indicator

Contribute

Information for contributors

Contributors – please email the editor with your questions/contributions

Indicator is a freely accessible, online publication for anyone interested in Education for Sustainability. It falls somewhere between or is a combination of the traditional and online academic journal, NGO magazines written in a popular style, or an internet blog.

Indicator aims to reflect the interests and concerns of the community of practitioners of Education for Sustainability – in all its forms and persuasions. As one of our writers will put it in the first issue, “Environmental education is boring.” What Indicator is not is another stuffy academic publication. Instead it is a medium/forum where you can develop your critical capacities, explore creative expression, play “devils-advocate”, showcase your talents as a columnist to take an irreverent poke at the world around you, produce a critical focus article.

Indicator will feature a range of contributions from in-depth feature or focus articles on aspects of practice in Education for Sustainability such as tools, methodologies, evaluation, resources, organisational capacity, field reports and reviews of books, to more creative pieces such as for example, short stories and photo essays, to reports from or about an event or conference, to a resource of a teaching resource or communication tool, to regular editorial columns.

Why “Indicator”?

The word “indicator” has a number of different meanings. Indeed, it has a particular use in the fields of environment and sustainability to refer to biophysical or statistical measures that can be used to gauge the health of a system or a progression to achieving a certain goal. However, the particular meaning that we would like to evoke with this e-journal is that of

“a person or thing that signals an intended change of direction”.

Whether you believe achieving the goals of sustainability are going to require a change to the core of our being, a paradigm shift, a change in our worldview or the way we look at our place in relation to the world we live in, or more directly, just a change in the way we do things without any fundamental shift in our thinking; or some of all of the above – the e-journal is a medium for signalling the change.

Who and what to contribute

Indicator is open to all comers – its form will develop as the contributions come in. For example: propose and/or host a regular column editorializing your observations from wherever in the world you are; report on or even from events or conferences you have attended; contribute a book review whether it is for something newly published or a book/resource that has been out for years that you continue to return to time and time again because it makes sense and works for you; send a list and commentary of your top 5 research/work/internet tools, a creative piece on your sources of inspiration, a photo essay.

We will even accept things that you have previously published elsewhere as long as we have the appropriate permission to use your work and we will give the appropriate acknowledgements. This might include summaries of reports that you have prepared in your work; articles that may appear in your organisations newsletter or other publication.

Indicator is not a peer-reviewed publication (though a peer-reviewed feature or focus article is something that we may explore later). It ill be published on an adhoc and ongoing basis as material and contributions come to hand. Contributions will remain accessible on the web for the length of the project or until we just get too big or the material too old!

While there is no peer review process there will be a level of editorial control to ensure a certain level of readability, accuracy, and some protection against libel etc.. The editors of Indicator also reserve the right to contributions to ‘reviewers’ as part of the editorial process.

Feature

3000-5000 wrds

Journalistic piece; academic article; essay

Perspectives

300-800 wds

Sound off; blow your horn; down your street; soapbox

Soundbites

100-300 wds

Get it off your chest; consumer review; going up – going down; solutions / tips

Your Turn

1500-3000 wrds

Editorial; extended / multi review; conference / programme / resource / tool review

Regular by no means ordinary

Up to 1000 wds on regular basis; contributor defines “regular”

“Blog”; view from here / personal perspective

  • Indicator is an initiative of the EfS programme at London South Bank University. The EfS programme has some 12 years experience in debating and delivering EfS across the global regions.

    This online journal provides a forum for programme students, alumni and others to publish material that does not fit within the usual formal, 'stuffy' criteria that academic publications generally require. It is freely accessible and downloadable content will be archived to build a valuable resource over time.

  • Indicator is hosted on servers using 100% of their electricity from certified green renewable energy sources.

  • The word 'indicator' has a number of different meanings. Indeed, it has a particular use in the fields of environment and sustainability to refer to biophysical or statistical measures that can be used to gauge the health of a system or a progression to achieving a certain goal. However, the particular meaning that we would like to evoke with this e-journal is that of

    a person or thing that signals an intended change of direction

    Whether you believe achieving the goals of sustainability are going to require a change to the core of our being, a paradigm shift, a change in our worldview or the way we look at our place in relation to the world we live in, or more directly, just a change in the way we do things without any fundamental shift in our thinking; or some of all of the above – this e-journal is a medium for signalling the change.