RT3 touched upon essentially 3 topics, each of which could have filled easily the whole discussion time.
First, Kerry Parker described her philosophy and work as editor of the IOP journal Physics Education, a journal aimed at teachers in schools for age 11-18. IOP gives Physics Education professional support, for instance it provides a fully searchable online data base. Journals of teacher associations run most often on smaller budgets depending on the financial strength of the association.
Journals for school teachers usually combine short contributions on teaching ideas, proposals for practical work, which have been tried successfully, book reviews, etc. with longer papers on a wide range of topics. The latter include reflections on problems in physics education, reports on scientific progress written be experts for non-experts (e.g. similar in style and level to the press releases of the Nobel committee), discussions of educational reform measures – just to name a few.
In a written contribution to the roundtable it has been suggested by Z. Golab-Maier that critical reviews of text books and of popular science books are urgently needed to make the readership aware of severe errors and to improve the quality of text books.
Silvia Pugliese stressed in the discussion that teachers’ journals in national languages are needed, and that the exchange of excellent contributions among journals would be highly welcome and would serve the readership. This exchange is impeded by the necessity of translation which is a severe cost factor.

Lillian C. McDermott introduced the second topic: journals reporting about physics education research at the academic level. Two issues have to be distinguished:

1. Possibilities to publish quality Physics Education Research papers in refereed journals of high standing should be adequate. It is not clear whether this is possible within established journals which are devoted to educational aspects of physics (e.g. American Journal of Physics, European Journal of Physics) or if a dedicated journal with qualified editor and referees is necessary.
2. It is necessary to bring the results of Physics Education Research to those physicists who teach physics. Apparently there is still not full agreement that Physics Education Research is a legitimate branch of research activities within physics departments, and also that the results have bearing to physics teaching at the academic level. Short versions of research papers with indications of their practical relevance will be read if published in Physics Today, Europhysics News etc. Full recognition of Physics Education Research will be reached, when Physics Education Research papers will be published in the Physical Review.

Publications in educational journals like the International Journal of Science Education do not reach physicists.
An important point has been raised by Marisa Michelini: How will teachers, especially mentors and trainers active in teacher pre- and in-service training learn about results in Physics Education Research? Can the usual ways of transmission by mouth and handouts at workshops be improved? Since this will have to address problems very near to the country specific educational system, a solution might be the establishing of a network either in electronic or in printed form.
Loriano Bonora from SISSA (Trieste) reminded the audience of the modern ways of publishing online. He called attention to the highly successful Journal of High Energy Physics (published jointly by IOP and the German Physical Society) and the ArXiv, the electronic archive which replace the preprint system of the 70’s and 80’s. Online journals are useful within scientific communities but they are not expected to reach other groups.

Manuel Velarde (Madrid) suggested that a service like Science Contents of Physics Abstracts might be valuable for Physics Education Research, esp. since many contributions are not easily accessible due to language barriers.

In an email message Giovanni Biondi, director of INDIRE, offered to host an online journal. There has been no time at the round table to discuss this offer in depth.

Recommendations:

1. Despite the many open problems – responsibility, editor, referees, long term financing – the reporter considers an
   European Journal of Physics Education Research and Practice (online)
   an important step to build a community of Physics Education Research in Europe and to demonstrate the maturity of Physics Education Research. Of course such a journal has to serve the whole international community.
2. To reach the practitioners in teacher training and in teacher development the establishment of support systems mainly on an electronic basis is recommended at a national level and should become part of the educational system.
3. Teacher students should become familiar with research literature and with journals devoted to their future profession to improve the information flow between teachers and between research and practice.