JOE by the Numbers, Duplicate Publication, and February JOE Highlights

JOE by the Numbers 2016

For the first issue each year, we at JOE gather data to present to our readers. Here, I report those data: author information for last year's submissions and published articles, JOE's current acceptance rate, various readership statistics, and information about JOE's most read articles.

2016 Author Information

In 2016, manuscripts submitted to JOE were written by authors from 44 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and 10 countries other than the United States. Articles published in JOE were written by authors from 42 states, the District of Columbia, and two additional countries. The varied perspectives of this wide array of contributors are what make the journal useful to university outreach researchers and practitioners around the world.

Acceptance Rate

JOE's current acceptance rate is 24.5%, a figure that represents an average of data from 2012 through 2016. JOE is a rigorous journal in which Extension professionals and other scholars can be proud to be published.

Readership Statistics

In 2016, JOE statistics collection software recorded 1,156,188 "visitors" to the JOE site and 1,515,055 page views. You can find readership statistics for 2010 through 2015 and definitions of relevant terms at Website Statistics: Readership Statistics. Also in 2016, JOE attracted readers from 228 nations and territories. Among the top 10 nations and territories accessing JOE, the United States, not surprisingly, was number one, with 489,814 visits. Philippines was number two, with 71,878 visits. The complete list is available at Website Statistics: Nations & Territories Accessing JOE in 2016.

Top 50 Most Read Articles

The list of the top 50 most read articles in 2016, as well as lists from 2005 to 2015, can be accessed from About JOE: Website Statistics. The number of views for articles on the 2016 list ranged from 3,317 to 41,333. The list for each year includes indications of which articles are new to the list and how articles ranked the preceding year. Five entries on the 2016 list were not on the 2015 list. Moreover, entries on the 2016 list are from the current decade and each of the past three decades. This detail underscores the enduring importance of JOE articles in providing valuable information about practices in university outreach and engagement.

Duplicate Publication

The issue of duplicate publication is addressed by the JOE Submission Guidelines, Guidance for Authors resources, and the journal's copyright policy. Moreover, the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition, on which JOE style and standards are based, also includes sections about duplicate publication. Despite these offerings, however, the JOE policy on duplicate publication is not as clear as it could be. Therefore, I will be formulating, and eventually uploading to the JOE website, a more detailed policy. In the meantime, potential JOE authors should refrain from submitting manuscripts describing original work if they have published similar manuscripts elsewhere.

February JOE

Targeting specific audiences, expanding Extension's reach, and identifying knowledge gaps—these are three primary aspects of Extension work, and several articles in this issue offer creative techniques for tackling them. For example, the authors of the Feature "Using Cluster Analysis to Target Educational Messages" detail how they categorized groups according to similar attitudes and behaviors and then tailored communication strategies to most effectively elicit positive change from each group. The Ideas at Work entry "Baby Animal Days: An Innovative Approach to Funding and Marketing Urban Extension Programs" presents a unique way of exposing the sometimes elusive urban audience to programming and information stemming from Extension's agricultural roots. In the Research in Brief article "Capitalizing on Multidimensionality in Survey Instruments to Ensure Delivery of Relevant Extension Programming," the author explains how three peripheral, but purposeful, questions inserted into a stakeholder-prompted survey about attitudes and opinions on a controversial topic led to additional insights about crucial gaps in knowledge of the topic.

Evaluation is another ever-present concern among Extensionists. The author of the Commentary "Evaluating Extension Impact on a Nationwide Level: Focus on Programs or Concepts?" suggests that to foster broad recognition of its scope and capacity, Extension must implement a nationwide evaluation system predicated on new thinking about common units of evaluation. In the Tools of the Trade article "Evaluate Naturally and Quickly with Just-in-Time Program Evaluation," the authors describe an efficient, highly visible approach to evaluation that involves gathering real-time data for determining the value of educational processes as they occur. Two other Tools of the Trade entries—"Organizational Capacity Survey: Capturing an Extension System's Current State and Pinpointing Areas for Improvement" and "What Is Professional Development Worth? Calculating the Value of Onboarding Programs in Extension"—highlight useful methods for evaluating not the external work of Extension but the internal workings of the organization.

Other articles focus on imaginative approaches to youth programming. The Ideas at Work entries "Using Pop Culture to Teach Youths Conflict Resolution, Healthful Lifestyles, Disaster Preparedness, and More" and "Applying 4-H Judging Strategies to Board, Dice, and Card Games: Developing Skills in Urban and Suburban Youths" provide ideas for embedding life skills instruction in an atmosphere of fun. The former promotes infusing programming with appealing themes, such as zombie invasion scenarios, and the latter describes a clever interweaving of 4-H judging strategies with everyday game playing. The authors of the Tools of the Trade article "Development of a Health Survey Instrument for 5- to 8-Year-Old Youths" convey lessons learned from the challenge of developing a measure suitable for assessing healthful living outcomes in young children.

The issue also covers topics such as communicating climate change information; meeting the needs of underserved populations, such as limited-resource older adults and prison inmates; encouraging conservation practices; assisting farmers with decision making under uncertainty; and more.