Journal policies

Publication charges

Publication of articles in the Journal of Learning Analytics is free of charge. The journal does not charge any submission or article processing charges – The publication costs are covered by the Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR).

Open access policy

The Journal of Learning Analytics provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. The journal operates an ‘Early Access’ system ­ accepted papers are first published as soon as possible after acceptance and later assigned to an issue number. This system maximises exposure to the work from the earliest possible date while also ensuring the rigour of the peer review process.

Preprint policy

Journal of Learning Analytics welcomes manuscripts that have been published on preprint servers such as arXiv or SocOpen. Preprint repositories have an important role in quickly disseminating research findings and supporting the learning analytics community in rapidly sharing knowledge. Manuscripts that have been published on preprint servers will undergo the same rigorous peer-review process as other submissions. If such a manuscript gets accepted and published in the Journal of Learning Analytics, the preprint version should be updated to add the DOI and URL link to the published JLA version of the paper.

Publication ethics

The Journal of Learning Analytics follows the ethical standards set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check their submission’s compliance with the following items related to publication ethics. Submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines will be returned to authors.

  • The submission is original and has not been previously published, nor has it been submitted to another journal for consideration.
  • The text adheres to the ethical, stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines

In case of misconduct, plagiarism, or if a paper is found not to be original, it will be rejected or removed following the COPE retraction guidelines.

Authorship statement

Authorship of an article in the Journal of Learning Analytics is an important label that denotes both credit and responsibility for the work conducted and should accurately reflect individuals’ contributions.

Qualification for authorship of a Journal of Learning Analytics article is based on three criteria:

  1. Substantial contributions to the conception of the work, design of the study, or analysis and interpretation of the data.
  2. Involvement in the writing of the manuscript to be submitted.
  3. Approval of the final submitted version with responsibility for the integrity of its content.

The author list for a Journal of Learning Analytics submission should include all those, and only those, who satisfy all three of these criteria. Individuals who meet the first criterion should have the opportunity to qualify for authorship by being given the opportunity to participate in the review, drafting, and final approval of the manuscript. Any changes to the author list (including order) must be approved by all authors of the original submission.

Contributors who do not meet all three of the criteria for authorship should not be listed as authors but can be recognized in a separate acknowledgements section. The Journal of Learning Analytics explicitly disallows the practices of guest, gift, and ghost authorship; responsibility for the correct attribution of authorship resides collectively with the submitting authors.

Submissions with four or more authors will be required to submit a statement that outlines the contribution that each author has made to the work and manuscript preparation.

Copyright notice

Authors who publish in the Journal of Learning Analytics agree to the following terms and conditions:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons License, Attribution - NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors can enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  3. Authors are permitted to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process. Where an earlier version of a manuscript was available publicly, this should be (1) noted to the editors in an accompanying file or submission note and (2) if the paper is accepted, added to the declaration of interests section of the manuscript. Any preprint version should be updated to refer readers to the journal version as the document of record. The JLA supports open dissemination of knowledge as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

Review process

The Journal of Learning Analytics operates a 'double blind' review process in which authors do not know the identity of reviewers and reviewers do not know the identity of authors. Details on how to prepare your manuscript to ensure a blind review are given on the author guidelines page.

The review process includes at least two anonymous referees. Once a new paper is submitted, it is assigned to one of the editors who checks whether the submission is relevant for the scope of the journal and ready for consideration by reviewers (e.g., adequate coverage of the related peer-reviewed work, description of the research method, or quality of language). Passing verification, the submission is sent out for external review, using the appropriate reviewer form. Where revisions are requested, authors should provide a detailed covering letter outlining how they have responded to each point raised by the reviews. Revised versions of the manuscripts should not exceed the word limits given above. Final decisions on manuscripts are made by the editors based on ratings and comments provided by the reviewers.

Our editors are required to declare any potential competing interests in undertaking their editorial duties. In cases where a manuscript is submitted by a colleague at their own institution or from their research networks, editors will remove themselves from the decision-making process. A co-editor, or an external trusted expert, with no such connections, is then asked to act as the editor for that particular paper. An editor will have no input or influence on the peer review process or publication decision for an article they have authored and submitted to the journal. Should a member of a journal’s editorial team submit a manuscript to the journal, a co-editor, or external trusted expert, will be assigned to manage the entire review process and act as editor for that paper. If the article proceeds to publication, it will be explicitly stated on the article that the editor who submitted the paper has had no involvement with the journal’s handling of this particular article, along with the reasons for this, and the name of the assigned editor.

This policy should be read alongside other relevant journal policies, including those concerning conflicts of interest.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Data Privacy Policy

The data collected from registered and non-registered users of this journal falls within the scope of the standard functioning of peer-reviewed journals. It includes information that makes communication possible for the editorial process; it is used to inform readers about the authorship and editing of content; it enables collecting aggregated data on readership behaviors, as well as tracking geopolitical and social elements of scholarly communication.

This journal’s editorial team uses this data to guide its work in publishing and improving this journal. Data that will assist in developing this publishing platform may be shared with its developer Public Knowledge Project in an anonymized and aggregated form, with appropriate exceptions such as article metrics. The data will not be sold by this journal or PKP nor will it be used for purposes other than those stated here. The authors published in this journal are responsible for the human subject data that figures in the research reported here.

Those involved in editing this journal seek to be compliant with industry standards for data privacy, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provision for “data subject rights” that include (a) breach notification; (b) right of access; (c) the right to be forgotten; (d) data portability; and (e) privacy by design. The GDPR also allows for the recognition of “the public interest in the availability of the data,” which has a particular saliency for those involved in maintaining, with the greatest integrity possible, the public record of scholarly publishing.

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