Editor's Comments
Volume 3, Number 1
January 2009

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (IJ-SoTL) aspires to be an agent and catalyst for SoTL’s transforming work for a renewed awareness of and attentiveness to teaching and learning, for questioning assumptions and thinking about teaching, and for systematic and effective ways to improve learning and teaching in higher/tertiary education.  IJ-SoTL’s goal is to serve as a crucible or nexus for creating international contacts, conversations, contemplation, and collaborations in connection with SoTL.

Readers can request email notification when each new issue of IJ-SoTL is published by going to: http://www.georgiasouthern.edu/ijsotl/email_notification.htm   As of the publication of this issue, over 4,363 people from 114 countries have requested email notification about new issues (twice a year).

The foundation for IJ-SoTL is its Editorial Review Board composed of members from 142 colleges and universities in 37 countries on 6 continents. I want to thank those members for giving IJ-SoTL their time, knowledge, experience, and reputations.

And a special thank you to all our authors whose work is the substance of IJ-SoTL. In this issue those contributors are from Australia, Canada, Singapore, Italy, Jordan, New Zealand, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States. Authors from various parts of the world are encouraged to send their work to IJ-SoTL so that it becomes increasingly international in scope.

Very importantly, I also want to thank all the people who submitted manuscripts that were not accepted for publication. I hope the review process and the reviewers' comments have been of benefit to their SoTL work. Those submissions came from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kuwait, Nigeria, Philippines, Qatar, Serbia, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States.

The acceptance rate for Volume 3, Number 1 was 25%.

This issue contains:
1) 4 Invited Essays by people with reputations for advocacy of SoTL,
2) 21 Research Articles that demonstrate the research-led, evidence-based nature of SoTL and its applications for improving learning,
3) 5 Essays About SoTL that focus on various roles and potentials for SoTL in academic contexts and communities,
4) 5 Book Reviews of key books related to SoTL,
5) 1 Personal Reflection, and
6) ways for readers to join the reflections and conversations about SoTL.

Those ways include contacting authors via their email addresses to discuss their articles and essays; writing critical responses to articles or essays for possible inclusion in the “Readers’ Responses” section of the subsequent issue; joining the IJ-SoTL listserv for asynchronous conversations about SoTL (currently about 465 international subscribers), and sending your suggestions for improving IJ-SoTL to aaltany@georgiasouthern.edu.

The 6th issue of IJ-SoTL (Volume 3, Number 2) will be published in July 2009. The deadline for submitting articles and essays for that issue is May 15, 2009. See Call for Papers and Submitting Manuscripts for details.

Thank you for reading this issue of IJ-SoTL.

Alan Altany, Editor

P.S. The 2nd annual SoTL Commons: A Conference for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, will be held March 11-13, 2009 at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia, USA.