Top Literacy Journal Moves to Neag School
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Janice Palmer (860) 486-1340 (office)
October 13, 2006
STORRS, Conn. – The Journal of Literacy Research, a premier peer-reviewed research journal for more than 40 years, has selected a team of six faculty from the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education to serve as its editorial board for the next three years. This is the first time the journal’s editorial team has been spearheaded by a large faculty group from one institution.
Published quarterly, JLR is the official journal of the National Reading Conference, the largest professional organization devoted solely to literacy and reading research. Six Neag faculty members from two departments formed a team to compete for the editorship. From the Department of Curriculum and Instruction department are professors Douglas Hartman, Mary Anne Doyle, Douglas Kaufman, and Wendy Glenn. From the Department of Educational Psychology are professors Sally Reis and Michael Coyne. Although former faculty member Mileidis Gort recently relocated to the University of Miami, she remains on the editorial team.
The team members bring a strong set of research and editorial experience to JLR; all have served on the editorial review boards of major research journals – 35 journals in all – and collectively, have been awarded $7.6 million in major research grants during the last two years.
“We’re extremely proud that this Neag group has been selected to lead this prestigious journal during a transformation that is sure to better serve the literacy research community as well as the field of education as a whole,” says Richard Schwab, dean of the Neag School.
“We competed with top universities for this editorship,” Schwab states. “The National Reading Conference’s decision to move its journal to the Neag School demonstrates its trust in our team’s ability to provide leadership and expertise.”
The Neag team sought the journal with the intent of maintaining the periodical’s reputation for high standards of scholarly rigor and professionalism while improving and expanding access to the journal. The planned changes include moving the journal to a fully web-based submission and review process. Article abstracts will be made available in four languages: Chinese, English, French and Spanish. Book reviews will be included in every issue. Another significant change is reflected in how the editorial duties have been organized.
“The breadth of our team enables us to take the unusual step of making each one of us an area editor responsible for overseeing the review of manuscripts for which each of us has individual topical and methodological expertise,” says Hartman, who serves as a senior editor as well as an area editor. His areas of expertise include the new literacies of the Internet, the history of reading, adolescent literacy and sociocultural aspects of literacy.
The group plans to include some of the new challenges and emerging areas in reading and literacy research appear in the journal’s pages.
“By and large this journal has not addressed the gifted and talented learners, bilingual issues, or the new literacies of the Internet,” says Doyle, a professor of reading and language arts. Her expertise includes early literacy development, early interventions, and diagnostic assessment.
Kaufman, an expert in the writing process adds, “Given the diversity of our editorial team, our professional activities and contacts, we hope to recruit manuscripts from a wider range of disciplines.”
As a means to provide a forum for focused discussion, several themed issues are planned. Among the topics being considered are diversity, accessibility and professionalism. “Our hope,” notes Glenn, a top scholar on literature for young people, “is to spark discussions that have a profound effect on policy and practice.”
The team’s first issue will be published in early 2007. Additional information about the Journal of Literacy Research is online at: www.nrconline.org.
