Editorial Acknowledgment

This issue features the special section EDM Cup 2023, four regular articles, one article that is an extended version of a paper presented at the 17th  International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM2024), and one article that is an extended version of a paper presented at the 16th  International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM2023).

The 2023 EDM Cup, held as part of the 16th International Conference on Educational Data Mining, represents a collaborative effort to advance the understanding of student behavior and performance modeling. We extend our sincere gratitude to the International Educational Data Mining Society (IEDMS) for organizing this conference and competition.

The data collected for this competition from the ASSISTments platform was made possible in part due to the use of assignments and unit tests from open curricula, including Illustrative Mathematics, Engage NY, and Utah Math. These resources played a crucial role in capturing detailed and meaningful data, enabling the development of actionable insights to improve learning outcomes.

We are grateful to the participants, whose innovative submissions demonstrated the breadth and depth of approaches in educational data mining. A total of 49 teams participated in the competition, producing six submissions, with three ultimately accepted into this special issue. These contributions exemplify the diverse methodologies and insights possible.

Special thanks are due to the reviewers and members of the journal's Editorial Board who dedicated their time and expertise to the rigorous peer-review process. Each submission was reviewed by at least three scholars selected by the journal's Editorial Board. Their thoughtful feedback ensured the high quality and relevance of the published works.

Finally, we acknowledge the role of platforms like Kaggle in hosting the competition and ASSISTments in their continuous efforts to make data accessible to the research community.

We hope this special issue inspires further exploration and advancement in the field. Thank you to all who participated, reviewed, and supported this endeavor.

For the third time, the EDM conference and JEDM coordinated to invite several of the most outstanding papers from the 2024 conference to submit extended versions of those papers for publication as articles in JEDM. This process allows authors to update and expand their most promising research, including analyses and discussions that would not have fit into the constraints of the conference proceedings page limits. In total, the authors of 12 papers were invited based on positive reviews and clear opportunities for beneficial extension; the authors of 10 papers accepted the invitation and submitted extended articles for review. These submissions were reviewed by a mix of individuals who had reviewed the original EDM submissions as well as new reviewers. Four papers are accepted, one of which occurs in the current issue, with 3 expected to be published in early 2025; five extended articles are still under review and may also be published in the next issue of JEDM, if accepted.

We thank the reviewers who volunteered their time and effort to provide feedback on these articles. We recognize the reviewers in the June issue editorial for the previous year.

Philip Pavlik (Editor), University of Memphis, USA

Neil Heffernan (Guest Editor Special Section EDM Cup 2023), Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), USA

Ethan Prihar (Guest Editor Special Section EDM Cup 2023), EPFL, SWITZERLAND

Carrie Demmans Epp (Guest Editor Section Extended Articles from the EDM 2024) Conference, University of Alberta, CANADA

Benjamin Paassen (Guest Editor Section Extended Articles from the EDM 2024 Conference), University of Bielefeld, GERMANY

Nigel Bosch (Accessibility Production Editor), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA

Agathe Merceron (Outgoing Editor), Berlin University of Applied Sciences, GERMANY