Peer Review

This Journal operates an open peer-review process. At JOERHE peer review is not anonymized. Instead, we have an open process where authors know who their reviewers are and reviewers know who their authors are. All comments provided by reviewers will be open and published alongside the article. This should allow for a more communicative and positive process for both reviewers and authors. As reviewer comments are published works, all reviewers will retain the copyright of their comments. We will not edit any reviewer comments before publication; however, if any comments violate our guidelines for being a reviewer, the journal reserves the right to dismiss the review and will not publish it alongside the article.

Open peer review is meant to be a kind and encouraging process for all and to foster a supportive and collaborative environment.

Authorship

The list of authors should accurately illustrate who contributed to the work and how. All those listed as authors should qualify for authorship according to the following criteria:

• Have made substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data;
• Been involved in drafting the manuscript or revising it critically for important intellectual content;
• Given final approval of the version to be published. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content; and
• Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in the Acknowledgments section (for example, to recognize contributions from people who provided technical help, collation of data, writing assistance, acquisition of funding, or a department chairperson who provided general support). Prior to submitting the article, all authors should agree on the order in which their names will be listed in the manuscript.

Corresponding Author Responsibilities

The corresponding author must submit the manuscript and related files (e.g. supporting data files, media, etc.). From the point of submission through to publication, all communication related to that manuscript will be directed to and received from the corresponding author. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that all authors are aware of and approve the submission of the manuscript, its content, authorship, and order of authorship.

Data Sharing and Data Availability

This journal encourages data sharing. You may submit your data as a supplemental file or include a link and citation to the data repository in which your data may be found.

Funding

You should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. You are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature.

Open Access Policy

The Journal of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education (JOERHE) is a Diamond Open Access, open peer-reviewed journal. As part of our open ethos, JOERHE does not charge any submission or author fees (i.e., Article Processing Charges, APCs, open access fees, page charges, etc.) in order to lower barriers to publication.

Copyright Policy 

Copyright & Licenses

• Authors and Peer Reviewers retain their copyright.
• First publication rights to original work accepted for publication is granted to Journal of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education.
  • Works published in Journal of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education will be distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0). By publishing under a CC-BY license authors give explicit permission for others to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy the work, as long as the original source and author(s) are properly cited.
• Authors are permitted to post their work online in institutional/disciplinary repositories or on their own websites after publication using their final PDF and should include a citation and link to the journal's website.
• Authors are responsible to secure all necessary copyright permissions for the use of third-party materials in their manuscript. Authors will be required to provide written evidence of this permission upon acceptance of their manuscript.

Copyright & Generative Artificial Intelligence 

The journal follows U.S. Copyright Guidance for AI-generated content, but it is worth noting that U.S. law and guidance regarding copyright and generative AI is an evolving topic. Authors can find parameters for the use of generative AI content within the policy: Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence. 

JOERHE does not engage in or profit from using author manuscripts or peer reviews for AI training purposes, however, we acknowledge that openly licensed works are frequently used to train AI models. By publishing in an open access journal, authors are contributing to the free and global sharing of knowledge, however they also incur the risk that their work may be incorporated into datasets used to train AI models. To learn more, we recommend reading Understanding CC Licenses and Generative AI.

Reproduction of Copyrighted Material

If excerpts from copyrighted works owned by third parties are included, credit must be shown in the contribution. It is your responsibility to also obtain written permission for reproduction from the copyright owners.

Originality and Preprint Policy

Only articles that have not been published previously, that have not been simultaneously submitted elsewhere, and that are not under review for another publication should be submitted to this journal. The journal editors will assume that submission of an article to this journal implies that all the foregoing conditions are applicable.

Exceptions

• Translations into English of a previously published paper not in English by the original author(s)
• Publication of all or part of a revised thesis or dissertation
• Publication of a paper previously made public as a conference presentation, white paper, technical report, or preprint

Conflicts of Interest

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors’ definition of conflicts of interest  is as follows: “A conflict of interest exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients’ welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain). Perceptions of conflict of interest are as important as actual conflicts of interest.”

