only track reader interest but to generate interest – using sections such as the MJE Forum, special issues, and now, too, mini special issues as forums for ongoing or new conversations happening in education.
What was especially distinctive about the Bergeron (2017) piece is that it attracted notice first as an article in French (9,195 views; number six in our top-50 articles), a number that increased five-fold when it was translated and republished. Tapping into conversations across languages is something that we aspire to do as a bilingual generalist journal.
Half of the journal’s submissions are currently in French. Four years ago, one-third of our published authors were from Francophonie; now, 40 percent are. One of our primary goals is to contribute to conversations, in English and French, to improve, enhance, as well as stimulate theory and practice on topics of wide concern. The MJE originated in Québec, but at McGill, a bastion of Englishness. Some of what follows is based on an editorial reflection on our bilingualism (see Strong-Wilson, Éthier, & Asghar, 2016).
In our first year (1966), we published a book review in French. The next year, we published an article in French. Gradually, French articles could be more commonly found among the journal’s offerings. In 1974, Jean-Phillipe Aubert, an instructor offering a French course in the Faculty of Education, published a piece in the MJE called, “Allô McGill, vous parlez français?” The article contained no critique of the journal; however, in retrospect, we might echo Aubert and explore when and how bilingualism took hold in the journal as a practice. Editor John K. Harley (1980) initiated the practice of making article abstracts available in French and English in issue 15-2, while Ann Beer (2000) was the first editor-in-chief to begin publishing editorials in both official languages. In 2006, Annie Savard, who had been hired as an assistant professor in mathematics education, was the first French co-editor, engaged by editor Anthony Paré. This was an important milestone. Previously, the MJE’s English editor had relied on assistance from French colleagues. Shortly afterward (in 2007), the journal became open access. Paré has eloquently explained why the journal decided to take that route, reasons closely tied to our conviction of being committed to opening conversations. However, a major factor was the desire on the part of the then-editor and editorial board (comprised primarily of faculty within McGill’s Faculty of Education) to remain bilingual. Large academic publishers were interested in taking us on, but at the cost of shedding our bilingualism. Choosing an open access model allowed us to renew our commitment to being a bilingual journal.
Under an editorial collective that took the reins in 2011, which Savard joined, we ensured that all policies and procedures were being made available in both languages. Meanwhile, in response to Savard’s presence, the journal was receiving an increasing number of submissions in French. The weight on her shoulders started to become considerable, especially as she was untenured at the time. In her parting editorial, Gillet (1977) wryly comments on something that editors rarely express, but is endemic to the work we do. She writes, “there were times when I chafed at being, as it were, an intellectual midwife for other people’s thoughts” even as this work allowed her “to make contact with people and ideas that I might never have known” (p. 2). Since Savard left, we are attentive to moderating the workload when recruiting new scholars whose ideas and energy are vital to the journal.
For almost two years after Savard left the journal, we scrambled. Editor-in-chief Teresa Strong-Wilson could get by, but just. She was not a French editor, nor one from Francophonie, which authors definitely took note of. It was apparent that a more lasting solution needed to be found; further, one that could enhance the bilingualism of the journal. The answer was found in Marc-André Éthier, then chair of didactique in the Faculty of Education at Université de Montréal. He responded to an email we had sent him (based on the recommendation of a colleague) inviting his participation. Éthier stayed with the journal for more than three years, working closely with Strong-Wilson and the other editors, becoming an integral part of the intellectual leadership of the journal. Éthier was instrumental in attracting a greater influx of French submissions, many from Québec but also from overseas; he was a major advocate for the greater internationalization of the journal. He enlisted another associate editor, David LeFrançois, from the Université de Québec à Outaouais (UQO). LeFrançois had recently been a guest editor, with Alan Sears, on a special issue on social studies education. However, one of the other areas in which Éthier (and LeFrançois) made major inroads was with the MJE Forum. It was Éthier’s idea to make the Bergeron (2017) essay a forum piece. What the French associate editors were highly successful in doing was restoring a sense of lively debate to the “pages” of the MJE. This could not have been anticipated but was made possible by opening the journal not only to bilingual conversations but also to the bilingual leadership of those conversations, which was achieved through co-editorship with French universities in Québec.
