Choosing a Venue for Educational Technology and Online Learning: Quartile, Index and Fee Side by Side

An acceptance email arrives nine days after submission, with an invoice for 1,450 US dollars. The journal is one of the best-known titles in educational technology, the ISSN is right, the editorial board is right. The author nearly paid. What stopped her was one fact she already knew: the real journal charges no APC at all.

So check the access model before anything else. If a journal on this page is marked no APC and someone asks you for money, the site is not the journal. What follows is the humanities and social science list we use, by index first and then by what it costs.

How to read a quartile before you read the list

Two quartiles exist and they measure different things. The Scopus quartile comes from Scimago, inside a Scopus subject category. The JCR quartile comes from Clarivate, inside a Web of Science category, using the impact factor. Education categories are large, so several titles below carry a Scopus Q1 alongside a Web of Science Q3 or Q4.

The index tier matters more than either. An ESCI journal shows an impact factor and a quartile that look exactly like an SSCI one on screen, so an ESCI Q1 will not satisfy a rule asking for SSCI. Where the tier is not recorded, the tables say so rather than guess. Settling this before the cover letter is the first step in Journal Submission Preparation.

Web of Science options: SSCI, SCIE and ESCI

Four of these charge no APC, including the SSCI Q1 title with the highest impact factor in this subject. Several are neighbouring education fields rather than edtech, and are marked as such. The AI Journal Finder matches an abstract against them in seconds.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

EI Compendex indexed journals

Three titles on the systems and delivery side of online learning, all with no APC.

Scopus-indexed options

Scopus Q1 titles first, then the lower bands where a first paper usually lands. Planning a thesis into a sequence of papers is the Mentorship Program.

Diamond open access: education journals with no APC

Seven more titles that charge nothing, led by an SSCI Q1 society journal. The four no-APC titles already in the Web of Science table above are not repeated here.

Not sure whether the journal you picked is still indexed? Run it through the Predatory Journal Checker at ai.researchramp.com, or send us the title on WhatsApp or WeChat for a same-day check. Two minutes to spare instead? Try the Smart Quiz.

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Gold open access: education journals with an APC

Low charges, from 150 to 700 US dollars, and mostly Scopus-only or unranked. Read the quartile column alongside the price.

Indexed conference routes in educational technology

One genuinely relevant series. The other conference matches in the source data were databases, solid modelling and control engineering textbooks, which share a keyword and nothing else, so they are left out.

How educational technology papers are written, and what that means for your draft

Read ten recent papers in the Web of Science table and a house style shows through. Matching it matters, because editors here screen for it in the first page.

1. The learning problem comes first, the tool second. Papers open with what students struggle to learn, and only then introduce the technology. A paper that opens with the app reads as a product report.
2. The technology is described precisely. Name the platform, version, dates of use and how students accessed it. For generative AI, give the model, version, access dates and example prompts, because reviewers now ask.
3. The intervention is reproducible. Duration, frequency, who taught, what the comparison group did. A reader should be able to run it again.
4. Learning is measured, not only liked. Test scores, task performance or behaviour logs alongside satisfaction. A perception survey alone is the most common reason for rejection in this field.
5. Effect sizes are reported. Not only significance, and with the comparison condition stated.
6. Language stays measured. Words like revolutionise, transform and game-changing are read as hype. Editors prefer "was associated with a moderate improvement in".
7. Implications speak to teachers. What an instructor should do differently on Monday, not a general call for more technology.

Getting that structure right before submission is Manuscript Preparation Support, and the language pass is Manuscript Editing.

What gets accepted in this field, and what gets rejected

What does a Diamond open access journal live on if the author pays nothing?

An institution pays instead. In educational technology the free titles on this page are funded by learned societies, university presses, a professional consortium and a teaching foundation, which run the journal as part of their mission rather than as a business.

That is why the International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education can carry an impact factor of 16.7 and charge nothing. In this field, free and prestigious often go together.

Is a low publication fee in educational technology research a warning sign?

Not by itself. Several genuine titles here charge 150 to 300 US dollars, because they are run by universities with low costs. The warning signs are different: a fee that appears only after acceptance, an acceptance in days, an indexing claim the index does not confirm, and, specific to this field, any fee at all from a journal that the index record shows as free.

Check the journal from the Scopus or Web of Science record, never from an email link, and the low-fee question mostly answers itself.

Can I get an APC waiver as an author from a developing country?

