Scope and Focus

JIR features theoretical and empirically-based research articles, critical reflection pieces, case studies, and classroom innovations relevant to best practices in post-secondary instruction (including teaching, learning and assessment). Manuscripts must be supported with theoretical justification, evidence, and/or research; qualitative and quantitative inquiry methods are appropriate. Manuscripts must be appropriately grounded within relevant literature.

Target Audience

Manuscripts published in JIR are relevant to a broad audience of college faculty and administrators. Readers benefiting from JIR include full-time, part-time, face-to-face, hybrid, and online faculty. As a cross-disciplinary journal, JIR emphasizes topics and articles that are generalizable across a range of disciplines.

JIR Process

Unique to JIR is the role of public review prior to final submission for publication consideration. As such, papers submitted to JIR will be posted on the JIR website for public discussion during one of three discussion periods; discussion periods are held in February, June and September of each year.

Papers posted for discussion are NOT anonymous; in addition to the written paper, authors have the opportunity to supplement the paper with a brief presentation discussing the scope, goals and purpose of their work. Copyright information will be posted along with each paper to ensure ownership of all posted informatin. Notification of discussion periods will be openly disseminated to the broader academic community. Scholars wishing to contribute to the discussion surrounding each paper must register with JIR in order to publicly post their comments.

At the conclusion of each discussion period, authors have the option of having their work removed from the website (with only the title and abstract remaining) or leaving their work archived for ongoing viewing (without the possibility of additional comments). All papers posted for discussion on JIR will have permanent, dated documentation remaining on the site.

Following the discussion period, authors are encouraged to utilize the feedback from the public review in order to enhance their SoTL work. At this point, authors may elect to submit the paper for final publication consideration with JIR or they may choose to submit with another publication outlet. Papers submitted for final publication with JIR are subjected to another round of formalized peer review by anonymous reviewers. 

Papers accepted for final publication with JIR will appear in both the online and print version of the journal. JIR will be published annually in the spring; for publication consideration in the final JIR publication, submissions must be received by December 1. Submissions for publication consideration in JIR MUST have first been reviewed in a public format in one of the JIR discussion periods.

There is no submission or publication fee to authors.

Editorial Advisory Board

• Amber Dailey-Hebert, PhD, Park University, USA, ADailey@park.edu
• Ann H. Taylor, PhD, Penn State University, USA, atb3@psu.edu 
• Emily Donnelli-Sallee, PhD, Park University, USA, Emily.sallee@park.edu
• Eric Klein, Ph.D, Ashford University, USA, Eric.Klein@ashford.edu
• Meredith Rae Critchfield, PhD, Grand Canyon University, USA, Meredith.Critchfield@gcu.edu
• Steven J. McGahan, M.S.Ed, University of Nebraska, Kearney, USA, Mcgahansj@unk.edu

Journal of Instructional Research (JIR) is an Open Access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of Open Access.