In September 2010, after attending an international medical education conference, several UNCG nurse practitioner faculty returned to campus discussing the need for a journal specifically designed for nurse practitioner education. At the time, there was no individual journal that focused on this important professional subject, and articles that did focus on the subject were spread around the literature in a variety of journals, with no journal focusing any great amount of attention on nurse practitioner education. Soon after the nursing faculty returned to campus, however, in a serendipitous development, the University Libraries announced the availability of Open Journal Systems (OJS) software. OJS is an open-source software that is specifically designed to assist faculty and researchers in publishing peer-reviewed open-access journals, and it supports journal management through every stage of the peer-review and editorial process, from the submission of each manuscript to the final publication of each issue.
With Ellen Jones taking the lead, the group of nurse practitioner faculty decided to take advantage of this opportunity. With the technical assistance of Richard Cox, the Libraries’ Digital Technology Consultant, they set up a website for developing their new journal—the International Journal of Nurse Practitioner Educators, and with the assistance of Stephen Dew, the Libraries’ Collections & Scholarly Resources Coordinator, they learned how to use the OJS software for such tasks as handling manuscript submissions, generating automatic emails, managing the peer review process, and publishing issues. Over the next several months, an editorial board was established, peer reviewers were recruited, and manuscripts were solicited. With Ellen Jones serving as Editor in Chief and Laurie Kennedy-Malone serving on the Editorial Board, the International Journal of Nurse Practitioner Educators published its first issue on April 8.
An editorial entitled, “50 Years of Nurse Practitioner Education - It Is Time for A Journal,” leads off the first issue, which also includes six articles on such topics as curriculum development, educational interventions & outcomes, educational research, and innovations & technology.
On the Libraries’ OJS website there currently are three other professional journals that have been published—Journal of Backcountry Studies, edited by Robert Calhoun; The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, edited by Leila E Villaverde; and the Journal of Learning Spaces, edited by Joe Williams. In addition, although they are not publicly available yet, there are three more journals in the early stages of development—Women in Sport & Physical Activity Journal, edited by Donna Duffy; Partnerships: A Journal of Service-Learning and Civic Engagement, edited by Spoma Jovanovic; The Journal of Appreciative Education, edited by Ye He; and Journal of Applied Peace & Conflict Studies, edited by Sherrill Hayes.
Any faculty member interested in the possibility of using OJS should contact Stephen Dew, shdew@uncg.edu
Post submitted by Stephen Dew.
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