Editors, authors, and peer reviewers should disclose interests that might appear to affect their ability to present or review work objectively. These might include relevant financial interests (for example, patent ownership, stock ownership, consultancies, or speaker’s fees), or personal, political, or religious interests.

Authors should state any conflicts of interest, or state that there are no conflicts of interest, in the main text of the submission following the Acknowledgements section.

Artificial Intelligence & Automated Tools Policy  

Journal Policy

The Journal of Open Educational Resources in Higher Education takes a pragmatic and transparent approach to the use of artificial intelligence and automated tools in scholarly research on OER, Open Pedagogy, Open Access, Open Data, and similar topics focusing specifically within the context of Higher Education in the United States and Canada. We recognize that these are quickly emerging technologies that rapidly change as models are improved. We also recognize that there is growing interest in using these tools to create or facilitate Open works. Due to this overlap, we currently accept research on the intersection of open topics and artificial intelligence at this time. We acknowledge that this will be an ongoing process that requires both nuance and continuous review of copyright, open licensing, journal policies and procedures. As such, the journal is committed to reviewing its Artificial Intelligence & Automated Tools Policy at least once a year.  Should you have any concerns, questions, or issues regarding AI within JOERHE publications, please contact us at joerhe@pm.me.

For Authors 

We adhere to the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) position statement on authorship and ethical transparency in that authors must disclose what tool was used and how it was used. Additionally, AI cannot be credited as an author of a manuscript.

As such: 

• Authors are solely responsible for checking the validity of the output of any automated tools used in their research and preparing their manuscript.
• JOERHE requires authors to disclose any use of AI in their work that goes beyond grammar correction, editing, or formatting. However, authors must disclose if they have used AI to format their citations and reference list, so that editors can do their due diligence to ensure accuracy. Authors should refer to the Artificial Intelligence Disclosure Framework for examples of how to disclose their AI use in their work. At a minimum they should complete the Artificial Intelligence Disclosure Statement.
• Authors are prohibited from using AI tools to create falsified data and content (including text, data, images, etc.), unless for the explicit purposes of illustrating a specific and stated argument. For example, research on deepfakes.
• Generative AI cannot be cited as a scholarly source. However, as per our disclosure guidelines, it should be disclosed both in-text and in the reference list using APA 7. See How to Cite ChatGPT.
• Use of automated tools should be overseen by humans (human in the loop).
• Any chat transcript/text generated by AI is submitted as an appendix.

Authors should use the AI Policy Checklist for Authors to make sure their manuscript meets the AI Policy guidelines before submitting.

For Editors

We, at JOERHE, commit to not using generative AI to create our assessments of works submitted to the journal. Doing so is against the open and transparent nature of the journal and how we want to cultivate community with our authors, peer reviewers, and readers. We believe that it is unethical and breaches the implied confidentiality of the publication process, provides superficial and non-specific feedback that does not help our authors, may unintentionally integrate bias into feedback provided, and could potentially unleash hidden prompts embedded in works submitted. We are committed to providing authentic assessments of works submitted to our journal. 

For Peer Reviewers 

Peer Reviewers are prohibited from uploading any portion of an assigned manuscript into any generative AI tool (including AI Detection tools). AI Tools should not be used to create summaries of a manuscript, or to create peer review feedback. At JOERHE, we believe this is antithetical to the open peer review process which is meant to be a kind and encouraging process for all and to foster a supportive and collaborative environment between authors and peer reviewers. 

Guidelines on Publishing and Research Ethics in Journal Articles

The journal requires that you include in the manuscript details Institutional Review Board (IRB) approvals, ethical treatment of human and animal research participants, and gathering of informed consent, as appropriate. You will be expected to declare all conflicts of interest, or none, on submission.

This journal follows the core practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and handles cases of research and publication misconduct accordingly.