Policies Governing the Journal of Agricultural Education

Section I: Editing-Managing

1. 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 that begin 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.
2. 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.
3. 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 team’s standard operating procedures.

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

1. 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.
2. The editorial team shall follow the principle of timeliness in publishing the Journal, including adopting a “rolling publication” approach at their discretion.
3. 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

1. The Journal shall be financed from funds allocated by the AAAE organization.
2. 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 Journal will not carry advertisements or sponsor supplements on the website or within its publications. Any advertising or sponsorship requests received by an editor or board member must be brought to the Board, documented, and a formal denial issued by the Board chair.
4. In the instance where a new publishing platform needs to be selected for the Journal. The editorial team and Board will review all available options, and the new platform should be selected based on the needs of the Journal rather than any monetary benefit to the editors or Board members. The decision will require Board approval. If the transition to a new publishing platform requires additional expenses, approval from both the Board and the American Association for Agricultural Education is required.

Section V: Author Awards

1. The chair of the Editing-Managing Board shall serve as chair of the Journal of Agricultural Education Outstanding Article Committee.
2. 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.
3. 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:

1. The manuscript must be prepared for anonymous review. Information identifying the author, state, and/or university should be omitted and replaced with [brackets].
2. Authors must report effect sizes when reporting statistical significance for quantitative data analyses.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. The Journal of Agricultural Education defines a conflict of interest (COI) as any personal or financial situation that might influence the role one holds or the service one provides to the journal.
   1. Authors, reviewers, editors, and editing managing board members should disclose any of the following potential COIs that currently influence or as they arise within a given role:
      1. Employment outside of the primary institution, including paid consultancies or paid expert testimonials
      2. Other financial conflicts, including honorariums or grants
      3. Investments/Stock Ownerships
      4. Patent Application
      5. Close professional or personal relationship with the author for reviewers or editors
      6. Affiliation as editor and/or editing managing board member when fulfilling the role of author
   2. Authors, including editors and board members, should disclose any COIs during the submission process under the “comments to the editor” section in the PKP submission portal. When reviewers agree to review a manuscript, they are confirming that they have no COIs. If a reviewer is assigned a review and determines that a COI exists, they should contact the managing editor via email prior to accepting the review. COIs will be documented for all authors in the acknowledgment section of the published article.
   3. Reported competing interests for authors will be reviewed by the submission editor and documented along with the manuscript submission. The managing editor will review reviewers’ competing interests, and review assignments will be adjusted to remove any identified conflicts of interest. Editors may request additional written clarification of the COI. Disclosed board membership will not require any additional action outside of normal author COI review. When an editor has submitted an article as an author, they will be removed from the review process, and another editor will fulfill their role for the review and publication process.
   4. If a reviewer suspects a potential COI involving the author team in an assigned manuscript, they should raise the concern with the managing editor. The editorial team will then contact the submitting author if the COI was not previously disclosed. If the submitting author/author team denies the existence of a COI, the editorial team should reemphasize the journal’s definition of COIs and the importance of disclosure. The editorial team will then request a signed statement from the author(s) regarding the absence of the alleged COI and all other pre-disclosed COIs to then proceed with the review. In the instance where the author(s) confirm the existence of the alleged COI, the editorial team should emphasize the seriousness of COI disclosure and request a signed statement from the author(s) amending their COI disclosure. The reviewer should be notified of the outcome and any actions taken, and then proceed with their review.
   5. If a reader or other concerned party suspects a potential conflict of interest in a published manuscript, they should raise the concern with the publication editor. The editorial team will then contact the submitting author if the COI was not previously disclosed. If the author(s) deny the existence of the COI, the editorial team and board will conduct a review, which might include contacting the author(s)’ institution. If the review finds the COI does not exist, no action is required other than informing the individual who raised the concern of the result. If the editorial and board review finds a conflict to exist, but it is unclear about the conflict’s influence on the findings or conclusions, a letter of concern will be published with the manuscript. If the review finds that the conflict compromised the findings and conclusions of the article, the article will be retracted following the policies outlined in governing policies, Section VIII: Ethical Publishing, Retraction, and Correction Procedures. In the instance where the author(s) confirm the existence of the alleged COI, the editorial team should emphasize the seriousness of COI disclosure. The editorial team and board will then conduct a review to determine if a letter of concern or retraction is needed. Once completed, the editors should inform the individual who raised the concern of the decision and the resulting actions.

