Policies Governing the Journal of Agricultural Education

Section I: Editing-Managing

The Journal of Agricultural Education (hereafter referred to as “JAE” or “the Journal”) shall be published under the oversight and authority of the Editing-Managing Board (hereafter referred to as “the Board”), acting on behalf of the members and the Board of Directors of the American Association for Agricultural Education (hereafter referred to as “AAAE”). The Board shall have ultimate responsibility for all matters relating to the publication, management, and governance of the Journal.
1. The Board shall consist of three members from each of the regions of the AAAE.
2. Board members will be elected at regional business meetings and serve staggered three-year terms, which start at the conclusion of the AAAE annual meeting following their election.
3. If a member of the Board is unable to complete their term (e.g., leaves academia, moves regions, joins the editorial team), the appropriate region will elect a replacement for the remainder of the term.
  1. An immediate replacement may be selected by the Regional President, who may serve until the next regional meeting.
  2. The membership of the region will then elect a member to serve out the remainder of the term of the vacated position on the Board.
4. The Board will elect a chair and secretary/chair-elect annually at the final meeting before the AAAE annual meeting. Officers will serve a one-year term.
  1. The duties of the chair include scheduling Board meetings and inviting participants, soliciting discussion topics for Board meetings, developing and distributing Board meeting agendas prior to the meetings, facilitating Board meetings, making the annual report to AAAE, communicating policies to newly elected Board members, coordinating the selection of author awards annually, facilitate the replacement of Board members, appoint a chair in their absence, coordinate the appointment of the editors, and facilitate the election of the officers.
  2. The duties of the secretary/chair-elect include taking minutes during Board meetings, saving minutes so they are accessible to current and future Board members, appointing a secretary/chair-elect in their absence, and relaying changes to this policy document where appropriate.
5. The submission editor, managing editor, and publication editor (hereafter referred to as “editors” or “editorial team”) shall be invited to attend meetings and provide information, but shall not be voting members.
The duties of the Board shall include:
1. Annually appoint and confirm the appointments of the entire editorial team.
2. Cooperating with the editorial team to ensure the Journal is a refereed publication.
3. Advising the editorial team on matters referred to the Board for consideration.
4. Establishing such policies as may be deemed necessary for the orderly development and publication of the Journal.
5. Establishing subscription rates for the Journal.
6. Making an annual report to the AAAE.
7. Reviewing the Journal management system every five years, or as necessary.
8. Monitoring emerging publishing and university trends that impact Journal operations in collaboration with the editorial team.
The editorial team shall consist of three members, each serving consecutive one-year terms as submission editor, managing editor, and publication editor, respectively. The responsibilities of the editorial team are outlined in the editorial team's standard operating procedures documents.

Section II: Manuscript Review

1. Manuscripts shall be selected for publication in the Journal based on being:
  1. Relevant and significant to the broadly defined agricultural education discipline, including manuscripts detailing reports of relevant research, philosophical considerations, historical studies, or other relevant manuscript types.
  2. Timely in content.
  3. Written in a scholarly manner.
  4. The original work of identifiable persons and not that of anonymous authors.
  5. In conformity with established priorities of content for specific issues.
  6. In conformity with the Submission Guidelines of the Journal.
2. The following procedures will be followed during the review process:
  1. An initial distribution of a blinded manuscript will go to three referees.
  2. A manuscript that fails to receive an editor’s decision of “Accept” or “Revisions Required” after the third review may not be resubmitted to the Journal.

Section III: Publishing Guidelines

There is no specific number of articles that determines an issue of the Journal. The editorial team has the discretion to determine the number of articles per issue. Decisions shall be communicated to the Board via regular updates.
The editorial team shall follow the principle of timeliness in publishing the Journal, including adopting a “rolling publication” approach at their discretion.
The editorial team shall have the discretion to determine formatting changes to the Journal. The editorial team’s decisions shall be communicated to the Board via regular updates.

Section IV: Business Operations

The Journal shall be financed from funds allocated by the AAAE organization, subscriptions, manuscript fees for manuscripts submitted for review with no author who is a member of AAAE, and other sources determined by the Board and editorial team.
Business operations of the Journal shall be shared by the editorial team and the AAAE executive director as follows:
1. The AAAE executive director shall manage all of the Journal's financial accounts.
2. The AAAE executive director will provide the editorial team access to a list of current AAAE members. The editorial team will ensure AAAE members have access to the Journal.
3. The publication editor will maintain the Journal library subscription database.
  1. The publication editor will send out library subscription renewal requests in December. The renewal forms will indicate that the renewal agreements and payments should be sent to the AAAE executive director.
  2. The AAAE executive director will receive all subscriptions. Once received, the AAAE executive director will deposit checks, file the subscription renewal forms, and send information regarding the subscription to the publication editor for entry in the library subscription database.
  3. The publication editor will give each subscriber access to the Journal.
  4. The publication editor will serve as the contact person for problems related to library subscription access.

