Professor Mick Healy, on behalf of the IJSaP Editorial Board, has offered us an opportunity to share innovative UK practice on working in partnership with students with an international audience.
We are delighted to let you know that about the launch of the International Journal for Students as Partners (IJSaP), a new open access journal about learning and teaching together in higher education. IJSaP explores new perspectives, practices, and policies regarding how students and staff (meaning academic staff/faculty, professional staff, and other stakeholders) are working in partnership to enhance learning and teaching in higher education. IJSaP is produced using a partnership approach with teams of students and staff from Australia, Canada, UK and USA. Further details about the journal are available here.
The editorial team for the journal values multiple forms of analysis, including research articles, case studies, opinion pieces, reflective essays, and reviews. Some contributions will be specifically about the process of partnership. Others will focus on examples or outcomes of partnership activities. However, all contributions must discuss the implications of the partnership activity for learning and teaching in higher education.
Contributions written collaboratively by students and staff are particularly encouraged, although single and other co-authored pieces are also acceptable. All submissions go through a rigorous review process involving both staff and students who are trained and supported as reviewers. Students and staff with a genuine interest in students as partners are invited to complete an expression of interest to join the International Review Panel. Inexperienced reviewers will be trained and mentored before undertaking independent reviews. If you are an experienced reviewer you will be asked whether you would be willing to mentor an inexperienced reviewer. Wherever possible, we encourage experienced and inexperienced reviewers to sign up in pairs, so that the experienced reviewer can serve as a mentor for the inexperienced reviewer.
The journal is open for submissions at any time and following vetting and international peer review accepted pieces will be published in the next available issue. However, we would request that you send us a brief proposal (around 250 words) to ijsap@mcmaster.ca on what you propose to submit before you write it. Then we can give you feedback and monitor the likely pattern of submissions.
The idea for the journal emerged in conversations at the first International Summer Institute for Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, held at McMaster in May 2016. (The next one is planned for 8-11 May 2017 ). IJSaP is published twice a year by McMaster University Library Press and supported by McMaster’s Paul R. MacPherson Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Excellence in Teaching (previously known as MIIETL).