In 2007, the MJE moved from being a print subscription journal to being online and open access, with its almost 50-year archive also being made available online. We support open access and the technology that makes it possible for knowledge produced by publicly funded scholars to be widely and readily available. Paré (2007) eloquently articulated the grounds for this shift, arguing that knowledge produced in publicly funded universities should be made widely available; he also saw digitization and open access as avenues for broadening readership and opening conversations – for making the journal “a forum for a wider and more inclusive conversation about education, one that includes concerned and informed non-specialists as well as education scholars” (p. 5). This was done with the creation of two new sections, Notes from the Field and the MJE Forum, which were alluded to earlier. The MJE Forum has already been described. Notes from the Field publishes articles that reflect the work of practitioners and educational researchers, including the linking of theory with practice; the reflections presented in this section contribute, among other things, to the sharing of winning educational practices as well as difficult lessons encountered in practice. These two sections have undeniably contributed to our reflection on the many issues related to education, as well as served as effective tools to support teacher training and professional development, advocating for classroom teachers as well as school and community leaders. Furthermore, we became the first generalist journal to host a special issue on multimedia in scholarship and to feature a podcast among the article lineup. Being digital and open access has also allowed us to capitalize on a wider audience, which we are trying to both engage as well as capture through social media; the Bergeron (2017) piece is a case in point.
When we ceased to be a subscription-based journal, SSHRC funding became more important. We continue to seek out sustainable ways to support the journal; funding is a pressing issue for open access journals in Canada. As Paré (2007) noted, it is a misnomer to believe that open access means free: “real time and money goes into the production of [a journal]” (p. 5). Our non-negotiable costs are the work of the managing editor and the work of translators. Our current business model involves applying for SSHRC funding (Aid to Scholarly Journals), support we are grateful for, and supplementing this funding with royalties (from Copibec, EBSCO, and ProQuest) and partnerships. We are currently supported directly by a SSHRC Aid to Scholarly Journals award and indirectly by our partners: Open Journals Systems (OJS), the McGill Library, and McGill’s Faculty of Education. We have, for instance, an office in the faculty and in 2014, in between SSHRC applications, our dean provided a one-time influx of funds roughly equivalent to SSHRC’s transition funds. In exchange, besides the work of the journal itself supporting members of the McGill community (e.g., through mentoring new scholars), we have organized workshops for doctoral students, this based on the success of a 2013-2014 pilot. We belong to Érudit (a consortium of journals in Québec that distributes our content worldwide) as well as associations such the Canadian Association for Learned Journals. We are also supported through our editorial alliance with French universities in Québec, which allows us to enjoy a wider bilingual presence provincially, nationally, and internationally.
The character of a journal is deeply influenced by its leadership. Over the course of most of its first 50 years, the MJE had five editors, each of whom stayed for between seven and 14 years, putting his or her own stamp on the journal. “It is good and right that a journal have editors with different styles, different perspectives, and distinct objectives,” observed Talley (1991, p. 6). Margaret Gillet was the founding editor who steered the journal for its first decade. She was especially good at opening, and sustaining, conversations, acting like a magnet in attracting topics of interest. This may be due to the fact that she not only led on issues but was often a contributor to the scholarly conversation. It was also during her tenure that we saw articles written by the likes of Marshall McLuhan (1966) and Pierre Berton (1971), along with commentaries by Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau as well as Jean Charest, then the minister of youth.
John K. Harley replaced Gillet and was the editor of the MJE from 1978-1984. Like Gillet, Harley’s was a strong voice; people must have turned to the journal in anticipation not only of the articles but the editorials. The one Harley (1984) called “Whistling in the Dark,” for example, opened with the radical question: “When you consider the extraordinary muddle our minds are in, is it not a great presumption for us to undertake to educate anyone else?” (p. 107). He included poetry, predominantly works written by Paddy Webb, a contributor to the journal. Harley made poems a regular feature, moving them to centre stage beside the editorial. It might seem an idiosyncratic touch – similar to the images that Talley (the next editor) often used to preface his editorials, or the captivating editorial titles during Harley’s and Talley’s time – but, in retrospect, we can see these touches as characteristic of the MJE; here, it was the value accorded to literary and creative works within a conversation around education. We will be piloting a new section called Artful and Creative Inquiries, led by Associate Editor Mindy Carter, which aims to broaden conversations by drawing on arts-based educational research (ABER). To honour both the form and function of ABER, a combination of both peer-reviewed articles and artwork is planned for an upcoming special issue guest edited by Mindy Carter and Sean Wiebe, and Patrick Howard on the significance of creativity on pedagogical risk-taking for teacher re-conceptualization. The new section will solicit artwork and video to provoke proposed authors to consider new way(s) of representing their research.
