Note from the IEEE Education Society VP Publications

As the holidays approach, we look back on the past year and can be proud of our achievements. During 2019 our Society Transactions have advanced in international rankings, and Transactions on Education and Transactions on Learning Technologies are internationally recognized as leading venues for publishing original scholarship in all areas of Engineering Education and Learning Technologies.

Our new Editors in Chief have worked tirelessly to renew the editorial boards of the two journals, increasing diversity and global representation of our Associate Editor pool. RITA continues to make contributions to the field with a broad focus.

The IEEE has launched Open Access plans, and analysis of our author demographics indicates that a transition to full author-pays open access would not serve our community well. With this in mind, we will launch an IEEE Access Education Society section in 2020 to cater to those whose funding agencies require Open Access publication. Stay tuned for more information on this Open Access initiative. The Transactions on Education makes a transition to electronic publication for 2020, this allows us to raise publication rates, and relax page count limits slightly. The aim is to make the journals more attractive to those of you who wish to publish qualitative research, where the 6-page limit is a significant barrier.

As an editor and scholar, I observe that our community is not strongly centered around our Transactions. I encourage all of you to both publish your work in the Education Societies Transactions as well as read, and where relevant cite, work from our Transactions. Having a strong author community associated with a Transactions title has many positive benefits for our members, including increased impact and higher citation rates for relevant published work. We as a community can actively work to support our transactions and to enhance their relevance and impact. I urge all of you to consider one of the Education Society Transactions as a first stop venue when you consider publishing high-quality archival level work.

Finally, I wish to take this opportunity to wish you all a safe and happy holiday season, safe travels and enjoy a few days of relaxation with family and friends. I look forward to serving you as the VP Publications during 2020 and 2021. See you all in the New Year, perhaps at one of our highly successful conferences, such as FIE 2020 which I will be hosting in Uppsala, Sweden in October.

Sincerely Yours
Arnold Pears
VP Publications