Focus and Scope

Tuning Journal for Higher Education (TJHE) is a biannual peer-reviewed and Open Access journal that publishes in English original research studies and reviews of student-centred learning and outcome-oriented education reforms at university level, with reference to the national, regional, and international environments. Its main objectives are:

• To provide a platform whereby excellence in teaching, learning and assessment in higher education is promoted through research publications.
• To serve as a platform for students, teachers, policy makers, administrators, and academics across societies, cultures, professions, and academic disciplines in order to engage in constructive debate on new approaches, methods and tools on teaching, learning and assessment in competence-based and student-centred curricula in higher education.
• To promote research and to subject the tools developed in different higher education projects – including but not limited to Tuning projects – to full academic scrutiny and debate with a view to fostering continuous innovation in higher education and the professional development of teachers and researchers.

Contribution Topics:

The Journal welcomes contributions on the following topics:

1. Competence-based learning in higher education

• Teaching, learning and assessing: theories, policies, and practices
• Processes, environments/contexts and experiences of (outcome-oriented) learning
• Subject-specific good practices of teaching, learning and assessment in higher education
• Generic/General skills and competences in higher education
• Curriculum design, implementation and enhancement
• Quality assurance strategies, mechanisms and approaches
• Integration and support to the implementation of national reform agendas
• Change management at strategic and degree programme level

2. Academic teachers’ professional development and teaching competences

• Scholarship of teaching, learning, organising, and assessing
• Teachers’ professional development strategies and challenges

3. Cooperation and partnership building

• Higher education profiling and employability in an interdependent world
• Inter-university cooperation and partnership in higher education
• University-business cooperation: work-based learning strategies, approaches, methodologies and challenges

4. Emergence and development of higher education areas

• Internationalisation, sustainability, and local ownership in higher education
• Recognition challenges and experiences in national and international perspectives
• Convergence in higher education and related challenges (diversity and local traditions, interculturality, …)
• Students’ and stakeholders’ participation in higher education
• Transitions and challenges to and from higher education (admission from secondary education and other learning paths; preparation for the job market)
• Role of overarching qualifications frameworks and meta-profiles
• Further emerging topics in the higher education scenario worldwide

5. Higher education in times of emergencies

• Higher education (HE) strategic and operational response to emergencies, disasters, pandemics, conflicts and other crises
•  HE delivery and quality assurance in times of epidemics and pandemics
• Staff support and experience during national and/or international crises
• Strategies to support students during enforced change and/or crises
• COVID-19 impact on and implications for higher education

Publication Frequency

Tuning Journal for Higher Education (TJHE) is a joint academic publication of the University of Deusto (Spain) and the University of Groningen (Netherlands).

It is published by the University of Deusto on behalf of the two institutions. It appears twice a year, in May and November.

Currently, Journal items are published collectively in both digital and print formats.

The Journal publishes both thematic and unsolicited contributions on competence-based (higher) education.

The first issue of the Journal was published in November 2013. It discussed whether building new profiles and new generations of graduates is the right solution for some of the pressing educational needs of contemporary societies.

The second issue appeared in May 2014 and addressed the theme of competence-based learning from a global perspective.

Subsequent issues have covered various aspects of competence-based education such as curriculum reform for modernising higher education in an increasingly interdependent world, challenges and opportunities for curriculum development, and implementation and impact of Tuning competence-based approach in different parts of the world.

The Editorial Board welcomes contributions, research articles and case studies, on these and other themes related to values, needs, and prospects for building appropriate student profiles for a better world.

Production, Publication, and Distribution

Under the coordination of the Managing Editor (ME), accepted manuscripts are copyedited for publication. For each copyediting round, authors normally have up to three (3) working days to act upon suggested changes. Once copyediting is completed, the ME assigns a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to each paper before moving it to the typesetting and proofreading stage. By email attachment, authors receive PDF proofs for final check (of basically typographical and formatting errors), altogether with the copyright transfer form (to be completed, dated, signed, and returned to the ME). They are expected to give their feedback within three (3) working days of receipt. Exceptionally, more than one round of proofreading by authors may take place. Substantive changes to the content and or structure of the manuscript at this stage require the approval of the Journal editor.

The responsibility to check the proofs rests primarily with the author(s). Neither the Journal editorial staff nor the Publisher can be held responsible for errors that remain in the published version and which the author(s) should have amended.

Final proofs (as checked by the author(s)) are published as a journal issue, first online (in PDF and HTML formats) and then in print format. Upon online publication of each issue, automatic notifications are sent from the Journal platform to authors, editors, reviewers, and registered users who have chosen to be notified. New issue content metadata are subsequently submitted to various indexing and cataloguing services providers.

Only a limited number of print copies are made available for internal distribution (to authorities, libraries, records and archives services, and visiting researchers) within the two Tuning Academy institutions. Depending on availability, free print copies are also provided to authors, reviewers, section editors (of each issue), editorial board members, and key strategic partners of Tuning Academy.

Fees

No charges for manuscript submission, processing, and publication are applicable.

Journal History

Tuning Journal for Higher Education (TJHE) was officially launched on Wednesday, 21^st November 2012 in Brussels (Belgium), at a general Tuning meeting. Its first issue was published in November 2013.

Affiliation and Support

Sponsors:

In various Tuning Educational Structures in Europe projects (2000-2010), Tuning projects in short, which started as a reaction of Higher Education institutions (HEIs) to the 1999 Bologna Declaration, various Bologna lines were addressed and practical tools were developed to assist in their implementation. Over the years, Tuning has received interest from around the world as a result, among others, of the following initiatives: Tuning Africa, Tuning Australia, Tuning Latin America, Tuning Russia, and Tuning USA.

The two academic institutions that started the Tuning projects in 2000 and have been coordinating them ever since are the University of Deusto (Spain) and the University of Groningen (Netherlands).

Sources of support:

Tuning Journal for Higher Education (TJHE), Tuning Journal in short, benefits from the support of the University of Deusto and the University of Groningen, as well as the wider global Tuning Community.