Frontiers in Education | About (2024)

Field chief editor

Mission & scope

Frontiers in Education is a multidisciplinary, academic journal that focuses on addressing global educational challenges, including policy and practice, to provide thoughtful, research-based insights into improving educational outcomes for all.

Led by Field Chief Editor Margaret Grogan (Chapman University, USA), the journal explores education and its importance for individuals and society. Indexed in Scopus and the DOAJ, among others, Frontiers in Education welcomes submissions that advance education knowledge, particularly PreK-16 education, that leads to human flourishing and well-being. The journal aims to provide an international, scholarly forum for discussion of innovation and transformation necessary for the progressive, democratic future of every society.

Frontiers in Education covers the following broad subject areas:

• assessment, testing, and applied measurement
• digital education
• digital learning innovations
• educational psychology
• higher education
• language, culture, and diversity
• leadership in education
• STEM education
• special educational needs
• teacher education.

Frontiers in Education encourages submissions that examine issues such as, but are not limited to:

• discrimination, exclusion and limited access to opportunities in education across all levels of education.
• political, social and economic factors impacting state and local education policy and practice.
• ways in which external and internal environmental conditions affect student learning outcomes.

The journal encourages all philosophical points of view, grounded primarily in well-designed empirical research, utilizing a variety of methodologies. Interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary work is welcome. Cross-cultural and/or cross-national studies that contribute to new knowledge are highly desirable. In addition to critique, the journal seeks innovative thinking around new and promising practices and policies in every setting. Frontiers in Education welcomes studies that relate to the improvement of education policies or practice, teaching and/or learning strategies, or learning outcomes for students and/or educators.

The journal also welcomes contributions that advance the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), notably SDG 4: to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, and SDG 10: reduced inequalities.

Manuscripts that focus on discipline-specific education such as legal education or medical education are not within the scope of this journal. For medical education papers related to healthcare professions, please submit to Frontiers in Medicine, section Healthcare Professions Education.

Frontiers in Education is committed to advancing education research by allowing unrestricted access to articles and communicating scientific knowledge to researchers and the public, enabling future scientific breakthroughs.

Frontiers in Education is member of the Committee on Publication Ethics.

Facts

Journal sections

Frontiers in Education is composed of the following Specialty sections:

• Assessment, Testing and Applied Measurement
• Digital Education
• Digital Learning Innovations
• Higher Education
• Language, Culture and Diversity
• Leadership in Education
• Mental Health and Wellbeing in Education
• STEM Education
• Special Educational Needs
• Teacher Education

The specialty sections of Frontiers in Education welcome submission of the following article types: Brief Research Report, Case Report, Clinical Trial, Community Case Study, Conceptual Analysis, Correction, Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy, Data Report, Editorial, General Commentary, Hypothesis & Theory, Methods, Mini Review, Opinion, Original Research, Perspective, Policy Brief, Policy and Practice Reviews, Registered Report, Review, Study Protocol, Systematic Review, Technology and Code.

When submitting a manuscript to Frontiers in Education, authors must submit the material directly to one of the specialty sections. Manuscripts are peer-reviewed by the Associate and Review Editors of the respective specialty section.

Open access statement

Copyright statement

Under the Frontiers Conditions for Website Use and the Frontiers General Conditions for Authors, authors of articles published in Frontiers journals retain copyright on their articles, except for any third-party images and other materials added by Frontiers, which are subject to copyright of their respective owners. Authors are therefore free to disseminate and re-publish their articles, subject to any requirements of third-party copyright owners and subject to the original publication being fully cited. The ability to copy, download, forward or otherwise distribute any materials is always subject to any copyright notices displayed. Copyright notices must be displayed prominently and may not be obliterated, deleted or hidden, totally or partially.

Quality

• 2023

  • Editorial Board Quality

    • Only leading experts and established members of the research community are appointed to the Frontiers Editorial Boards. Chief Editors, Associate Editors and Review Editors are all listed with their names and affiliations on the Journal pages and are encouraged to publicly list their publication credentials.

  • Associate Editor Assignment Quality

    • Associate Editors oversee the peer-review and take the final acceptance decision on manuscripts. Editorial decision power is distributed in Frontiers, because we believe that many experts within a community should be able to shape the direction of science for the benefit of society.

    • Submitting authors can choose a preferred Associate Editor to handle their manuscript, because they can judge well who would be an appropriate expert in editing their manuscript. There is no guarantee for this preference of choice, Associate Editors can decline invitations any time, and the handling Associate Editor can also be over-ridden by the Chief Editor before she/he is invited to edit the article or at any other stage.

    • Associate Editors are mandated to only accept to edit a manuscript if they have no conflicts of interest (as stated here and in their review invitation and assignment emails).