William M. Talley presided over the journal for close to 15 years, from 1985 until 1998. Did he feel as if he had answered the journal’s identity question, the one he had posed in his 1985 editorial? (See the beginning of this article.) This question – of how to be a bilingual generalist journal situated in Québec but open to Canada and the world – is one the journal continues to wrestle with, although we like to believe that through our editorial alliance with French colleagues in Québec, we have managed to turn it around from predicament to opportunity. Beer would have lauded this move, as would Paré, as the editor who really started the ball rolling by engaging a French co-editor. Paré was also solely responsible for the transformation of the MJE from a subscription-based print journal to one that is fully online and open access. John Willinksy, who is on the journal’s editorial board and who has been a leader in the open access movement, helped him considerably. Paré, however, also introduced other changes: he drew explicit, sustained attention to the place of peer review and of reviewers in our pages and, as we discuss in the next section, initiated the inclusion of doctoral students in running the journal.
An editorial collective followed Paré’s editorship. A call for editors was circulated within the Faculty of Education. Teresa Strong-Wilson, Anila Asghar, and Aziz Choudry submitted a proposal. The co-editors, working in close collaboration with Stephen Peters (managing editor) and Savard (French editor), revised existing policies and developed new ones (e.g., on workflow and on special issues), added a reviewer form, and ensured all documents are available online in French and in English. They developed the new sections (Notes from the Field and the MJE Forum). This co-editorship was also responsible for moving the journal from an in-house McGill-only editorial board to an international one that includes both professors and practitioners. It was later found useful to retain an editor-in-chief (Strong-Wilson), but the co-editorship lay the groundwork for collaborations with the French universities and distributing editorial responsibility among multiple associate editors. Editorials were co-written, which became a focus for Strong-Wilson and Éthier, writing across languages. With expansion of the editorial team also came the expansion of the academic areas (as the editors came with different areas of scholarly interest and expertise), which seemed only appropriate for a generalist journal.
The current MJE editorial team comprises an editor-in-chief (Teresa Strong-Wilson, McGill) and five associate editors: three English-language editors, Anila Asghar, Mindy Carter, and Lisa Starr (McGill), and two French-language editors, Vincent Boutonnet and Jerome St-Amand (UQO). The managing editor, Sylvie Wald, is a McGill doctoral candidate. All the editors (English and French) are actively involved in setting the intellectual direction of the journal and in contributing to editorials. As a generalist journal open to a wide variety of submissions, the backgrounds of the MJE editorial team collectively reflects this variety, e.g., literacy/ies, new technologies, and Indigenous education (Strong-Wilson); science education (Asghar); creative arts in education (Carter); leadership and teacher education (Starr); social studies (Boutonnet); and educational psychology (St-Amand). Carter and Starr started out as assistant editors primarily responsible for knowledge mobilization strategies with a focus on social media, even as they were being mentored as editors. The previous French associate editors recruited Boutonnet and St-Amand, who have already brought changes – Boutonnet with the mini special issue and St-Amand with proposals for reaching more practitioners. The linchpin in the MJE editorial team is the managing editor, who works across languages in collaboration with all editors. Since 2011, the managing editor has been a doctoral student.
Paré’s vision was prescient in anticipating that online and open access was the (only) way to move forward for the MJE– and, as it turns out, for journal publishing in Canada. At the same time, but with less fanfare, he introduced another momentous change in the journal: making the managing editor a doctoral student position. Paré brought a strong interest in academic writing and also, stemming back to his work in McGill’s Centre for the Study and Teaching of Writing, the mentoring of scholars. At the same time as he was the journal editor, he was engaged in an SSHRC-funded research project on doctoral formation. Since 2011, the journal has had two doctoral student managing editors: Stephen Peters (2011-2014) and Sylvie Wald, the present editor. Paré mentored Peters into the position once the journal went online and open access. Peters was “schooled” into the OJS, which he then taught to the incoming editors: Strong-Wilson, Asghar, Choudry, as well as Savard. Paré had also hired student interns to help with expanding the reviewer base. The managing editor position, however, offered an opportunity for a doctoral student to become thoroughly and intimately acquainted with the world of journal publishing. As such, managing editors tend to bring a background, interest, or even research concentration in scholarly writing and communication. Managing editors have also played important leadership roles through their close collaboration with the editor-in-chief and the relationships they develop with editors, particularly the French editors. A bilingual managing editor is virtually a necessity for the MJE.
