Call for Additional Co-editors

International Journal for Students as Partners: Call for Additional Co-editors

The International Journal for Students as Partners (IJSaP) is highly unusual in that it is co-edited by staff/faculty and students and is run on partnership principles. IJSaP explores established and emerging perspectives, practices, and policies regarding how students and staff (used here and subsequently to refer to academic staff/faculty, professional staff, and other stakeholders) are working in partnership to enhance learning and teaching in higher education.

The journal was founded in 2016. The International Journal for Students as Partners (IJSaP) wishes to appoint two new editorial board (EB) co-editing teams consisting of a staff/faculty member¹ and a student² from:

1. a) Canada (excluding McMaster University where we already have a team based)
2. b) A country not currently represented on the EB (i.e. excluding Australia, Canada, China, Pakistan, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States). We would particularly welcome applications from non-English speaking countries and/or parts of the world in which student-staff partnerships are an emerging development, but applications from other countries not currently represented on the EB are also welcome.

They will join the existing EB, which consists of eight student-staff teams plus a senior editor, an editorial manager, and a communications officer.

IJSaP publishes articles, reflective essays, case studies, opinion pieces, and reviews about partnership between students and others in higher education focused on explorations, practices, policies, and analyses of teaching and learning. It is an open access journal published twice a year by McMaster University Press. Further details are available at: https://mulpress.mcmaster.ca/ijsap.

The positions

We welcome and recognize the diversity of skills and experiences students and staff may bring to the role of co-editors. Applications for appointment to the EB should come from a student-staff partnership (one student, one staff).

The positions are for three years, though they may be renewable in agreement with the EB. We recognize that, given the transitional nature of student identity, some students may not be able to commit for more than around 18 months. Student members may remain on the EB up to two years after graduation.

The EB teams should be prepared to see any of the genres we publish through the review process. The teams will be expected to take a full role in developing the journal, including participation in policy decisions and EB meetings. Mentoring support will be provided by other EB members. We are flexible about how country teams work in partnership together; each of the other teams does things slightly differently, but we expect all teams to work in partnership as demonstrated by our values.

Values of IJSaP

The aims and aspirations of IJSaP are underpinned by a series of values. These translate into principles of how we operate as an editorial board, including our commitment to:

• Work openly and collaboratively toward shared goals to develop and deliver our high aspirations for IJSaP
• Operate as a student-staff partnership in sub-editorial teams, including making decisions through dialogue; appreciating that co-editors will contribute their expertise actively, although this may look different at different times; and being driven by the values of partnership
• Embrace the tensions and contradictions of aspiring to quality while imagining new ways of considering quality of a first-choice academic journal

Aims and aspirations for IJSaP

• Provide space for researchers and practitioners to explore new perspectives, practices, and policies regarding how students and academic staff/faculty, professional staff, and other stakeholders are working in partnership to enhance learning and teaching in higher education
• Encourage high quality and diverse membership of the review panel from experienced and inexperienced students and staff from a range of countries, so as to include new voices, and extend the reach of IJSaP internationally
• Pursue and promote methodological pluralism and multiple approaches to discussing, writing and evidencing students as partners scholarship
• Give high levels of support to our authors, reviewers, members of the editorial board and international advisory group, and guest editors
• Operate sustainably and inclusively via an incremental change approach
• Develop practices for publishing that others will aspire to emulate
• Promote wide awareness and readership of the journal

Appointment criteria

All applicants should:

• Demonstrate how they can contribute to the aims, aspirations and values of IJSaP
• Demonstrate knowledge/understanding of field of students as partners
• Be committed to working closely in partnership with their team member and the other members of the EB
• Be willing to contribute the required effort (additional time) to publishing a journal running as a partnership between students and staff
• Have sensitivity/flexibility to differing workloads throughout the year (within and across teams) and for engagement in meetings across different time zones³
• Be based in Canada (excluding McMaster University) OR a country not currently represented on the EB
• Be fluent speakers and writers in English

The student-staff team should between them:

• Have experience of practicing, researching and publishing in the students as partners area
• Be recognized as contributors to the students as partners field beyond their institution(s)
• Have significant reviewing and editing experience

The student team member should:

• Be registered as a current undergraduate or postgraduate student in a higher education institution

The staff team member should:

• Have significant experience of working in a higher institution(s) understanding and negotiating the practical experience of teaching and/or supporting student learning

Selection process

Applications, and any queries, should be directed to ijsap@mcmaster.ca. The application should consist ofa letter, maximum of two sides, outlining how you as a student and a member of staff/faculty in combination meet the selection criteria, along with a maximum of a two-sided CV each. The closing date for applications is 12:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) Friday, June 13, 2025.

We hope to have made decisions by mid-July and for the teams to begin in early August 2025.

Potential applicants are encouraged to contact Prof Mick Healey, Senior Editor (mhealey@glos.ac.uk), or Ian Steinberg, Editorial Manager (ijsap@mcmaster.ca), for an informal discussion about the role. Please address any queries about the application process to the Editorial Manager (ijsap@mcmaster.ca).

Notes

¹ Staff are defined broadly to include faculty, academics, professional staff and educational developers who have responsibilities for teaching and/or supporting learning of students in higher education.

² Students are defined as registered as studying at undergraduate or postgraduate level in a higher education institution. Once appointed students may, where appropriate, continue as co-editors for up to two years after graduating.

³ In order to accommodate several different time zones editorial board meetings may take place outside of normal working hours. Applicants should be prepared to participate in such meetings on average once every three or four months.