    • Should it become clear that the Associate Editor has a conflict of interest or is unable to perform the peer-review timely and adequately, a new Associate Editor can be assigned to the manuscript by the Chief Editor, who has full control to intervene in the peer-review process at any time.

    • The Associate Editor initially checks that the article meets basic quality standards and has no obvious objective errors.

  • Reviewer Assignment Quality

    • The Associate Editor can then personally choose and invite the most appropriate reviewers to handle the peer-review of the manuscript, including Review Editors from the board or external reviewers.

    • The Associate Editor is aided in this by the Frontiers Collaborative Review Forum software and interface, which suggests the most relevant Review Editors based on a match between their expertise and the topic of the manuscript. Associate Editors can however choose any reviewer they deem adequate.

    • After a certain time frame and if no reviewers have in the meantime been assigned to the manuscript, the Frontiers platform and algorithmic safety-net steps in and invites the most appropriate Review Editors based on constantly updated and improved algorithms that match reviewer expertise with the submitted manuscript.

    • Review Editors and reviewers are mandated to only accept to review a manuscript if they have no conflicts of interest (as stated here and in their review invitation and assignment emails).

    • Frontiers algorithms are constantly fine-tuned to better match Review Editors with manuscripts, and additional checks are being coded into the platform, for example regarding conflicts of interest.

    • Should it become clear that a particular reviewer has a conflict of interest or is unable to perform the peer-review timely and adequately, he or she shall be replaced with an alternative reviewer by the Associate Editor or the Chief Editor, who will be alerted and has full control to intervene into the peer-review at any time.

  • Independent Review Stage Quality

    • In the Independent Review Stage the assigned reviewers perform an in-depth review of the article independently of each other to safeguard complete freedom of opinion.

    • The reviewers are aided by an online standardized review questionnaire – adopted to article types – with the goal to facilitate rigorous evaluation according to objective criteria and the Frontiers Review Guidelines.

  • Interactive Review Stage Quality

    • The Associate Editor assesses the reviews and activates the “Interactive Review” – informing the authors of the extent of revisions that are required to address the reviewers’ comments, and starting the Interactive Discussion Forum where authors and also the reviewers get full access to all review reports.

    • Manuscript and review quality at this stage are enhanced by allowing authors and reviewers to discuss directly with each other in real-time until they reach consensus and a final version of the manuscript is endorsed by the reviewers.

    • Reviewer identity is protected at this stage to safeguard complete freedom of opinion.

    • Reviewers can recommend rejection at this stage if their requests to correct objective errors are not being met by the authors or if they deem the article overall of insufficient quality.

    • Should a dispute arise, authors or reviewers can trigger an arbitration and will alert the Associate Editor, who can assign more reviewers and/or bring the dispute to the attention of the Chief Editor. The Associate Editor can also weigh in on the discussion and is asked to mediate the process to ensure a constructive revision stage.

  • Decision Stage Quality

    • The decision to accept an article needs to be unanimous amongst all reviewers and the handling Associate Editor.

    • The names of the Associate Editor and reviewers are disclosed on published articles to encourage in depth and rigorous reviews, acknowledge work well done on the article and to bring transparency and accountability into peer-review.

    • Associate Editors can recommend the rejection of an article to the Chief Editor, who needs to check that the authors’ rights have been upheld during the peer-review process, and who can then ultimately reject the article if it is of insufficient quality, has objective errors or if the authors were unreasonably unwilling to address the points raised during the review.

    • Chief Editors can at any stage of the peer-review step in to comment on the review process, change assigned editors, assign themselves as a reviewer and even as the handling editor for the manuscript, and therefore have full authority and all the mechanisms to act independently in their online editorial office to ensure quality.

  • Safeguards against Financial Conflicts of Interest

    • Only leading researchers acting as Associate Editors, who are not part of Frontiers staff, can make acceptance decisions based on reviews performed by external experts acting as Review Editors or reviewers. None have a financial incentive to accept articles, i.e. they are not paid for their role to act as Associate or Review Editors, and any award scheme is not linked to acceptances of manuscripts.

    • Chief Editors receive an honorarium if their specialty section or field reaches certain submission levels. However, this honorarium is based on the total number of submitted articles during a calendar year, and not the number of accepted articles. Therefore they also have no financial incentive to accept manuscripts.

  • Post-Publication Stage Quality

    • The Frontiers platform enables post-publication commenting and discussions on papers and hence the possibility to critically evaluate articles even after the peer-review process.

    • Frontiers has a community retraction protocol in place to retract papers where serious concerns have been raised and validated by the community that warrant retraction, including ethical concerns, honest errors or scientific misconduct.