Announcing a New Issue of the Nordic Journal of STEM Education!

2024-10-29

Welcome to a new issue of the Nordic Journal of STEM Education. Below, you will find information on the latest issue, the substantial changes the Journal is undergoing, and our plans for the future. We apologize for the confusing "blank" messages that were sent this week. 

What can I find in the latest issue?

We have ten new research articles, with contributors from across the Nordics (but, as has been typical, a majority from Norway and Sweden). The foci of these articles is diverse and includes an overview of the current status of permafrost education, as well as articles focusing on novel pedagogical tools, assessment, approaches to teaching and learning in mathematics and engineering, student understanding of the nature of science in higher education, and the relationship between students’ overall satisfaction with higher education STEM courses and university teachers’ didactical practice. 

What is going on at NJSTEME?

The Journal has faced some challenges, including some significant problems with our hosting platform and email communication. That led to some major hurdles—communication lapses, large delays in response times, etc. This is not due to a failure of past leadership! In fact, it is impressive what was accomplished the past few years given these challenges, and I am grateful to all my predecessors. 

However, we have some exciting updates!:

  • While the journal will still be hosted by NTNU, we are migrating the journal to the new STEM Education Research Center (SERC) at the University of Bergen, where it will remain.
  • We will have a more permanent Editor in Chief, along with concrete institutional support for this allocation of time (thanks to the Faculty of Science and Technology at UiB!). 
  • We have incoming financial resources from UHR-MNT to support technical and administrative assistance, which should make the journal more responsive and user-friendly.
  • We have a new Editorial Board, with representatives from all the Nordic countries. 
  • We have already done much to improve our behind-the-scenes workflow, to update our information about the journal and for authors, and to provide new rubrics to assist the submission and review process. There is, of course, work to do, and we will keep you informed. Thank you in advance for your patience.
  • We will be offering a “Writing for NJSTEME” workshop at the upcoming MNT Conference in May 2025 in Trondheim, Norway. We hope to see many of you there!

What can I expect in the future?

Several articles are in revision or review, and we anticipate a new issue by mid-2025 (but in future, articles will be available online as they are finalized). We continue to emphasize research articles that have relevance to Nordic STEM higher education, but we also invite two additional types of contributions: Perspectives articles and Teaching Tools Articles. You can read more about the article types, and their associated review rubrics, here.

We are also eager to expand beyond Norway and Sweden and represent the work going on throughout the Nordic countries. Having a representative Editorial Board will hopefully help with this, but we can also use your help. Please share NJSTEME, especially articles you find interesting, with your networks. Our authors have worked hard to see this work through to publication…let’s amplify their efforts.

Because this is meant to be a level 1 journal (in the Norwegian credentialing system), it is designed as a developmental journal. We welcome contributions from established researchers, and we are also interested in serving as a “pathway to entry” for those making their first foray into education research. We look forward to leading workshops for early-career researcher communities, STEM-education communities of practice, etc. We think the journal can improve and better serve our community, but we do not aim to be a journal that takes pride in its rejection rate.

And finally, PLEASE consider serving as a reviewer for the Journal, if you haven’t already. 

Thank you for reading this information, and for your patience as we work to improve the Nordic Journal of STEM Education. And special thanks to UHR-MNT!

All the best,

Sehoya Cotner, Oddfrid Førland, and the Library Team at NTNU