Informatics in Education

Manuscript types

Manuscript Types & Key Requirements

Informatics in Education (INFEDU) publishes original research on informatics (computer science) education and computing in education across levels (pre-primary to higher education), including classroom, institutional, and system perspectives.

Use this page to choose the right manuscript type and to understand what is required to pass editorial screening.

Pass criteria Fast fit test Conceptual / didactical papers Reviews Descriptive Studies/Surveys Reporting & ethics Common out-of-scope cases Editorial notes

Core

Pass criteria (must-have)

Education question first: central question is about learning/teaching computing (informatics) or computing used in education with a clear informatics/CT educational contribution.
Computing-education linkage: explicit connection to programming/CT curriculum/pedagogy, assessment, teacher education, equity/ethics, or evidence-based evaluation of a computing learning tool.
Scholarly contribution: original research (theoretical/empirical/methodological) grounded in relevant literature.

Common reasons papers are returned before review

No clear aim/RQs, or misalignment between RQs, method, and results.
Tool/system paper with no educational evaluation linked to learning outcomes.
Conceptual viewpoint presented as “research” with no conceptual research design and no bounded claims.
Results are descriptive only; discussion restates instead of interpreting and generalizing cautiously.
High textual overlap or unclear relationship to prior publications (including authors’ own prior work).
Submission not ready for review (missing/truncated content, placeholders, missing required statements/files, anonymisation issues).
Claims exceed evidence (e.g., “validated/deployment‑ready/effective” without evidence appropriate to the claim; limitations/claim‑bounding missing).
Instrument/method note lacks evidence for intended use (e.g., only face/expert agreement/usability; missing validity argument, reliability evidence, or reusable materials such as rubric/items/coding scheme).
Missing or unclear transparency/ethics disclosures (data provenance, consent/ethics where applicable, conflicts of interest, relationship to prior dissemination).

Core

Conceptual / didactical research (what INFEDU expects)

INFEDU welcomes theoretical and methodological contributions. Conceptual/didactical papers are reviewable when positioned as research (not as a textbook chapter or teaching essay).

Minimum requirements for non-empirical papers

Declare the genre: e.g., “theoretical framework,” “methodological/assessment instrument,” “design principles.”
State a conceptual research design: how constructs were derived (e.g., theory synthesis/adaptation/typology/model construction) and what literature base supports them.
Operationalize constructs: define terms and show how they would be observed (indicators, tasks, rubrics, examples).
Bound claims: distinguish what is established now (framework, argument, instrument) vs. what requires empirical validation (effectiveness, generalizability, psychometrics).
Discussion must interpret: compare alternatives, explain boundary conditions, and provide actionable implications.

Tip: a clean way to label within “Research Article”

Instead of adding many new submission types, INFEDU can keep “Research Article” and ask authors to select a subtype:

Empirical study
Design & evaluation (educational engineering)
Methodological / measurement
Theoretical / conceptual
Replication / null results (empirical)

Core

Review (Systematic / Scoping / Systematic mapping / Meta-analysis)

INFEDU welcomes review manuscripts that advance computing/informatics education rather than provide a narrative summary. Reviews should start from an explicit computing‑education problem and clear research questions (i.e., what INFEDU readers learn about teaching/learning computing), then report a transparent and reproducible review protocol.

Computing‑education focus: State a central informatics/CS/CT education problem and explicit review research questions (what educators/researchers learn about teaching/learning computing).
Protocol transparency: Report review type, databases and search strategy, inclusion/exclusion criteria, screening/selection process, and synthesis method (reproducible).
New insights (not just categories): Provide an evidence map and/or trends, explanatory patterns, gaps, and implications beyond a descriptive catalog of prior work.
Interpretation & implications: The Discussion must interpret the evidence (compare alternatives, explain boundary conditions and limitations) and provide actionable, appropriately bounded implications for computing education research and practice (e.g., curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, teacher education, equity/ethics, or evaluation of computing learning tools).

Descriptive survey studies

INFEDU considers descriptive studies (e.g., cross-sectional surveys) only when they provide a clear informatics-education contribution and keep claims strictly aligned to the evidence.

