Journal of Educational Data Mining

Educational Data Mining is an emerging discipline dedicated to developing methods that explore the unique data generated in educational settings. The goal is to deepen our understanding of students and their learning environments through innovative and impactful research. Key data sources in EDM include:

• Student interactions within interactive learning environments.
• Learner test data and assessment artifacts.
• Digital didactic materials.
• Usage patterns in learning management systems.

Types of Submissions:

The journal seeks high-quality original work that emphasizes novelty and impact in the field. Accepted submissions should extend beyond mere application and must include elements that contribute to broader knowledge, such as generalizable methodologies or comparative analyses. Specific areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Innovative Processes or Methodologies: Developing and detailing new processes or methodologies for analyzing educational data.
• Integration with Pedagogical Theories: Research that advances pedagogical theories through data-driven insights.
• Broader Applicability of Educational Software: Work that not only improves educational software but also demonstrates the generalizable applicability of findings across different contexts.
• Advancing Understanding of Learner Cognition: Research that enhances our understanding of learners' domain representations and cognitive processes.
• Comparative Assessment of Learner Engagement: Studies that compare different approaches to assessing learner engagement and effectiveness.

The journal also welcomes survey articles, theoretical articles, and position papers, provided they build on existing research and offer significant contributions to the field.

Submission Guidelines:

• Originality and Impact: Submissions must emphasize the novelty and impact of the research. They should provide insights that are applicable beyond the specific study context and offer comparative evaluations where relevant.
• Replicability: All submissions should present their methodologies and findings in a way that ensures replicability by other researchers. This includes clear descriptions of the data, tools, and procedures used.
• Data and Code Availability: Authors are strongly encouraged to make their data sets, software code, and intermediate results available to the community. This transparency enhances replicability and allows for further validation and use by other researchers.
• Extended Conference Papers: When extending a previously published conference paper, the journal submission must include a significant new contribution (at least 1/3 new content). A cover letter should detail these new contributions, and any necessary copyright permissions must be obtained.
• Generalizable Applicability: Research should not focus solely on application but must demonstrate how the findings can be generalized or applied across different educational contexts.
• Methodological Clarity and Comparisons: Submissions should clearly explain the data mining, modeling, and analysis components, with an emphasis on methodological rigor. Where possible, studies should compare different methods or approaches to highlight their relative effectiveness and limitations.
• There are no charges for published papers.

Use of Generative AI Software Tools while Preparing Your Manuscript

This policy concerns the use of generative AI software tools such as ChatGPT as you write your paper. This policy does not concern the use of generative AI software tools in your research; this will typically be described in a section called Methodology, or a similar name, within your manuscript.

We understand that generative AI software tools can be useful to improve the readability and clarity of your paper and agree with such use. This can be achieved with a prompt such as “Please revise grammar and style of this paragraph for a paper as a scholar without changing the meaning: [PARAGRAPH]”. However, generative AI software tools could be also used to write a complete part of your paper. This could be achieved with a prompt such as “I am writing a paper in sentiment analysis. Please summarize recent important research in this area”. Blindly copy/pasting the results of such a prompt into your paper is not allowed. However, the use of a generative AI software tool as a search engine to help you in finding related works that you review and synthesize yourself is allowed.

Because of the algorithms used in the present generative AI software tools, the text they generate is not guaranteed of being error or bias-free. In any case, human authors must review the automatically generated text, change it, amend it as necessary, and bear full responsibility for the content of their paper. A generative AI software tool/service cannot be an author. Therefore, our policy enforces that you precisely disclose the use of such tools: you describe which tools you have used, in which part of your paper, and what for, and you ensure that you bear full responsibility for your manuscript. Technically, this is realized by including a special section called “Declaration of generative AI software tools in the writing process” before the references with the following statement:

During the preparation of this work, the author(s) used [NAME TOOL(S) / SERVICE(S)] in the section(s) [mention precisely all parts where you used the tool(s) or services(s)] in order to [REASON(S)]. After using this tool(s)/service(s), the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the publication.

