2022 is our 41st Year (Volume 41) of Irish Educational Studies; Volume 1 was launched in 1981 at Trinity College Dublin by the Minister for Education, John Boland with Professor John Coolahan, General Editor, and Professor Donal Mulcahy, President of the Educational Studies Association of Ireland.
Welcome to this final issue of Volume 41, which issue addresses a range of important educational questions and topics, and which will be of interest not just to researchers in Ireland but scholars and teachers globally. The papers printed in this issue include:
‘Learning and Teaching: The Extent to which School Principals in Irish Voluntary Secondary Schools Enable Collaborative Practice’
‘Towards an organic model of collaborative practice in a post-primary school setting - insights from a teaching and learning group (T&L Club)’
‘Artificial boundaries? Shaping policy through empowering research’
‘Developing a scale to assess post-primary educators’ attitudes with regard to the promotion of student wellbeing’
‘Integrated STEM - A Step Too Far in Primary Education Contexts?’
‘Evolution of Irish curriculum culture: understandings, policy, reform and change’
‘Mental Health Literacy and Help-giving Responses of Irish Primary School Teachers’
Book Review: ‘Blended and Online Learning for Global Citizenship: New Technologies and Opportunities for Intercultural Education’
As always, we thank and congratulate our authors and book reviewer in this issue; the scholars who completed thorough, critical and constructive peer-review of the manuscripts; and also our editors who guided the papers expertly through the peer-review process to final publication.
It has been another year of highly significant growth for Irish Educational Studies, both nationally and internationally.
In Volume 41 (2022), we have published two landmark special issues of the journal. Issue 1 focused on digital education futures, our first in the area of educational technology, reporting on innovative and futures-oriented research internationally, which looks at the design and deployment of a range of interesting and high-potential digital technologies in educational contexts and settings, in Ireland and beyond.
In the third issue of this year’s volume, we published our first collection of papers specifically on the critical topic of educational disadvantage. Congratulations to the guest editors, Professor Judith Harford, Professor Áine Hyland and Dr Brian Fleming on this landmark issue of Irish Educational Studies. As well as leading Irish scholarship, the special issue ‘Rethinking Educational Disadvantage’ also features seminal work by international scholars: Professor Diane Reay, University of Cambridge and Professor Paul Reville, Harvard University.
The issue was officially launched on Thursday 6th October 2022 by Professor Gerry McKenna, Senior Vice President of the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) in Dublin as part of a one-day symposium at the RIA, which was launched and addressed by Ireland’s Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris.
We are happy to report that the profile of Irish Educational Studies continues to grow very significantly in terms of our impact factor and readership figures. This is reflected in continuing upward trends in a number of these key metrics.
Last year (2021), our Impact Factor almost doubled from 0.554 to 1.017; this marked the first time the Impact Factor for Irish Educational Studies increased beyond an IF of 1.
This year (2022), our Impact Factor increased further, substantially again: to 1.576; therefore, the Impact Factor has almost trebled since 2019–2020.
Our global readership figures in the last two-years are also record-breaking and unprecedented for the journal: overall, in 2021, there was a 137% increase in the full-text downloads for IES, with more downloads in the final quarter of the year (2021) than in the whole of 2020. There were 64,909 full-text downloads between October–December 2021, more than the entire total for 2020 (64,785).
We had an increase of 252% internationally in full-text downloads of IES in Quarter 3 of 2021 alone.
There was a 132% increase in readership for January to June 2022, when compared with figures for same period in 2021. Quarter 2 (April–June) full-text downloads were up by 97% this year (2022). 2022 Quarter 2 Readership Figures reached 60,152, compared with 2021 Quarter 2 Readership Figures of 30,562.
Irish Educational Studies saw a 170% annual increase in article views; the first time the journal had exceeded 100,000 views with over 229,000 views between June 2021 and June 2022. The total views (June 2021–June 2022) were 229,991.
Also, our most recent metrics illustrate and underscore the growing profile of the journal, in Ireland and beyond. We have achieved further increases in journal readership this quarter and year. Our Quarter 3 Usage for 2022: 41,056 exceeds the 37,505 figure for 2021. There is an 80% increase in Year-To-Date Usage for 2022: 159,466, which significantly exceeds the same period in the last two years: 88,555 (2021) and 10,654 (2020).
Our Readership January-September 2022 (159,466 full-text downloads) has already surpassed aggregate annual usage figures for 2021 (153,464) and 2020 (64,785). Alongside near-trebling of the Impact Factor since 2020, this is all good news regarding the growing international profile of Irish Educational Studies.
We have also made high profile appointments to our Editorial Board, including 19 leading international scholars across a range of educational disciplines. The journal is also featuring more in the media and public discourse on education, e.g. RTÉ News, Newstalk/Pat Kenny, Irish Times, Irish Independent; and the Editorial in The Irish Independent (30/08/2021), ‘We need a wider range of options for our young people’, which references our 32-paper COVID-19 special issue of Irish Educational Studies, published in 2021. Also, our altmetrics (online mentions and profile) continue to grow as well.
Well done and thank you to our editorial board and production teams, authors, reviewers, readers, and all who support Irish Educational Studies.
As we conclude Volume 41, we wish all our authors, readers and supporters a happy and peaceful holiday season, and a safe and prosperous 2023.