https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8976-6202

Journals and conferences dedicated to engineering education offer an opportunity for academics and researchers to share ideas, experiences and innovations in engineering education. Often, however, those starting out to publish in engineering education, and those engineering academics who simply want to inform and improve their own learning and teaching practice, do not always know where to turn to. This is mainly because engineering education journals are still relatively few and largely unknown to the majority of engineering educators. And since journals dedicated to engineering education are so few and so unknown, those engineering educators who are currently publishing are doing so largely through mainstream education journals. This has led to a diffusion and dilution of engineering education research into a plethora of education journals which are largely beyond the radar of the ordinary engineering academic.

In this article I present a shortlist of seven engineering education journals that the aspiring engineering education researcher can publish in. I arrive at this list using the following standard journal evaluation criteria: journal impact factor, the SCImago Journal Ranking, h-index and number of indexing databases.

My effort builds on the work by Van Epps (2013), and by Shawcross and Ridgman (2013), who both independently set out to identify and draw up shortlists of journals, both engineering education and mainstream, that engineering education researchers can publish in. I strongly believe that a quantum leap in the impact and visibility of engineering education research can only be attained through focused publication in dedicated engineering education journals.  Hence, in contrast to these two publications, my focus is on engineering education journals only.

1. Journal Listing based on the Thomson Reuters 2014 Journal Impact Factor

Eugene Garfield, the originator of the journal impact factor  explains it as follows (Garfield, 2006) : “A journal’s impact factor is based on 2 elements: the numerator, which is the number of citations in the current year to any items published in a journal in the previous 2 years, and the denominator, which is the number of substantive articles (source items) published in the same 2 years.”

Below is an ordered list of engineering education journals that I retrieved from the 2014 Thomson Reuters InCites Journal Citation Report and ordered according to their journal impact factor (Table 1):

Table 1: Journals ranked by their Journal Impact Factor (JIF)

Rank	Title	ISSN	JIF	Country
1	Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 21689830	2.059	United States
2	Research in Engineering Design – Theory, Applications, and Concurrent Engineering	ISSN 14356066	1.233	United Kingdom
3	IEEE Transactions on Education	ISSN 00189359	0.842	United States
4	Engineering Studies	ISSN 19378629	0.5	United Kingdom
5	Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice	ISSN 10523928	0.275	United States
6	International Journal of Electrical Engineering Education	ISSN 00207209	0.077	United Kingdom

2. Journal Listing based on the 2014 SJR Journal Rankings

The SCImago Journal Ranking (SJR) is a size-independent indicator of scientific journal prestige computed by weighting the number of citations received by a journal by the prestige of the citing journals (Guerrero-Bote & Moya-Anegón, 2012).

Below is an ordered list of engineering education journal titles that I retrieved from the 2014 SJR journal rankings list and ordered according to their SJR rankings (Table 2):

Table 2: Journals ranked by their SCImago Journal Ranking (SJR)

Rank	Title	ISSN	SJR	Country
1	Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 21689830	1.705	United States
2	Research in Engineering Design – Theory, Applications, and Concurrent Engineering	ISSN 14356066	1.286	United Kingdom
3	IEEE Transactions on Education	ISSN 00189359	0.68	United States
4	Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice	ISSN 10523928	0.449	United States
5	European Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 14695898	0.419	United Kingdom
6	Engineering Studies	ISSN 19378629	0.377	United Kingdom
7	Computer Applications in Engineering Education	ISSN 10990542	0.315	United States
8	International Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 0949149X	0.314	Ireland
9	Chemical Engineering Education	ISSN 00092479	0.293	United States
10	Advances in Engineering Education	ISSN 19411766	0.23	United States
11	International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning	ISSN 17415055	0.183	United Kingdom
12	Global Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 13283154	0.181	Australia
13	International Journal of Electrical Engineering Education	ISSN 00207209	0.168	United Kingdom
14	International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education	ISSN 20504586	0.166	United Kingdom
15	Engineering Education	ISSN 17500044	0.152	United Kingdom
16	Australasian Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 13245821	0.11	Australia

3. Journal Listing based on the 2014 H-Index

The h-index is defined as “the number of papers with citation number ≥ h.” (Hirsch, 2005). The journal h-index over a given period, say a year, is obtained by ranking all the source items of the given journal over the specified period in accordance with the number of “Times Cited.” The journal h-index for the specified period is the highest rank number lower than the “Times Cited” value (Braun, Glänzel & Schubert, 2005).

Below is an ordered list of engineering education journal titles that I retrieved from the 2014 SJR journal rankings list and ordered according to their h-index (Table 3):

Table 3: Journals ranked by their h-Index

Ranking	Journal Title	ISSN	H index	Country
1	Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 21689830	62	United States
2	IEEE Transactions on Education	ISSN 00189359	48	United States
3	Research in Engineering Design – Theory, Applications, and Concurrent Engineering	ISSN 14356066	46	United Kingdom
4	International Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 0949149X	30	Ireland
5	Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice	ISSN 10523928	23	United States
6	Computer Applications in Engineering Education	ISSN 10990542	18	United States
7	Chemical Engineering Education	ISSN 00092479	18	United States
8	European Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 14695898	15	United Kingdom
9	International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning	ISSN 17415055	14	United Kingdom
10	International Journal of Electrical Engineering Education	ISSN 00207209	14	United Kingdom
11	Engineering Studies	ISSN 19378629	10	United Kingdom
12	Advances in Engineering Education	ISSN 19411766	9	United States
13	International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education	ISSN 20504586	7	United Kingdom
14	Global Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 13283154	3	Australia
15	Engineering Education	ISSN 17500044	3	United Kingdom
16	Australasian Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 13245821	1	Australia

4. Journal Listing based on Database Indexing

Journals are often indexed on several databases to ensure that their articles are available to a wide audience. Examples of indexing databases include ERIC, Education Full-text, Compendex, INSPEC, Web of Knowledge, Scopus and the Professional Development Collection.

