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What is Connexions?
Connexions is a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute:
- authors create and collaborate
- instructors rapidly build and share custom collections
- learners find and explore content
All instructional materials are housed on the Rice University servers.
What is the Connexions Philosophy?
Connexions is an environment for collaboratively developing, freely sharing, and rapidly publishing scholarly content on the Web. Our Content Commons contains educational materials for everyone — from children to college students to professionals — organized in small modules that are easily connected into larger collections or courses. All content is free to use and reuse under the Creative Commons "attribution" license.
What is the relationship between Connexions and NCPEA?
Connexions was developed by a team of educators at Rice University in 1999. In 2002, NCPEA and Rice forged a partnership to allow NCPEA to serve as a "lens" and review and sanction any educational material deemed significant contributions to the educational leadership knowledge base. All modules and other material sanctioned by NCPEA is peer-reviewed by NCPEA editors.
How do I submit manuscripts to Connexions as an author?
First, go to the NCPEA web page at: http://www.ncpea.net/
Second, click on NCPEA Knowledge Base Project. All directions, guidelines, and procedures are explained in detail.
Third, be certain to register and set up a users account in Connexions. This is required to give copyright and author roles to you as the author. Accounts are free and can be set up in minutes.
When submitting through FastTrack, remember to indicate your submission going to Connexions (as opposed to ELR or the NCPEA Yearbook).
How do I create a course utilizing published modules?
Connexions uses the term Collection as what professors consider a Course. Essentially, to create a Collection (or Course), a professor searches the Connexions data base (Content Commons) for published instructional modules and collects or organizes them into a course format (Chapters, Readings, Activities, etc).
What is ManuscriptFastTrack?
NCPEA has made significant progress toward assembling the KB in educational administration through an international initiative called the NCPEA/Connexions Project. NCPEA and Rice University have made great strides in providing this KB to the world. Most exciting is our recent association with Express Academic Services, who provide us with the Manuscript FastTrack™ system, a fully automated web-based manuscript management and tracking service that speeds up the review process, improves the quality of reviews, and enhances the experience of authors, reviewers, and editors while eliminating the need for administrative and other support staff. Some features of the system include:
1. Reduces the average time manuscripts spend in review;
2. Increases the response of reviewers;
3. Minimizes communication via automated and paperless correspondence;
4. Eliminates the need for document storage and archiving;
5. Provides editorial access to the manuscripts and databases from any place at any time;
6. Gains continuity of a single "editorial office" irrespective of where editors are located and how often they change; and
7. Allows authors to track the status of their manuscript through the website at any time.
The real feature of FastTrack is that we can manage all of our publications from one site (i.e., Connexions, Education Leadership Review, NCPEA Yearbook), including the submission of conference submissions. See link here to more detail and short videos displaying theManuscript FastTrack™ system.
Can I have a submission published in both Connexions and the NCPEA Yearbook or Education Leadership Review?
Though this is not a frequent occurrence, yes an author may have the same article accepted for publication in two or three of the NCPEA publications. This is possible because NCPEA owns the copyright to all three publications.
How do I register in FastTrack as a user?
Simple. Go to: http://ncpea.expressacademic.org/login.php and register as a user. Registering is free and only takes a couple of minutes. This allows you to submit manuscripts and facilitates the review and publication processes. Submission is not possible without registering as a user.
What happens to my manuscript after submission?
Step 1. Within seconds after your submission, an email is sent to the editor of the topic area indicated on your submission (e.g., Human Relations).
Step 2. The editor then delegates your submission to an Assistant Editor, who requests 2/3 reviewers to begin the process of blind-reviewing your submission.
Step 3. The reviewers have 14 days to complete the blind-review, after which your submission is reviewed by the Editor and a decision is made to: (1) Accept, (2) Reject, or (3) Reject with resubmit options. You will receive a timely notification from the Editor or Assistant Editor.
Step 4. Once accepted, your submission is formatted into the Connexions Content Commons and you receive formal confirmation from NCPEA that your publication has been peer-reviewed and sanctioned as a significant contribution to the knowledge base. This documentation is designed to be used for your Promotion and Tenure needs.
Why is NCPEA using the FastTrack System?
Wow, that's an easy one. All files, documents, tables, figures are uploaded to the FastTrack system by the individual author with a few clicks on the computer. Then, all of the reviewing, editing, and publishing steps are handled in the system, eliminating emailing files back and forth from author to editor and reviewer. Publication and other submission decisions are made in a much more realistic turn-around. In most cases, decisions are made within 30 days. The jobs of the editor and reviewer are no longer tedious or time-consuming. This is a win-win answer to getting your submissions reviewed and published much faster than the not so unusual 6 month or more in traditional research journals.
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