Often, and it is usually applied automatically. Most large publishers run their schemes off the Research4Life country groups, where Group A countries receive a full waiver on fully open access journals and Group B countries a discount, commonly half.

The check runs against the corresponding author's institution at submission, so put the eligible author in that role. In this field there is often no need: the strongest journals here charge no APC at all.

Which educational technology publishers waive fees for Indian or African authors?

The two cases differ. Many African countries sit in Research4Life Group A or B, so authors there commonly receive a full waiver or a half discount automatically from publishers including Springer Nature, Wiley, Sage and Taylor and Francis. India is not on those lists, so publishers using them alone offer nothing, while some apply a World Bank income-based discount instead.

For Indian authors the practical answer is simpler: the SSCI Q1 titles in the Web of Science table that charge no APC, and the Diamond table, cover most of the good options without any waiver at all.

How do I know if an educational technology conference is really EI Compendex indexed?

Check the specific proceedings volume in Engineering Village, which is the only place EI Compendex coverage can be confirmed. A conference website cannot prove its own indexing, because the index decides after the volume is published.

Education conferences are heavily marketed with indexing claims. If the conference cannot give you the ISSN or ISBN of last year's volume so you can look it up yourself, treat the claim as unconfirmed.

Which educational technology conferences index in Scopus proceedings?

In the data behind this page, the European Conference on e-Learning is the one direct match, with Scopus coverage every year from 2013 to 2025. Its sister conference ICEL is listed in EI Compendex but carries no Scopus quartile.

Most education conferences, including many large and respected ones, publish abstracts or non-indexed proceedings. That is normal in this field and does not make them less valuable for feedback, only for the indexed record.

How much does it cost to publish an educational technology paper in an indexed journal?

Usually nothing. The subject's strongest journal, an SSCI Q1 title with an impact factor of 16.7, charges no APC, as do three more Web of Science titles, the whole Diamond table and most subscription journals here.

Where an APC applies, the range on this page runs from about 150 to 700 US dollars, the lowest of any subject in this series. Paying is rarely necessary in educational technology.

Is a Scopus Q3 paper in educational technology research enough for a PhD submission?

For most universities yes, because the requirement usually names the index rather than the quartile, and a Q3 article is a Scopus-indexed article. Some programmes specify Q1, Q2 or SSCI, in which case it is not.

Get the requirement in writing early. In this subject a Q1 target is more reachable than elsewhere, because several Q1 titles charge nothing and decide relatively quickly.

What editors screen before a reviewer sees your paper

The editorial office checks whether the English is clear enough to review, whether the structure and reference style match the journal, and what the similarity report says. Education papers increasingly face a fourth check for undeclared AI-generated text, so declare any use of AI tools in writing. Run your own check first with the Plagiarism & AI Similarity Checker.

Where Research Ramp comes in

We match a finished abstract against live indexing, tell you plainly when a design will not survive the first screen, and prepare the submission so the editorial office has no reason to bounce it on formatting. Subject-matched PhD editors, milestone payments, and the author stays the author throughout. The revision round is Review & Response Support, co-authors with classroom access are Collaboration Matching, and past work is on our Case Studies page.

Questions we are asked about quartiles

Send us the abstract, we will send back the shortlist

Send us your abstract and we will return a shortlist that separates SCIE, SSCI, AHCI, Scopus and EI options, with the access model marked against each. Tap the WhatsApp icon, or scan the WeChat code. To hand over the whole route from venue choice to acceptance, that is the Full Publication Package.

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发送摘要，即可获得按检索类型分层的期刊清单。

Disclaimer. Every table on this page is correct as on October 2026 and no later. Article charges shown in US dollars are approximate conversions at October 2026 rates, and journals bill in their own currency. Indexing, quartile, access model and charges change through the year, and journals can be added to or removed from Scopus and Web of Science at any time. This page is general information only. Research Ramp Private Limited accepts no responsibility or liability for any decision made on the basis of it, including the choice of journal, any charge paid, or the outcome of any submission. Every detail must be independently verified by the author with the journal's own website and the live Scopus source list and Web of Science Master Journal List before submitting. If you would like an informal second check, send us the title and we will look at it for you.

本页所有列表数据截至 2026 年 10 月，仅供一般参考。Research Ramp 不对任何依据本页作出的选刊、付费或投稿结果承担责任。投稿前请务必通过期刊官网及 Scopus、Web of Science 实时数据自行核实收录情况与费用。