Van Epps (2013) ordered the journals in which engineering  education research is published by the number of databasesto which they are indexed. Below is an ordered list of indexed journals dedicated to engineering education that I have extracted from the list by Van Epps (Table 4):

Table 4: Journals ranked by number of indexing databases

Ranking	Journal Title	ISSN	No. of Indexed Databases	Country
1	International Journal of Electrical Engineering Education	ISSN 00207209	5	United Kingdom
2	IEEE Transactions on Education	ISSN 00189359	5	United States
3	Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 21689830	4	United States
4	International Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 0949149X	4	Ireland

5. Approach to Obtaining Overall Journal Ranking

I used the following ranking scheme to obtain my shortlist of top engineering education journals to publish in. Points were allocated to each journal in each of the tables listed above as follows (Table 5):

Table 5: Journal Scoring Formula

Table Ranking	Points Awarded
1	5
2	4
3	3
4	2
5	1
Outside top 5 ranking	0

To facilitate ranking, I decided that if any of the journals got the same overall score, then the one that scored one or more points across more tables would be ranked higher.

Table 6: Journals ranked by their overall score

Journal Title	ISSN	Country	JIF Points	H Index Points	SJR Points	Index Points	Overall Score
Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 21689830	United States	5	5	5	3	18
IEEE Transactions on Education	ISSN 00189359	United States	4	4	3	5	16
Research in Engineering Design – Theory, Applications, and Concurrent Engineering	ISSN 14356066	United Kingdom	1	3	4	0	8
International Journal of Electrical Engineering Education	ISSN 00207209	United Kingdom	3	0	0	5	8
Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice	ISSN 10523928	United States	2	1	2	0	5
International Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 0949149X	Ireland	0	2	0	3	5
European Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 14695898	United Kingdom	0	0	1	0	1
Computer Applications in Engineering Education	ISSN 10990542	United States	0	0	0	0	0
Chemical Engineering Education	ISSN 00092479	United States	0	0	0	0	0
International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning	ISSN 17415055	United Kingdom	0	0	0	0	0
Engineering Studies	ISSN 19378629	United Kingdom	0	0	0	0	0
Advances in Engineering Education	ISSN 19411766	United States	0	0	0	0	0
International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education	ISSN 20504586	United Kingdom	0	0	0	0	0
Global Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 13283154	Australia	0	0	0	0	0
Engineering Education	ISSN 17500044	United Kingdom	0	0	0	0	0
Australasian Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 13245821	Australia	0	0	0	0	0

6. Final Shortlist of dedicated engineering education journals

My final list comprised all the journals that had an overall score of one point or more.

Table 7: My Top Journals dedicated to Engineering Education

Rank	Journal Title	ISSN	Country	Journal Website Link
1	Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 21689830	United States	http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)2168-9830
2	IEEE Transactions on Education	ISSN 00189359	United States	http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=13
3	Research in Engineering Design – Theory, Applications, and Concurrent Engineering	ISSN 14356066	United Kingdom	http://www.springer.com/engineering/mechanical+engineering/journal/163
4	International Journal of Electrical Engineering Education	ISSN 00207209	United Kingdom	https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/journal/international-journal-electrical-engineering-education
5	Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice	ISSN 10523928	United States	http://ascelibrary.org/journal/jpepe3
6	International Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 0949149X	Ireland	http://www.ijee.ie/
7	European Journal of Engineering Education	ISSN 14695898	United Kingdom	http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ceee20/current

References

BORREGO, M., & BERNHARD, J. (2011). The Emergence of Engineering Education Research as an Internationally Connected Field of Inquiry. Journal of Engineering Education, 100(1), 14-47.

Braun, T., Glänzel, W., & Schubert, A. (2005). A Hirsch-type index for journals. The scientist, 19(22), 8.

Garfield, E. (2006). The history and meaning of the journal impact factor.Jama, 295(1), 90-93.

Guerrero-Bote, V. P., & Moya-Anegón, F. (2012). A further step forward in measuring journals’ scientific prestige: The SJR2 indicator. Journal of Informetrics, 6(4), 674-688.

Hirsch, J. E. (2005). An index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output. Proceedings of the National academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102(46), 16569-16572.

Shawcross, J., & Ridgman, T. (2013). Publishing Engineering Education Research, HEA Academy Working Paper. Higher Education Academy.

Van Epps, A. S. (2013). Beyond JEE: Finding publication venues to get your message to the ‘right’ audience. 120th ASEE Annual Conference June 2013, Paper 5859.