Each year, the Journal of Educational Technology and Online Learning (JETOL) publishes one special issue featuring selected papers from the International Conference on Educational Technology and Online Learning (ICETOL). The special issue is published as the fourth issue of each volume, usually in December. This policy explains how special issue manuscripts are selected, reviewed and published, and how JETOL ensures that they meet exactly the same quality standards as articles in regular issues.
Scope and Eligibility
- Only extended full-text versions of papers presented at ICETOL are considered for the special issue. JETOL does not issue separate open calls for special issues.
- Submissions must fall within the journal’s Aim & Scope and must be substantially revised and extended beyond the abstract or paper presented at the conference.
- Manuscripts must be original, must not have been published elsewhere as a full article and must not be under consideration by another journal. Authors must disclose any earlier version of the work (for example, an abstract or proceedings paper).
- Presenting a paper at ICETOL does not guarantee publication in JETOL. Every submission is evaluated on its own merits.
- Special issue manuscripts are submitted through the same online submission system and must follow the same Author Guidelines, template and file requirements as regular submissions.
Editorial Oversight
- JETOL does not work with guest editors for its special issues. The special issue is managed entirely by the journal’s regular editorial team.
- The Editor-in-Chief holds overall responsibility for the special issue in the same way as for regular issues. For each manuscript, a handling editor from the editorial team is assigned to manage the review process.
- Final publication decisions are made by the editors on the basis of the reviewers’ reports, in accordance with the journal’s Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement. There is no predetermined number of articles to be accepted for the special issue.
Peer Review
- Special issue manuscripts follow exactly the same manuscript handling processes as regular submissions; no step is shortened or skipped.
- Every manuscript first passes the initial editorial check: conformity with the template and scope, methodological rigour, the IMRAD structure and a similarity check with iThenticate or Turnitin (maximum similarity of 15%).
- Manuscripts that pass the initial check are reviewed under the journal’s double-anonymous (double-blind) peer review model by at least two independent PhD-level reviewers who are experts in the field. The same evaluation criteria and decision options (acceptance, minor revision, major revision or rejection) apply. In case of conflicting reviews, a third reviewer may be consulted.
- Authors revise their manuscripts and respond to the reviewers’ comments in the same way as in regular issues, and accepted articles go through the same language editing and final checks before publication.
Timeline
- Because the special issue is published at the end of the year, the editorial team follows the review process closely and acts quickly when a step is delayed, for example by reminding reviewers or inviting additional reviewers.
- Publication deadlines never take precedence over the quality of the review. Manuscripts whose review process is not completed in time are not rushed; they continue through the normal process and, if accepted, are published in a later issue of the journal.
Conflict of Interest
- Members of the JETOL editorial team do not publish articles in the journal, including in its special issues.
- An editor or reviewer who has any personal, professional, institutional or financial relationship with the authors of a manuscript must declare it and withdraw from handling or reviewing that manuscript. The Editor-in-Chief then assigns it to another editor or reviewer without a conflict of interest.
- Participation in ICETOL, including presenting or chairing a session, has no influence on editorial decisions. ICETOL registration is independent of the journal, and JETOL does not charge any fee for submission or publication (see the Price Policy).
Quality Assurance and Publication
- Special issue articles are subject to the same ethical standards, similarity checks, peer review, language editing and correction and retraction procedures as articles in regular issues.
- Special issue articles are published open access under the CC BY 4.0 license, receive a DOI and are archived and indexed in the same way as all other JETOL articles.
- Special issues are clearly labelled as such in the archive.