Qualitative Report, The (Journal)

The Qualitative Report (TQR) is an English language, online, open-access journal devoted to qualitative, critical, action, and collaborative inquiry and research. TQR serves as a home for researchers, scholars, practitioners, and other reflective-minded individuals who are passionate about ideas, methods, and analyses permeating qualitative, action, collaborative, and critical study. TQR's pages are open to a variety of forms: original, scholarly activity such as qualitative research studies, critical commentaries, editorials, or debates concerning pertinent issues and topics; news of networking and research possibilities; and other sorts of journalistic and literary shapes that may interest readers.

In 1990, Nova University and Northern Illinois University, two institutions of higher education in the United States, launched TQR in response to emerging needs in the psychology, counseling, psychotherapy, social work, and marital and family therapy communities that were just beginning to adopt qualitative research methods. From 1990 to 1994, the journal was published in paper form with limited circulation. In 1994, TQR was published solely by Nova Southeastern University (formerly Nova University) as an online publication, and its website also became home to web-based resources that provided visitors with information on qualitative research websites, online papers, and syllabi.

In becoming an online publication, TQR's existing community was joined by colleagues from public [Page 705]administration, information technology, business, health care, human services, political science, geography, nursing, education, architecture, law enforcement, and others who submitted their papers to the journal and who subscribed to the publication. In addition, going online led to an increase in papers from international authors—now representing 40 different nations.

The journal's leadership team, Ron Chenail from Nova Southeastern University, Sally St. George and Dan Wulff from the University of Louisville, and Maureen Duffy from Barry University, upholds the journal's mission to mentor authors and to support them throughout the entire paper development process. In doing so, TQR works as a virtual learning environment dedicated to helping all authors produce papers of excellence and distinction. The hallmark of TQR is not its rejection rates, but rather its commitment to assist authors to improve their texts to the highest quality. The journal's success in meeting this mission was exemplified by its 2005 grant from the Open Society Initiative in recognition of TQR's editorial support of authors from developing and transitional countries.