Innovation and expansion in <i>Language Testing</i> for changing times
Luke Harding, Paula Winke
Abstract
As we begin 2022 in a world that is still experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic, there remain many challenges on the horizon.For journal editors, these challenges involve the following: remaining sensitive to issues that require quick exploration and explication; thinking of new ways to engage with and bring together a community of scholars that has-in most casesnot had face-to-face conferences for over two years; monitoring submission figures to identify potential inequalities and inequities; and taking a compassionate approach both to authors and to reviewers in managing the demands of scholarship and reviewing in the midst of a range of other priorities (and with many at a point of exhaustion).We have realized, over the past two years, that for the journal to continue to function smoothly and to meet the needs of the language testing and assessment research community, what is needed above all is flexibility.And yet "flexibility" is not a word that often comes to mind when we think of an academic journal.Rather, we might consider a traditional academic journal to be staid, slow to act, lumbering along within the constraints of an antiquated model of print publishing.But these things are changing, and Language Testing will be at the forefront of these changes.We are pleased to be able to share that Language Testing will now publish a larger variety of articles and allow higher word limits for some of the article types we publish.Throughout 2021, we at the Language Testing editorial office have been thinking about the best ways to embrace open science practices and encourage the submission of various article types to best serve the wider field.Our aim is to create a journal for diverse types of research and to foster high levels of engagement.We also want to provide sufficient space