Informatics in Education

1. What “research” means in INFEDU

In INFEDU, research is systematic scholarly work that produces a new and defensible insight about learning/teaching computing (informatics / computer science education) or a clearly scoped computing in education problem. Research is not defined simply by “having data.” A manuscript becomes publishable when it makes a novel claim and provides a credible justification for that claim.

Research in INFEDU may be:

Empirical — quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-method evidence from data.
Design & evaluation — educational engineering / DBR with an explicit design rationale and evaluation logic.
Methodological / measurement — a validity argument for an instrument, rubric, metric, coding scheme, or analytic method.
Theoretical / conceptual — rigorous conceptual work, not unsupported opinion.
Review research — systematic, scoping, mapping, or meta-analytic synthesis with a transparent corpus and reproducible method.

Common non-publishable pattern: a manuscript has data, a tool, a framework, or a list of prior studies, but does not make a clear contribution claim or does not show how the evidence supports that claim.

2. Make the research logic visible

Regardless of method, a publishable INFEDU paper should allow a reader to trace a straight line from the initial problem to the final contribution. A practical way to test this is to check whether the manuscript makes the following chain visible:

Problem: What educational problem in computing/informatics is being addressed, and why does it matter?
Gap or motivation: What is missing from prior work?
Aim and contribution claim: What exactly does the paper add that is new?
Framing: What constructs, theory, design rationale, or conceptual model guide the work?
Research questions / hypotheses / aims: Are they answerable by the chosen design?
Operationalization: How are constructs turned into evidence?
Analysis or evaluation logic: How will the evidence support — or fail to support — the claim?
Results: What is the evidence?
Discussion: What do the results mean, how do they compare with prior work, and what alternative explanations remain?
Limitations and boundary conditions: What cannot be concluded?
Conclusion: What is the final bounded contribution?

3. Choose the right manuscript type and state it clearly

Authors should choose the manuscript type that matches the primary contribution and state that choice clearly in the manuscript and/or cover materials. INFEDU can keep a compact public taxonomy while still allowing different subtypes within it.

Research Article

Use for Empirical, Design & evaluation, Methodological / measurement, Theoretical / conceptual, or Replication / null-results contributions.

Review

Use for Systematic, Scoping, Systematic mapping, or Meta-analysis papers that produce new synthesis knowledge.

If a manuscript sits in a recurring edge configuration — for example a hybrid empirical + measurement paper, a formative framework paper, a narrow-topic review with layered evidence, or an AI-assisted programming case — authors should also consult the INFEDU Casebook.

4. What a publishable manuscript must contain

Introduction

State the educational problem and why it matters for informatics/computing education.
Identify the specific gap in prior work.
State the aim and the contribution clearly.
Use field-relevant constructs and define them.

Method or approach

State the design clearly.
Describe participants, context, materials, instruments, tasks, datasets, or corpus-building procedures.
Show how each construct or question is operationalized.
Explain the analysis, evaluation, or synthesis method in enough detail for review.

Results or synthesis

Present the evidence that directly answers the research questions or supports the contribution claim.
Keep tables, appendices, rubrics, search strings, scoring rules, or codebooks reviewable and internally consistent.
Report uncertainty and avoid visually or rhetorically inflating weak evidence.

Discussion

Interpret what the evidence means rather than repeating results.
Compare your results with prior work in computing/informatics education.
Consider alternative explanations, confounds, or transfer limits.
Derive implications that remain traceable to measured evidence.

Conclusions

State the final contribution in bounded form.
Distinguish what has been established now from what still requires future validation.

5. Keep claims proportionate to evidence

INFEDU looks closely at whether claim strength matches design, evidence, and reporting. A manuscript often fails at editorial screening not because the topic is unimportant, but because it claims more than the study can justify.

What claim discipline means

Descriptive or cross-sectional evidence supports descriptive or associational claims, not strong causal claims.
Self-report measures support claims about perceptions, beliefs, confidence, or self-efficacy unless performance was also measured directly.
Formative expert review or walkthrough evidence supports feasibility, coherence, usability, or design rationale — not learning effectiveness or full validation.
Output-quality evaluation of an AI/NLP system does not by itself establish learner comprehension or classroom effectiveness.
Adjacent literature can inform comparison or interpretation, but should not be presented as stronger direct evidence than it is.

When to consult the Casebook

The paper combines two contribution types.
The evidence base is mixed, indirect, formative, or proxy-based.
The manuscript relies on special materials such as rubrics, walkthrough protocols, transcripts, prompts, or search strings.
The topic is in scope, but the exact inference level needs careful claim-bounding.

6. What makes a Discussion publishable

A publishable Discussion is an interpretive synthesis, not a repetition of findings. A simple check is whether a reader can follow this map:

Question: briefly restate the research question, hypothesis, or aim.
Result: point to the key evidence that answers it.
Interpretation: explain what the result means and why it may have occurred.
Literature comparison: show how the result aligns with, extends, or conflicts with prior work.
Alternative explanations: identify plausible confounds or rival interpretations.
Limitations and boundary conditions: state what remains uncertain and what the study cannot show.
Bounded implications: derive implications that are traceable to the evidence actually produced.

