The IAU has just published the first issue of the Astronomy Education Journal (AEJ). This new online publication is produced by IAU Commission C1 Astronomy Education and Development. It aims to serve the astronomy education community by bringing together practical, newsworthy and scholarly publications involving developments in the field.

Inspired by the Communicating Astronomy with the Public Journal (CAPjournal), published by IAU Commission C2, AEJ contains both peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed but curated articles, separated into two sections: Astronomy Education Research (AER) and Astronomy Education and Practice.

The first section contains research articles on formal and technical astronomy education research, that are peer-reviewed in the same way as traditional scientific journal manuscripts. As such, they need to be of a sufficient scholarly standard, as recommended by, for example, Scopus.

The second section focuses on building collaboration and circulating information amongst the community, by including other relevant material, such as news, announcements, interviews, opinions, resources, correspondence, best practise and classroom and astronomical activities. In addition, there is also scope for AEJ to publish invited reviews written by specialists in the area of AER.

The first issue of AEJ contains two peer-reviewed articles: one on the assessment of teachers’ science practises using astronomy storybooks, and one on interactive cosmology visualisation in the classroom. There are also five articles in the Astronomy Education and Practice section, with topics ranging from timing pulsars as an exercise in statistical analysis to the question of whether and how to teach general relativity in high school.

AEJ invites everyone in the community to submit papers for publication and to share this new journal with others who might be interested. Further information about the journal and instructions for authors can be found on the AEJ website.

More information

The IAU is the international astronomical organisation that brings together more than 12 000 active professional astronomers from more than 100 countries worldwide. Its mission is to promote and safeguard astronomy in all its aspects, including research, communication, education and development, through international cooperation. The IAU also serves as the internationally recognised authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies and the surface features on them. Founded in 1919, the IAU is the world's largest professional body for astronomers.

Links

• Astronomy Education Journal (AEJ) first issue

Contacts

Urban Eriksson
Co-editor Astronomy Education Journal
Lund University, Sweden
Mobile: +46 46 73 059 39 62
Email: urban.eriksson@fysik.lu.se

Paulo S. Bretones
Co-editor Astronomy Education Journal
Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Brazil
Email: bretones@ufscar.br  

Lars Lindberg Christensen
IAU Director of Communications
Mobile: +1 520 461 0433/+49 173 38 72 621
Email: lars.christensen@noirlab.edu