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NordSTEP is to make research at the University visible
“I hope this can be a step towards making the research that is carried out at the university visible,” says Daniel Pettersson, senior lecturer in pedagogy and editor-in-chief for NordSTEP.
Serious and professional collaboration
NordSTEP – a new open-access scientific journal is published now at the University of Gävle. The journal is a co-production between the University of Gävle, Uppsala University, University College of Buskerud and University College of Vestfold in Norway.
“It is unique that the university has a scientific journal within educational science. There are only five or six journals in Sweden within the fields of pedagogy and didactics,” says Daniel Pettersson.
Significant direct government funding from the start
The journal is written in English so that it is accessible all over the world. Daniel is editor-in-chief and there are, apart from Daniel, two other general editors. A professor from Uppsala and a professor
in Norway who is also chairman of the Committee of Educational Sciences on the Research Council. (svensk eller norsk?)
“We also have an advisory board that consists of people with a good reputation in the field. The aim is to serve as a forum and promote the subject - we have been given significant government funding from the start.”
Establish international connections
” I hope this can be a step in the direction whereby we can raise the profile of the research that is carried out at the university making visible our collaboration with other universities.”
”It will also give us the possibility of making new contacts. We can, for example, hold a conference here and by engaging well known researchers from all over the world enable a connection to the university.”
Target group
The target group is researchers who are interested in matters of educational policy and curriculum, that is how one decides and who decides the content of what is taught.
But even the didactical questions, how does one teach, how has curriculum content selection been made, and how should it be made known?
”Our hopes are that this will spread and help us to get in on lists and search services - so that we get a higher ranking.
”Our ambition is to improve our ranking when you search for "curriculum didactics", we want to be number one.”
Background
At the beginning of the 21st century Daniel was part of a research group called STEP, in Uppsala.
The research leader for the group was Ulf P Lundgren, former Director of Education of the Swedish National Agency for Education. They created an Open Access on-line journal that was in operation between 2002 and 2007 and was the first Swedish Open Access journal within the sphere of educational science.
”But it came to an end when the doctoral students finished their courses and dispersed. Now the idea is that Nordstep shall be a meeting place for researchers who have an interest in the Nordic perspective with relation to that which is called curriculum theory.”
Scientific journals – Open Access
Scientific journals have a number of functions: spreading research results, scrutinizing and thereby guaranteeing the scientific quality, providing the author with recognition and also representing a permanent archive for research within this field.
More and more scientific journals are becoming accessible in electronical versions (Open Access journals) where published articles are instantly and freely available to the reader.
Open Access scientific journals function like traditional scientific journals in all respects except that access to them is free. They have the same type of quality checks and can likewise vary in status and prestige.
For further information please contact:
Daniel Pettersson, senior lecturer, University of Gävle
Tel: 026-64 82 32, 070-258 46 19
E-mail: daniel.pettersson@hig.se
Text: Douglas Öhrbom
