IVEC (2020) Special Issue is now published!
The UNICollaboration Publications Officers are:
- Carolin Fuchs, Northeastern University, USA, First publications officer
- Müge Satar, Newcastle University, UK, Second publications officer
The Editorial Office comprises:
- Carolin Fuchs, Northeastern University, USA, Editor-in-Chief
- Müge Satar, Newcastle University, UK, Editor-in-Chief
- Alice Gruber, Heilbronn University, Germany (Associate Editor)
- Mona Pearl, DePaul University, Chicago, USA (Associate Editor)
- Mary-Jane Radford Arrow, Universität Greifswald, Germany (Associate Editor, IVEC Special Issue Editor)
The Editorial Office is in charge of publications by the UNICollaboration team, including setting up and running the online open-source journal Journal of Virtual Exchange. More info: publications@unicollaboration.org
Journal of Virtual Exchange
Journal of Virtual Exchange (JVE) is an online, open-access, peer-reviewed journal aimed at practitioners and researchers in the field known variously as telecollaboration, virtual exchange, or online intercultural exchange. It is the official journal of UniCollaboration, the international academic organisation dedicated to supporting and promoting telecollaboration and virtual exchange in higher education.
Motivation
The field of technology and language learning is well served by existing research journals. However, telecollaboration and virtual exchange are driven in the first place by energetic and creative practitioners from interdisciplinary fields, whose work is often less well served by existing journals. This journal will provide a peer-reviewed outlet for systematic reports and careful reflection on innovative work in the field. Contributions are intended to function as inspiration for other practitioners and researchers, but also as a starting-point for further theoretical dialogue.
Aims
By focusing on practice reports, the editors aim:
- to recognise practice as the core of the telecollaborative community of practice;
- to build up a corpus of reports on telecollaborative practice which may (i) inspire further work, and (ii) provide a resource for further research;
- to give recognition and publication opportunities to practitioners who may not be (primarily) researchers or who may be novice researchers;
- to encourage the practitioner-contributors to pursue research paths through the expert responses.
Format
Frequency: The journal will initially appear on a rolling basis. The UniCollaboration first and second research officers will be the general editors, while each issue will be edited by at least two other members of the publications team.
Keynote Articles: Keynote contributions have wide latitude as to their form, style, and content. The key requirement is that they should have a broader, synthesising focus than regular research papers or practice reports. Appropriate formats include, but are not limited to: state-of-the-art articles, meta-analyses, innovative theoretical perspectives, and programmatic essays. A keynote article should be a maximum of 8,000 words in length.
Research Articles: Research papers should report on empirical research into virtual exchange. They must be clearly situated within a critical review of existing literature, and must make explicit their theoretical framework and research methodology. The journal welcomes submissions from any established or persuasively defended theoretical and methodological orientation. A research article should be a maximum of 8,000 words in length.
Practice Reports: A practice report provides a detailed, critical account of the design, running and evaluation of an innovative virtual exchange project. The project should not be simply a replication of projects reported elsewhere in the literature: it should be original or, if closely based on an existing project or design, incorporate significant adaptations (e.g., to design or to context of application). A practice report should be a maximum of 4,000 words in length.
Journal of Virtual Exchange will also consider submissions in non-traditional formats: video, audio, hypertext, multimedia, and so on. Such submissions will be assessed by the editors for their scholarly interest to the journal’s readership, but also for the creativity with which they exploit the affordances of the online environment. Content that might be suitable for such formats includes, but is not limited to, interviews, book reviews, and software reviews.
Other publications
Jager, S., Kurek, M., O’Rourke, B. (Eds). (2016). New directions in telecollaborative research and practice: selected papers from the second conference on telecollaboration in higher education. Research-publishing.net. https://doi.org/10.14705/rpnet.2016.telecollab2016.9781908416414
O’Dowd, R., & O’Rourke, B. (2019). New developments in virtual exchange for foreign language education. Language Learning & Technology, 23(3), 1–7. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/44690
O’Dowd, R., & Lewis, T. (Eds.). (2016). Online intercultural exchange: Policy, pedagogy, practice. Routledge. More info: Publisher’s site.
Turula, A., Kurek, M., Lewis, T. (Eds). (2019). Telecollaboration and virtual exchange across disciplines: in service of social inclusion and global citizenship. Research-publishing.net. https://doi.org/10.14705/rpnet.2019.35.9782490057429