Research focus: The core question must be about learning/teaching computing/informatics (not generic education).
Coherence: For each hypothesis/research question, authors must state the construct, the measure(s), and the exact analysis used.
Inference discipline: Descriptive/associational data cannot justify causal or prescriptive claims (e.g., “curricula should…”) unless curriculum/pedagogy was measured or an intervention was evaluated.
Implications: Every recommendation must be traceable to reported results; otherwise it must be framed as a hypothesis for future research.
Transparency: Report sampling, missing data handling, effect sizes/uncertainty, and clear limits to generalization.

Submissions that primarily present descriptive results but offer broad, unsupported curricular recommendations may be returned or rejected at initial screening.

Reporting, transparency, and ethics

Originality: disclose if any part appeared previously (conference/chapters/preprints). Explain what is new; avoid substantial reuse without clear citation and justification.
Methods transparency: describe sampling, instruments, analysis, and limitations; for reviews: search strategy and selection process.
Human data: state ethics approval/consent when applicable; describe data provenance.
Generative AI disclosure: disclose any AI-assisted writing/translation/editing per journal policy; authors remain responsible for accuracy.
Data/materials: include a data availability statement (even if “not applicable”).

INFEDU aligns its publication practices with widely used transparency and ethics standards (e.g., COPE transparency guidance).

Often out of scope

General e-learning satisfaction surveys with no computing/informatics learning focus.
Generic higher-education analytics (retention/dropout prediction) not tied to a computing learning context.
Tool/app development papers with usability-only evaluation and no learning outcomes/constructs.
Pure opinion pieces presented as research.
Self‑report‑only perception/attitude/satisfaction studies with no triangulation and no clear computing‑education learning/teaching construct contribution.
Narrative/non‑systematic reviews without a reproducible protocol and synthesis method.

Choose the right type

Do you have data? → Research Article (Empirical / Design & evaluation).
No data but a new instrument/framework? → Research Article (Methodological / Theoretical) with bounded claims.
Synthesizing prior studies? → Review (Systematic/Scoping/Meta).
Responding to a published INFEDU paper? → Letter to the Editor.

If unsure, submit as Research Article and state the subtype in the cover letter.

Editorial notes

¹Quantitative empirical studies must include a sample-size justification (power analysis, precision rationale, or design constraints) and must report uncertainty (effect sizes + confidence/credible intervals). If sample size is small/underpowered, the study must be framed as exploratory and claims must be strictly bounded to the context/sample.

²INFEDU evaluates conceptual and didactical manuscripts as research when they provide a defensible conceptual method, clear operationalization, and bounded claims. Purely expository teaching texts are not considered Research Articles.

³Bibliometric / scientometric manuscripts: INFEDU does not consider submissions whose primary aim is research-performance evaluation (e.g., productivity/impact rankings; author/journal/country/institution benchmarking or comparisons) without a direct contribution to informatics/computing education and explicit educational implications. Bibliometric/scientometric mapping reviews may be considered only when the mapped corpus is clearly in informatics/computing education and the research questions and discussion deliver clear, education-relevant insights and implications for teaching/learning computing (e.g., evidence maps of pedagogies, learning/assessment constructs, outcomes, contexts, or transferable design principles) beyond descriptive counts and rankings.

⁴Conference proceedings and prior dissemination: INFEDU may consider manuscripts that extend work previously published in conference proceedings (including extended abstracts), provided the journal submission offers a substantial new scholarly contribution beyond the proceedings version (e.g., new results/analysis, expanded methodology, deeper theoretical development, stronger evaluation, and/or more actionable implications). Authors must disclose any related prior publication at submission, cite the proceedings version in the manuscript, and include a short “Differences/Increment Statement” describing precisely what is new in the journal submission (e.g., new findings, added analyses, expanded discussion/implications). Any reused figures/tables/text must be properly attributed, and authors must ensure they have the necessary rights/permissions to reuse previously published material. Submissions that substantially reproduce the proceedings paper without clear disclosure and a meaningful extension may be returned or rejected at editorial screening as redundant publication.

⁵We may make exceptions to some of these guidelines for special issues.

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