Paré anticipated that managing editors would change every two to three years, with the incoming editor “shadowing” and being mentored by the outgoing editor. One of the challenges that managing editors have encountered is balancing managing a journal with their doctoral program. Stability is important to a journal – to its editors (who may change) and, of course, to its authors and readers. Managing editors, in the current online, open access journal publishing environment, become experts not simply in managing manuscripts but in all matters associated with journal publishing, from platforms to distributors to metrics, even as this landscape is in continual flux. Thus, both Peters and Wald were actively involved in supporting and enhancing the digital presence of the MJE, which has included attending Canadian Association of Learned Journals (CALJ) boot camp sessions. It has become clear that, given the growing complexity of the position, the tasks cannot be easily completed within the allotted hours per week. The present SSHRC application, therefore, proposes hiring an additional managing editor, a doctoral student who would work in collaboration with the main managing editor, who would be primarily responsible for special issues.
Since 2013, we have also used transition (innovation) funds (within the SSHRC grant) to engage interns around knowledge dissemination. The most successful initiative on this front was coupling this with recruiting two assistant editors who were new professors in the Faculty of Education. These editors were made responsible for a very small number of manuscripts (a maximum of two) to learn about journal publishing and the OJS. However, they were invited to focus on creating a proposal for knowledge dissemination involving social media and to coordinate the work and the interns. The two editors (Mindy Carter and Lisa Starr), now associate editors, brought their energy and expertise in working with new formats. Carter, with her background in the creative arts, worked primarily on social media. Starr, with her experience in leadership, initiated a pilot of producing snapshots of articles that could be tweeted. The next phase of this work – developing a social media protocol that can be used by any member of the editorial team, along with a more streamlined process for producing snapshots – has been planned. There are also plans to better integrate the two French associate editors, who also have a keen interest in this area.
Doctoral student authors whose submissions show promise are regularly mentored in the publication process. For example, the journal has led writing workshops on specific topics. This mentoring relationship with doctoral students, in all of its facets, is vital to the journal and tied closely to its goal of opening itself to new ideas and energy (and where graduate student research is often on the leading edge). Journal publishing is changing, and new scholars will be leading the next wave of changes to the structure and format of journal publishing.
Returning to the Bergeron (2017) piece, while it was Éthier who first proposed translating it into English, it was Managing Editor Sylvie Wald who followed through on it. Wald’s own bilingualism has been central to the journal’s success in being able to support and sustain two languages. One of the challenges the journal faces is securing bilingual doctoral students as managing editors.
“Can we interest you?” We conclude with a question echoing Talley (1985b), who opened one of his editorials with it, reiterating that the MJE “over the years has served as a forum for current ideas in the field of education” (p. 222). This is even more true now than it was in 1985, since the journal moved to being online, fully open access, and international, even as it keeps one foot solidly in Québec and across Canada. The journal’s reach, and its readership, is broad. It is a generalist journal in education and, as such, offers a wide berth for manuscripts on various subjects of interest in education. It publishes two general issues a year, and yet there is also the opportunity to contribute to – or propose – a special issue. That opportunity will now be extended to a streamlined mini special issue within one general issue a year. The journal publishes high-quality articles that are highly pertinent to education in both English and French, and has been doing so for over 50 years. Though it is housed at a leading research university in Canada, and the world, it exemplifies a commitment to being a fully bilingual journal through an editorial alliance with French universities in Québec. The MJE is dedicated to opening conversations in education among scholars, practitioners, and communities, and looks forward to continuing to do the same into the next half-century.
Canadian Association of Learned Journals, https://www.calj-acrs.ca
Copibec, https://www.copibec.ca/
EBSCO, https://www.ebsco.com/
Érudit, https://www.erudit.org/fr/
McGill Library, https://www.mcgill.ca/library/
McGill Faculty of Education, https://www.mcgill.ca/education/
Open Journals Systems (OJS), https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/
ProQuest, https://www.proquest.com/
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CISP Press
Scholarly and Research Communication
Volume 10, Issue 2, Article ID 1001317 13 pages
Journal URL: www.src-online.ca http://doi.org/10.22230/src.2019v10n2a317
Received August 17, 2018, Accepted November 15, 2018, Published March 7, 2019
Strong-Wilson, Teresa, Carter, Mindy, St-Amand, Jérôme, & Wald, Sylvie. (2019). Can We Interest You? The McGill Journal of Education. Scholarly and Research Communication, 10(2): 1001317, 13 pp.
© 2019 Teresa Strong-Wilson, Mindy Carter, Jérôme St-Amand, & Sylvie Wald. This Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.