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At the 2018 NCFR Annual Conference in San Diego, California, the Journal of Family Theory & Review (JFTR) Digital Scholarship Board (DSB) and editorial team (both previous and incoming) met to discuss the future of digital scholarship at the journal. Founded in 2015 under the leadership of then-JFTR editor Libby Balter Blume, Ph.D., CFLE, and Robert Hughes Jr., Ph.D. (the first JFTR digital scholarship editor), the DSB was formed in response to a growing recognition of the role that social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, and blogs play in contemporary science communication. Over the past three years, the journal’s Twitter account (@JFTR_NCFR) has accumulated nearly 600 followers, and in 2018 alone it made over 38,000 digital impressions. The journal’s Facebook page (@jftrpage) has accumulated over 1,100 followers, and in just the past year, three individual posts on the diverse topics of military families, relationship-maintenance tools, and hegemonic heteronormativity individually reached more than 1,000 individuals, with a fourth on debunking myths of parent–child estrangement reaching over 2,000! It is clear there is a broad community of academics, professionals, and the general public who are interested in family research reviews and family theory—and that engaging with these audiences can help promote the reach and impact of JFTR. As such, the incoming JFTR editorial team of editor Mark A. Fine, Ph.D., and deputy editor Anthony G. James Jr., Ph.D., CFLE, will continue to utilize and grow the DSB and expand the journal’s digital presence.

What’s Next?

A key goal that the DSB and editorial team seek to accomplish in the coming year is the development and implementation of several regular digital features. These features (outlined here) are designed to benefit current JFTR readership and authors, and help expand awareness of the journal and the applications of family theories and knowledge to classroom teaching, program implementation, and current events. Currently we have plans for six types of features.

Teaching Corner. In these features, instructors will be interviewed and provide advice on how they are currently incorporating JFTR articles into their classrooms, syllabi, and assignments. We hope to provide specific suggestions for matching manuscripts with course content, developing creative assignments inspired by or that incorporate JFTR articles, and exploring best practices for scaffolding the construction of a Family Science literature review or article critique.

Building Bridges With Practice and Application. In another set of features, we will seek to explore how family theories and review are currently being utilized by practicing professionals. These pieces will include discussions regarding how theory and collected Family Science knowledge influence tasks like program design and implementation, in-person interactions or pedagogy, and/or private or public policy development and advocacy. We will also seek to explore the aspects of theoretical or review articles that can most effectively facilitate application of Family Science and theory in clinical, policy, or programming contexts.

Theoretical Perspectives on Current Events. In these features, we will consider and discuss how varying theoretical lenses can provide insight into ongoing events. This may include what various Family Science theories can tell us about experiences of topics in the news, such as violence in schools, responses to crises and (un)natural disasters, discrimination in the workplace, immigration, or changing social and interpersonal dynamics in society. These features will also address how varying family theories might be used to analyze contemporary cultural artifacts such as popular films, television shows, music, and literature.

Tips for Publishing in JFTR. These features will highlight important tips for authors looking to publish in JFTR. Topics will include issues like identifying whether an article is a good fit for JFTR; common challenges for authors, as identified by editors or reviewers; best practices in responding to reviewers; how to “show your work” in the process of theorizing; and how to determine when a body of literature would benefit from a review.

Notes From the Author(s). As part of publishing in JFTR, we hope to regularly ask authors whether they are willing to engage briefly with the DSB to discuss any additional notes or thoughts that they have about their finished manuscript. Like the video abstracts implemented by some journals, this (completely voluntary) supplementary material would be made available through JFTR’s digital platforms. We hope that this will provide an avenue for scholars to expand on their work and provide a forum for them to give brief informal highlights that will both help drive readers to their published work and broaden its impact for additional audiences. We anticipate that some of these features may find themselves “double-showing” in other categories (e.g., if an author has a great plan for how a manuscript can be used in teaching or applied practice settings).

Early View and Issue Previews. Finally, JFTR’s Twitter and Facebook accounts will continue to post announcements about upcoming manuscripts and issue contents as they are released. Although this is a continuation of previous practices, the recent implementation of publishing articles online before their inclusion in a printed issue of JFTR is very exciting and will lead to more constant updates than in the past. Early View is particularly exciting for JFTR authors, who can be confident that their work will be made more widely available quickly after it has been accepted and finalized. The DSB will continuously work to provide previews and announcements of new articles and new issues to increase visibility of the journal, articles, and authors.

How to Get Involved

We are currently seeking to recruit additional members for the DSB who are interested in using new media outlets and platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube) to broaden the conversation about contemporary Family Science and theory occurring in JFTR both within and beyond the academic community. Our goal is to keep involvement in the DSB meaningful, regular, and limited in its demand on DSB members’ time and energy. The current plan is to develop feature teams (one team for each feature outlined in the previous section) that will be responsible for completing approximately one product every few months. Most of this “work” will involve identifying experts, developing relevant questions, and then emailing or (occasionally) conducting live digital interviews. Being a member of the board does not require being an “expert” in new media or technology; rather, we are looking for content experts or enthusiasts who will be able to utilize their knowledge and networks to create compelling, useful, and brief snapshots that connect teaching, research, practice, and/or current events to the latest family theory and review published in JFTR. We are looking for members with diverse professional affiliations (e.g., academics, community organizations, nonprofits), content expertise, and at all stages of their careers (including students and new or seasoned professionals). If you are interested in serving on the JFTR DSB, contact the JFTR digital scholarship editor, Luke T. Russell, Ph.D., CFLE, at [email protected] for more details, and keep an eye out for additional information in the NCFR’s Zippy News newsletter and JFTR Twitter (@JFTR_NCFR) and Facebook (@jftrpage) accounts.