From the Editor

With this issue, we are now into our third volume. I would like to share with you some very positive information regarding Advances in Engineering Education. As of February 2012, we have received a total of 484 submissions, including 139 revisions or resubmissions. Overall, we have accepted 24 percent of the papers submitted. However, as many of our authors have come to learn, most of those papers were accepted after one or even two revisions. Specifically, over 80% of the papers that have been accepted first required a revision and re-review. Once revised, half of the resubmissions have been accepted. The message to authors is clear – do not give up, if your first effort requires a revision, even a major revision! Please carefully consider the reviewers’ comments and revise accordingly.

Of course, not every paper will go through the review cycle. To date, a third of the papers submitted to AEE have been rejected by an editor prior to sending out for review. A primary reason for rejection is the lack of an assessment section that documents the “advance” which the authors are presenting. A few papers are also rejected because they require a more substantial background section, and/or the pedagogy upon which the paper is based is not sufficiently addressed. In addition, a very small number of papers are returned because they simply describe a research project, without an application and assessment. Finally, we have rejected a small percentage of papers as being inappropriate for AEE; i.e., they are better suited for a technical journal in the authors’ field than an engineering education publication.

We are also becoming an international journal! Colleagues who live outside of the United States have submitted almost a fifth of our papers. As this issue documents – these papers are being published – note Suk Meng Goh’s paper that uses “Star Power” in a most creative manner to teach professional skills to engineering students at Curtin University of Technology in Sarawak, Malaysia…

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