The Buckingham Journal of Education

Focus and Scope

The Buckingham Journal of Education is thematic and published twice yearly. Whilst it is based at the University of Buckingham is draws from an eclectic mix of academic authors beyond its borders who have an established track record in their field.

The first edition, published in June 2020, has a focus on the curriculum and seeks to capture a range of views that are contributing to both the national and international debate around this area. The articles span the spectrum of theoretical and conceptual thinking, through to practitioner perspectives and also showcase contemporary research.

In many ways, The University of Buckingham is a relatively ‘new kid on the block’, becoming a university college in 1973 and gaining its university status by royal charter in 1983. It is a private university, so it lacks the government funding which is the bedrock of most other UK universities. It does, however, comply with full academic requirements of higher education in this country. It is not the local Spar shop set against Tesco, like comparing it with larger players such as University College London. It is known for having a radical edge, many will have heard of it as the home of the two-year degree, using four-term years to prune time but not quality from its degree programmes. There is a resonance with innovation and fresh thinking at its core. This journal is a further manifestation of this, as we seek to showcase ideas and concepts and not simply become an organ of academic activity. Forthcoming editions include: Ten years on - the legacy of Michael Gove; Assessment, Revisiting Pedagogy; Coaching and Professional Development.

Peer Review Process

The Buckingham Journal of Education has a formal university setting with all that means in terms of quality assurance. Articles are received from academics or in many instances key writers in a particular field are approached by the editor to contribute to this open access publication. On receipt, they are reviewed by the editor and assistant editor. This first pass checks for relevance and overall academic competency. The articles are then passed to an editorial board of four University of Buckingham (UOB) academics who provide both critique and feedback. The articles together with the feedback are returned to the authors for either withdrawal or amendment. The key criteria are:

• Knowledge of the field (preferably including publication and research)
• Evidence of fresh and contemporary thinking around the declared focus
• Internal coherence of presented arguments
• Evidence of conceptual thinking
• Academic competence in writing and presentation
• Evidence of wide and appropriate reading around the presented area
• An absence of plagiarism (neither the work of somebody else or a recycling of their own!)
• An engaging but not flippant writing style
• An absence of polemic
• Appropriate criticality

There are two other strands of review. Firstly, the editor and assistant editor, both of whom are well established within the UK academic community, may well submit an anonymised copy of an article to an academic outside UOB where a specialist evaluation is appropriate . Secondly, the Dean of Education at UOB exercises an overview of the publication in terms of institutional reputational risk. This ‘overview’ is in no sense censorship of content but rather another strand of quality control to ensure that the journal presents a high standard of academic scholarship.

The next stage is the formal process of editing and publication working closely with the University of Buckingham Press.

Open Access Policy

This journal 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.

Sponsors

Set-up in 2002, the School of Education at the University of Buckingham now has over 1,000 teachers and school leaders studying with it and has become the UK's leading provider of teacher training and professional development.

• School of Education, University of Buckingham

Information

• For Readers
• For Authors
• For Librarians

Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

• The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
• The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, RTF, or WordPerfect document file format.
• Where available, URLs for the references have been provided.
• The text is single-spaced; uses a 12-point font; employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
• The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Author Guidelines, which is found in About the Journal.
• If submitting to a peer-reviewed section of the journal, the instructions in Ensuring a Blind Review have been followed.

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.

Editors

Tom Chalmers, University of Buckingham Press, United Kingdom

Dr Max Coates, University of Buckingham