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315 – Statistics Education Research: Opportunities for Dissemination
Statistics Education Research: Opportunities for Dissemination: The Role for Special Issues of a Journal
Manfred Borovcnik
University of Klagenfurt
The dissemination of research results is crucial to consolidate the research effort and to find synergies for further research. Research publications also influence the practice of a discipline. This applies even more when we consider the discipline of statistics education. The present work pursues two goals: First, the ideas and intentions are to be presented against the background of the publication of special issues of a research journal. What can be the special function for special issues within the goals of the journal? Secondly, to examine several questions related to improving the quality and impact of a research journal, particularly in the field of statistics education. In the first part, we illustrate the topics and big ideas in some recent special issues of the Statistics Education Research Journal. A special opportunity for special issues of a journal is to work together in an international team on a common topic that is on the current agenda of the discipline in order to find synergies and to use and implement intercultural approaches that will influence further research in the discipline. In the second part, we refer to measures that are crucial for improving the quality of a journal and its impact on society, here the impact on the actual teaching in schools and university courses. Ranking issues, language policy, international cooperation, innovative ways of publishing, which can also make better use of the potential of technological opportunities, are just some of the topics we focus on. Key questions that run through the entire paper are: What makes a special issue a special issue? What will enable us to make future special issues something special?