The journal aims at promoting scientific theory in religious education and learning. It deliberately focuses on the Austrian context while striving to be relevant to other countries, regions and contexts as well. With its ecumenical and interreligious direction ÖRF is a medium for researchers and teachers in religious education at universities belonging to all religions and denominations.

The journal is published open access twice a year with the main contributions being peer reviewed by external reviewers. The journal does not charge article processing charges (APC) nor any other fee. The journal's articles are listed in the "Web of Science (Emerging Sources Citation Index)" and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

Every issue has its own main topic defined by the editorial board. There is an open Call for Papers on this topic in due time, but concrete authors will also be explicitly asked for contributions.

Further contributions examine a wide range of topics of religious education, places of religious learning and science theory of religious education (as a discipline). Journal articles may also focus on practical aspects of religious education but need to be based on theory. Book reviews and the presentation of subject-specific Austrian master theses and dissertations are further elements of each issue.

ÖRF solely publishes articles that have not yet been published in any other medium before.

An abstract written in German and English precedes each article (with the exception of reports, book reviews and presentations of theses).

ÖRF is published under the Creative Commons license CC-BY; see creativecommons.org)

The authors retain copyright to their publications and can share, copy, and adapt the final published version immediately upon publication without restrictions.

The journal is long-time preserved via Portico.

Structure of an issue

Editorial: Introduction to the main topic of the respective issue, survey of contributions, bilingual

Part A: Main topic (about 6 to 10 articles) / peer reviewed

Part B: Further scientific contributions (max. 3 articles) / peer reviewed

Part C: Further contributions, primarily profession-specific research / reviewed by the Editorial Board

Part D: Reports, proceedings etc.

Part E: Book reviews and presentations of master theses and dissertations

Reviewing-Process

ÖRF is a double-blind peer review journal following international standards. The reviewers are part of the scientific community, predominantely from German-speaking countries.

Contributions on profession-specific research, reports and reviews are not peer reviewed but examined by at least two members of the Editorial Board.

Reviewers receive the anonymised original contributions with a standardised assessment form. They send their review to the Editorial Staff who in turn send the anonymised peer review to the author(s) in order to revise the original paper. After the Editorial Staff has proofread the revised manuscript, the author compiles the final version and approves its publication.

Publication Ethics

For all parties involved in the act of publishing (the author, the journal editor(s), the peer reviewer) it is necessary to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior. The ethics statements for our journal are based on the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

Reviewing

For questions regarding reviews, please contact the ÖRF editorial team:
oerf.redaktion@uni-graz.at