Common return-before-review problem: the manuscript has results but no real Discussion, or it uses a “key findings” list instead of an interpretive synthesis.

7. Transparency, ethics, and disclosure

In INFEDU, transparency and ethics are part of research quality. Missing or vague reporting in this area often leads to delay or return before review.

Ethics basis: approval, exemption, waiver, or no-review-required basis, as applicable.
Consent / assent: who agreed, how they agreed, and how voluntariness was protected.
Data protection: what was collected, what identifiers were involved, how data were minimized, and how privacy was safeguarded.
Required statements: conflicts of interest, funding, data/material availability, and AI disclosure where applicable.
Blind review: identifying ethics committee, institutional, funding, and author details should be kept out of the anonymised review manuscript and placed in the non-review title page or cover materials when required by workflow.

Important: If human participants or human-related data are involved, authors should read the dedicated Research Ethics page. If generative AI or AI-assisted tools were used, authors remain fully responsible for accuracy, originality, citation integrity, and confidentiality.

8. Abstracts and keywords

An INFEDU abstract is not a teaser. It should be a compact, stand-alone version of the manuscript’s logic.

Length: 150–250 words.
Language: English.
Format: one paragraph.
Keywords: 4–6 keywords immediately after the abstract.
Do not include: references, footnotes, tables, figures, unexplained abbreviations, or unsupported claims.

For most papers, the abstract should include:

Background or problem.
Aim, question, or contribution.
Method or approach.
Main findings or synthesis result.
Principal conclusion or contribution.

For conceptual/theoretical papers, replace method/results with approach/argument and main insight.

9. Before you submit

Is the manuscript clearly in scope for learning/teaching computing or a clearly defined computing-in-education problem?
Is the primary manuscript type and subtype stated clearly?
Can a reader see the logic chain from problem to contribution?
Does the Discussion interpret the evidence instead of merely repeating findings?
Are the claims bounded to what the design and measures justify?
Are all required ethics, disclosure, and transparency elements available and placed correctly for blind review?
Are key materials auditable: instruments, rubrics, prompts, search strings, codebooks, scoring rules, or appendices?
If the paper fits a recurring edge pattern, has the author checked the INFEDU Casebook?

10. Initial editorial triage before peer review

Informatics in Education (INFEDU) receives more submissions than its editor and reviewer capacity can responsibly process through full external peer review. Before reviewer assignment, every new submission therefore undergoes an initial editorial triage. The purpose of this triage is to protect authors, reviewers, and editors by checking whether the submission package is complete, reviewable, within journal scope, and likely to have sufficient publishing potential for INFEDU.

Three-stage triage route

Technical compliance check. The editorial office checks whether the submission package is complete enough for processing. This includes the anonymised manuscript, the non-anonymised Title Page or metadata package, corresponding-author details, required and applicable declarations, blind-review safety, and other submission requirements. If required and applicable technical items are missing, the manuscript may be returned before academic screening with a request for resubmission. Items that are not applicable to the manuscript type are not imposed as author-facing requirements at this stage.
Review compliance and content-quality check. If the technical check is passed, the editor assesses whether the manuscript is in INFEDU scope, fits a recognised manuscript type, contains a coherent research or review logic, is methodologically auditable, handles ethics and transparency consistently where applicable, and is complete enough for productive external peer review. If substantial but potentially repairable pre-review problems are found, the manuscript may be rejected with resubmission before peer review, with concrete guidance to the authors.
Publishing-potential check. Passing the first two checks does not automatically mean that the manuscript will be sent to reviewers. INFEDU sends to peer review only manuscripts that show a plausible publication trajectory for the journal, considering topic timeliness, novelty, contribution to informatics or computing education, methodological strength, discussion quality, likely reader value, and responsible use of reviewer capacity. Manuscripts that are technically complete and reviewable but do not meet this threshold may be rejected at initial triage.

Use of AI support

INFEDU may use AI-supported tools during initial editorial triage to help summarize manuscript packages, check technical and policy signals, compare submission metadata, organize similarity and bibliometric information, and prepare draft editor-facing notes or decision-letter text. AI output is used as decision support only.

Final editorial responsibility remains with a human editor. No manuscript is finally accepted, rejected, returned, or sent to external peer review solely by an automated system. Editors may accept, modify, or disregard AI-supported recommendations, and authors receive a human-supervised editorial decision with reasons.

Transparency, confidentiality, and author rights

AI-supported triage is used to improve consistency and efficiency, not to replace editorial judgment.
Submitted manuscripts and author metadata are treated as confidential editorial materials.
Author-impact or citation information, when available, is used only as contextual information and is never a standalone reason for rejection.
Authors may ask the editorial office for clarification of a triage decision and may use the journal's ordinary editorial appeal or complaint channels where applicable.
The journal periodically reviews its AI-supported triage process for accuracy, bias, transparency, data protection, and alignment with INFEDU editorial policy.

This notice describes the editorial workflow. It does not change the journal's published scope, manuscript-type requirements, research-ethics requirements, or author instructions.