• EdTechnica
  • Cover
  • Academic Communities of Engagement (ACE) Framework
  • Makerspaces
  • Flipped Classroom
  • Technocentrism
  • Editor's Working Documents
  • Author Working Sheet
  • About the Encyclopedia
  • Abbreviations
  • Blended Teaching
  • Decision-based Learning
  • Emergency Remote Teaching
  • Microcredentials
  • Microlearning
  • Open Educational Practices
  • Open Educational Resources
  • Open Pedagogy
  • Personalized Learning
  • Phenomenology
  • Professional Learning Networks
  • PICRAT
  • RAT
  • Self-Efficacy
  • TPACK
  • Download
  • Translations
  • Policy Information

    • Policy Information

    The information on this page is provided primarily for the benefit of Editorial Board members to assist in the administration and future development of the encyclopedia.

    Contact Information

    If you would like to contact encyclopedia personnel, please use one of the email addresses below:

    The primary method of communication among the Editorial and Review Boards will be via Slack or email. The Slack channel may be accessed by board members here: https://edtechnica.slack.com/

    Communications

    EdTechnica uses a variety of opt-in/out email notifications, including the following:

    Inclusive Contribution and Equity Strategy

    This encyclopedia seeks both (a) to be authoritative for the field by providing original authors and invested professionals with the ability to establish and explain the meanings of terms and concepts and (b) to be intentionally and proactively inclusive of various perspectives and contexts. Tension exists between these two aims as any attempt at providing a platform for authoritative voice can quickly lead to hegemonic power structures wherein the wealthy, privileged, or more-highly-educated can marginalize those with dissenting (or simply different) views, such as researchers at elite universities minoritizing the voices of K-12 teachers or North American and European scholars minoritizing the voices of other scholars throughout the world.

    To help navigate this tension, the Editorial Board will lead efforts to ensure that the encyclopedia grows and evolves to become increasingly representative of and useful to educational technology professionals throughout the world. Some of these efforts are expected to include the following:

    Strategic Invitation Planning Document

    To help organize invitation campaigns of authors, editors may use the Strategic Invitation Planning Document. This document is not visible to the public.

    Contributor Demographics Dashboard

    To help ensure transparency and to support the encyclopedia’s commitment to inclusivity and representation, all reviewers and authors will be invited to provide simple demographic identifiers (e.g., gender, race, nationality). Aggregations of these data will be publicly available via a demographics dashboard and will help to inform the Editorial Board’s execution of the Inclusive Contribution and Equity Strategy.

    Social Outreach and Marketing Strategy

    The Editorial Board will maintain dedicated accounts on prominent social media platforms (e.g., Twitter, Instagram), promoting and sharing articles and announcements. Such communication might include the following:

    All posts should include the #edtech and #edtechnica hashtags. Additionally, any shared images should include alternative text, and videos should provide captions to ensure accessibility.

    Analytics and Metrics

    Google Analytics will be enabled for the volume, and internal analytics will be enabled for the overall volume and each article.

    Article authors will have access to their own article metrics, such as the following:

    Editors will have access to the Google Analytics dashboard, which will provide additional metrics of use, including locations of users, relative popularity of articles, and so forth.

    Others may also request access to data for scholarly purposes by contacting a site administrator.

    Awards

    Scholarly Excellence Award

    This award is presented each year to authors of the highest quality and most impactful articles in the encyclopedia. Recipients are selected by the Editorial Board using relevant metrics (e.g., ratings, read counts). Each article may only receive this award once.

    Reviewer Excellence Award

    This award is presented each year to outstanding reviewers, and the recipient is selected by the Editorial Board.

    EdTech Books Badges

    In addition to these awards, EdTech Books also provides platform-level badges that are automatically awarded to authors. Some of these badges include the following:

    Digital Hosting and Technical Support

    Digital hosting and technical support will be provided as a public service by EdTechBooks.org. Additionally, the EdTech Books platform will continue to be developed to meet the ongoing needs of the encyclopedia and its editorial and review boards.

    Funding for this technological infrastructure is currently provided by Dr. Royce Kimmons and the Instructional Psychology and Technology department at Brigham Young University. As an openly-licensed volume, however, the encyclopedia can be copied to other hosting services as desired and is not restricted to this platform or funding structure in the future.

    Access Methods

    To improve usefulness and usability, it is anticipated that encyclopedia articles will be accessed via a variety of methods.

    EdTech Books Generic Interface

    EdTech Books has a generic book interface that lists all book contents on a single page here: https://edtechbooks.org/-DCRU. This will be the default interface used by most editors and reviewers.

    Figure 1

    The generic EdTech Books interface

    example interface view

    Quick-Search Interface on EdTechnica.org

    Given the volume of articles we anticipate publishing, a quick-search interface will also be provided on EdTechnica.org, which will use caching and client-side javascript-enabled searching to allow for fast filtering of articles and definitions. It is anticipated this will be the primary interface used by most readers.

    Figure 2

    The EdTechnica.org quick-search interface

    example quick search view

    Embedding

    All articles may be easily embedded via iframe into other sites. This means that content may be used in a variety of contexts and is the preferred method for including articles in learning management systems.

    When embedding, either the normal view of the article or the simple view may be used. To use the simple view, add “/simple” to the end of the URL.

    Figure 3

    An example of an encyclopedia page embedded on Canvas using the simple view

    example embedding

    EdTech Books Partner Cross-Listings

    The encyclopedia may also be cross-listed on partner and institutional sites.

    Other Apps

    In addition, other apps and websites may provide access to encyclopedia articles using the EdTech Books API, provided that they display suggested citations and abide by licensing requirements.

    Printed Versions

    PDFs and other versions of articles and the entire encyclopedia will be available for download and printing, though there is currently no plan to provide a constantly-updated, print-on-demand version of the entire encyclopedia for 1-click orders. As the encyclopedia grows, however, abridged versions of the encyclopedia that provide targeted collections of articles may be compiled and made available via Amazon KDP or other services.

    Collaborative Volumes

    Professional organizations may collaborate with the Editorial Board to create joint calls for articles or to produce focused compilations of select articles. Such collaborations are encouraged and may be useful for providing focused, timely materials to a professional community.

    Collaborative volumes should adhere to the following guidelines:

    1. Articles should follow the same authoring guidelines and reviewing procedures as other articles in the Encyclopedia.
    2. Articles should be released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license so that they can be cross-listed in multiple volumes.
    3. Articles in focused volumes should cite EdTechnica as the original source.

    Professional Partnerships

    The encyclopedia currently has no professional partnerships.

    Goals

    Year 1 2022

    Year 2 2023

    Year 3 2024

    Year 4 2025

    Year 5 2026

    Ideas for the Future and Technical Roadmap

    References

    Kimmons, R. (2018). The 5 C Guidelines: Prioritizing Principles for Good Academic Writing. In R. Kimmons & R. E. West, Rapid Academic Writing. EdTech Books. Retrieved from https://edtechbooks.org/-RPJj

    Williams, D. D. & Kimmons, R. (2022). Qualitative Rigor: How do I conduct qualitative research in a rigorous manner? In R. Kimmons, Education Research: Across Multiple Paradigms. EdTech Books. Retrieved from https://edtechbooks.org/-Tesw

    Authorship Acknowledgement

    Most of the encyclopedia's policy documents were originally drafted by Dr. Royce Kimmons. They were then shared with members of the educational technology community, who made many suggestions, edits, and comments. As such they reflect the collaborative work of many individuals, including the following:

    This content is provided to you freely by EdTech Books.

    Access it online or download it at https://edtechbooks.org/encyclopedia/policy_information.