Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research (March 15, 2005)

The American Physical Society is pleased to announce the start of a new peer reviewed electronic-only journal: Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research. This is the second Special Topics journal published by the American Physical Society, the first being Physical Review Special Topics - Accelerator and Beams. The journal will be distributed without charge, and financed by publication charges to the authors or to the authors' institutions.

The introduction of Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research is the result of discussions between the American Physical Society, the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), and the APS Forum on Education on the need for a wide ranging and widely distributed peer review journal for researchers in this field. The journal will be sponsored and partially supported by the AAPT and the APS Forum on Education.

We are especially fortunate that Professor Robert Beichner of North Carolina State University has accepted the position of Editor of the journal. He was recently elected to be an APS Fellow for his efforts in advancing the field of physics education research and promoting the application of its findings in the nation's classrooms.

The criteria for acceptance of articles will include the high scholarly and technical standards of our other Physical Review journals. The scope of the journal will cover the teaching and/or learning of physics and the full range of experimental and theoretical research. Review articles, replication studies, descriptions of the development and use of new assessment tools, presentation of research techniques, and methodology comparisons/critiques are welcomed.

The Physical Review will begin receiving submissions later this spring and anticipates publication in the summer of 2005. Instruction for submittals will appear soon at publish.aps.org.