Section VII: Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The Journal of Agricultural Education permits limited and responsible use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and AI-assisted technologies in research, writing, and scholarly publishing. AI use must be transparent, protect confidentiality and research integrity, and not replace human scholarly judgment.

1. Authors
   Authors may use AI to assist with writing, organization, and other limited aspects of manuscript preparation. Authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, integrity, citations, analysis, and conclusions of their work.
   1. Permitted without disclosure: Routine spelling, grammar, citation-management, and accessibility assistance that does not substantially generate or alter scholarly content.
   2. Permitted with disclosure: AI that generates or substantially revises manuscript content or assists with analysis or interpretation. Authors must identify the tool and briefly describe how it was used.
   3. Research methods: When AI is part of the research design, data collection, analysis, coding, or other research methods, authors must describe its use in the Methods section in sufficient detail to enable understanding and, where appropriate, reproduction of the procedure.
   4. Verification: Authors must independently verify AI-assisted content, including facts, analyses, quotations, and citations. Fabricated, hallucinated, or misleading references or content are prohibited.
   5. Confidentiality: Authors must not provide confidential, identifiable, proprietary, or otherwise protected information to AI systems unless such use is authorized and complies with applicable ethical, privacy, and institutional requirements.
   6. Authorship: AI technologies may not be listed as authors or co-authors. Human authors remain accountable for all submitted content.
2. Reviewers
   Peer-review materials are confidential, and reviews must reflect the reviewer’s independent scholarly judgment.
   1. Permitted without disclosure: Routine spelling, grammar, accessibility, and basic language assistance applied to the reviewer’s own writing.
   2. Permitted with disclosure: Limited AI assistance to improve the clarity, readability, or organization of comments independently developed by the reviewer, provided no confidential manuscript information is shared with the AI system.
   3. Prohibited: Reviewers may not provide confidential manuscript content to unauthorized AI systems; use AI to independently evaluate or critique a manuscript; delegate substantive methodological or scholarly assessment to AI; have AI generate the substantive review; or use AI to make a publication recommendation.
   4. Accountability: Reviewers remain fully responsible for the content, accuracy, fairness, confidentiality, and integrity of their reviews.
3. Disclosures:
   When disclosure is required, authors and/reviewers should include a statement such as:
   1. Author AI Use Disclosure: During preparation of this manuscript, the author(s) used [TOOL AND VERSION] for [PURPOSE]. The author(s) reviewed and verified the resulting content and take full responsibility for the manuscript.
   2. Reviewer AI Use Disclosure: In preparing this review, I used [TOOL AND VERSION] for [PURPOSE]. No confidential manuscript content was provided to the AI tool, and I independently developed and verified the substantive evaluation and recommendations.
4. Editors
   1. Editors must protect the confidentiality of manuscripts and peer reviews and ensure that editorial decisions reflect independent human scholarly judgment.
   2. Editors may use AI for limited administrative, language, or organizational assistance when confidentiality is protected. AI may not replace an editor’s scholarly assessment, evaluation of reviewer comments, or final editorial decision.
5. General Principles
   1. JAE’s use of AI is guided by four principles: transparency, confidentiality, human scholarly judgment, and human accountability. AI may assist with scholarly work, but cannot replace the intellectual contributions or responsibilities of authors, reviewers, or editors.
   2. JAE may request additional information about AI use when necessary to evaluate research integrity, transparency, or reproducibility. Undisclosed or prohibited AI use may be addressed under the journal’s publication ethics and research-integrity procedures.
   3. JAE will periodically review this policy as AI technologies and scholarly-publishing standards evolve.

Section VIII: Ethical Publishing, Retraction, and Correction Procedures

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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 to articles online.
   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. The authors, the editors, or the Board may initiate retractions.
      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 occur only in rare legal or privacy-related 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.
   4. 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.
   5. 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, properly cites the earlier paper/poster/presentation, and is clearly disclosed.
      2. When disclosure is required, authors should include a statement such as: This article revises a [paper/poster/presentation] from [Conference, Year] [Citation], adding [key improvements]. The authors declare no conflicts of interest; no copyrighted materials are included. IRB approval: [University], #[XXXXXXX], [Date]. The data reported are part of a larger project on [goal], with related outputs on [topic 1] (Author et al., 2024) and [topic 2] (Author et al., in press).
   6. By submitting a manuscript for review for publication in the Journal, all of the manuscript’s authors agree to the provisions outlined 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, Revised July 6, 2025, Revised September 22, 2026