Note: This statement is adapted from Elsevier.

This policy will be revisited periodically to update it with best practices.

All articles that are elected for a full review undertake rigorous peer review by three anonymous referees. If an anonymized manuscript has been submitted, the review process will be double-blind. Editors will aim for a prompt overall reviewing process. It is the policy of the journal that no submission, or substantially overlapping submission, be published or be under review elsewhere. Papers extending previously published conference papers are acceptable, as long as the JEDM submission provides a significant contribution beyond the conference paper and that the overlap is explained clearly in the JEDM submission, with the unique contribution(s) of the JEDM submission contrasted with that of the other paper(s).

 

Upon submission, the editor will verify that the article can be read and is within the scope of the journal. Then an Associate Editor will take responsibility for handling the review process. The Associate Editor sends the title and abstract of the article to JEDM's Editorial Board as well as other qualified referees, in order to solicit volunteers for a review. The full article is then assigned to three carefully selected and balanced reviewers following JEDM's reviewing guidelines. The Associate Editor will study the reviews that are returned, and make an overall recommendation to the Editor. Upon the receipt of all reviews, the Associate Editor compiles a summary review in consultation with the Editor, and the summary review is then sent to both the authors and reviewers in anonymous form. When revisions are requested, authors should upload a revised manuscript addressing the points raised in the reviews as well as a detailed cover letter outlining how each point has been addressed. A process map of the editorial process can be viewed here.

 

This extensive exploitation of electronic communication and electronic publishing benefits the authors, the editor, the reviewers, and the publisher. Reviewers do not receive papers unexpectedly, but are informed about incoming submissions and can pick those papers in which they are interested and which they are willing to review within a certain period of time. Both the quality and the punctuality of the reviews are thereby considerably improved. JEDM aims at evaluating papers within three months.

 

The reviewers will be asked to answer the following questions:

• ►How relevant is this submission to the scope of JEDM? (if applicable: to the targeted special issue?)
• ►How novel is the described research? Are the authors aware of related work?
• ►What is the scientific contribution of this submission? Is it clearly explained, in terms of how the paper advances the EDM field or contributes to related fields?
• ►Is the work technically sound? Are there enough methodological details? Are claims convincingly substantiated, either through theoretical argument or empirical data?
• ►Have the authors made their data sets, software code, and intermediate results available for inspection and re-use to the reviewers and, if appropriate, to the community? (not always required, but recommended when feasible)
• ►Have the authors properly documented the use of generative AI software tools, if any? (optional section of the manuscript to be placed before the references)
• ►Do the authors describe the limitations of their approach in a satisfactory manner?
• ►How significant is the research? Will the paper be likely to have an impact on the community?
• ►Does the title of this paper clearly and sufficiently reflect its contents?
• ►Are the presentation, organization and length satisfactory?
• ►Can you suggest additions, amendments, or reductions in the paper?
• ►Are the illustrations and tables necessary and acceptable?
• ►Are the key words and abstracts/summary informative?

Additionally, we appreciate it if reviewers give comments regarding fairness, equity, and positive social impacts of the submission when appropriate, see the guidelines worked out for the EDM 2022 conference.

Publication Ethics and Misconduct

JEDM adheres to the ethical standards set by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), including:

• ►The International Standards for Authors
• ►The Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers
• ►The  Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors

Reviewers with competing interests and editorial team members with competing interests will remove themselves from the decision making process. When an editorial team member submits a paper, an external trusted special editor will be assigned to manage the entire review process and act as editor for that submision.  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. 

Authors are required to declare their compliance with JEDM's Author Guidelines and Submission Checklist, which includes declaring competing interests. 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.

Complaints

Complaints should be reported via the journal contact information page. Complaints will be investigated according to recommendations by the Committee on Publication Ethics. If complainants are unsatisfied with the response they may contact the International Educational Data Mining Society.