Section V: Author Awards

The chair of the Editing-Managing Board shall serve as chair of the Journal of Agricultural Education Outstanding Article Committee.
Each year, the editorial team shall select the 15 best articles from the current volume of the Journal and submit them to the Chair of the Board as candidates for the Outstanding Article of the Volume award. In making these selections, the editorial team shall consider reviewer evaluations—for instance, manuscripts receiving an editorial decision of "accept" or "revisions required" serve as an initial filter. The Chair shall then convene a committee of three AAAE members (e.g., members of the AAAE Academy of Fellows), with one representative from each AAAE region, to evaluate the nominated articles. The committee shall use a Board-approved rubric for this evaluation, and z-scores shall be computed to assist in the selection process.
The committee shall select one Outstanding Article of the Volume, as well as a First Runner-Up and a Second Runner-Up. The recipients of these awards will be recognized at the annual meeting of AAAE. The author(s) of the Outstanding Article shall receive an engraved plaque, while the authors of the First Runner-Up and Second Runner-Up articles shall each receive framed certificates. The Chair of the Outstanding Article Committee shall be responsible for obtaining the engraved plaque(s) and framed certificates and ensuring their availability for presentation at the AAAE annual meeting.

Section VI: Ethical Standards

In adherence to ethical standards of research and publication, the following guidelines are to be observed:

The manuscript must be prepared for anonymous Information identifying the author, state, and/or university should be omitted and replaced with [brackets].
Authors must report effect sizes when reporting statistical significance for quantitative data analyses.
Authors are required to verify that the manuscript, or any other written or oral report containing substantially the same data, analysis, results, conclusions, or recommendations, is not currently under consideration or pending presentation or dissemination at any research conference, publication, or other forum. This stipulation applies to, but is not limited to, regional and national AAAE or related conferences.
All authors must :
1. Certify the originality of their research, confirming that it has not been previously published.
2. Certify they possess written or electronic permission to use copyrighted materials.
3. Certify they have adhered to regulations regarding human subjects’ use in research at their home institution.
4. Disclose whether any portions of the manuscript have been previously published.

Section VII: Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The Journal of Agricultural Education discourages the submission and publication of content created by artificial intelligence, language models, machine learning, or similar technologies, unless part of formal research design/methods, enhancement of writing quality, and readability. AI-assisted technologies do not meet the JAE criteria for authorship and, therefore, may not be listed as authors or co-authors. Authors who use AI-assisted technologies as components of their research study or as aids in the writing or presentation of the manuscript should note this in the acknowledgments section of the manuscript. Detailed information should also be provided in the methods section for AI-assisted methods: The full prompt used in the production of the work, as well as the AI tool and its version, should be disclosed. Authors are accountable for the accuracy of the work and for ensuring that there is no plagiarism. JAE prohibits editors and reviewers from employing AI technologies in the article review process.

Section VIII: Ethical Publishing, Retraction, and Correction Procedures

The Journal promotes the profession by facilitating and disseminating research, trends, developments, and innovations in agricultural education. In order to accomplish this, the Journal insists that researchers and authors:
1. Present findings based on actual research data.
2. Take credit and responsibility for the research they perform.
3. Publish original data and research findings.
The editors, in consultation with the Board, will follow the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and consider retracting a publication for the following reasons:
1. There is evidence of plagiarism.
2. There is evidence of dual, simultaneous, or redundant submission and/or the findings have previously been published without proper cross-referencing, permission, or justification.
3. There is clear evidence that the research findings are unreliable because of misconduct or honest error.
When an ethics concern is raised, the editors will initiate a review and contact the corresponding author to request a response. If warranted, the editors may consult the author’s institution or relevant governing body. Upon completion of the review, the editors will determine the appropriate course of action in consultation with the Board. Possible actions include, but are not limited to:
1. Letter of Concern
  1. The editors may publish a letter of concern when there is credible but unresolved evidence of research or publication misconduct or when a formal investigation is pending.
  2. Letters of concern are appended online to articles.
2. Letter of Correction
  1. The editors may publish a letter of correction when a minor portion of a publication proves to be misleading, because of honest error, or because the author list is incorrect. These corrections do not alter the study’s core findings.
  2. Letters of correction are appended online to articles.
3. Retraction
  1. Retractions may be initiated by the authors, the editors, or the Board.
  2. Retracted articles will remain accessible online but will be clearly marked as “Retracted” with an accompanying explanation. This ensures transparency while preserving the scholarly record.
  3. Retraction notices will include the article’s title, authors, DOI, date of retraction, and a brief explanation of the reason for retraction. If possible, it will state whether the authors agreed to the retraction.
  4. Removal will only occur in rare legal or privacy circumstances.
  5. Retractions are issued in accordance with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines and are reviewed by the editorial team and Board.
  6. Authors will be notified and given an opportunity to respond prior to retraction.

Authors who wish to appeal a letter of concern, letter of correction, or retraction may appeal directly to the Board. The Board will be the sole and final arbiter of the appeal.
Conference-to-Journal pathways are acceptable when authors are transparent, avoid redundant content, and clearly demonstrate the added scholarly value to the manuscript.
1. The Journal does not consider it redundant publication when a manuscript is initially presented at a research conference and subsequently submitted to the Journal, provided that the submission to the Journal is further refined and properly cites the earlier paper/poster/presentation.
By submitting a manuscript for review for publication in the Journal, all of the manuscript's authors agree to the provisions set forth in this document.

(Portions of the dual publication policy and retraction procedure were derived from the 2009 retraction guidelines provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. In this case, the authors who contributed to this document were Elizabeth Wager, Virginia Barbour, Steven Yentis, and Sabine Kleinert on behalf of the COPE Council.)

Document history:

Adopted December 1983, Revised December 1995, Revised December 2000, Revised May 2005, Revised February 27, 2009, Revised September 23, 2014, Revised December 21, 2017, Revised November 20, 2024, Revised February 24, 2025, Revised September 4, 2025

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