Editorial

It is now two years since all ReCALL papers became entirely open access (OA). For ReCALL, going OA after nearly four decades marks an important step towards adapting to the evolving landscape of scholarly communication. ReCALL authors do not pay APCs (article processing charges), with publishing fees covered either by transformative agreements across countries and authors’ institutions or by a waiver agreement. OA plays a crucial role in democratising scientific knowledge by making research freely available to everyone, regardless of financial barriers. Freely accessible research also encourages interdisciplinary collaboration and supports transparency and open science practices. In an era that is marked by the opacity of large language models (LLMs), OA enables researchers, students and the general public to engage with rigorous findings in technology and language learning and teaching, strengthening public understanding and education.

In 2025, ReCALL published 24 research papers across three issues, with eight of those papers forming the special issue Migrants’ and refugees’ digital literacies in life and language learning. All 24 research articles are free to read and download, which is exciting news in a context where OA is expected to transform science into a shared global resource that drives innovation and, perhaps more importantly, equity.

The 2024 impact factor for ReCALL increased again, this time to 5.7. This is calculated from citations in 2024 to articles published in ReCALL in 2022 and 2023, which received on average about 5.7 citations that year. This increase has been possible thanks to the authors who decided to share their excellent research in our journal and the work of our Associate Editors and reviewers. ReCALL now ranks 4th, out of 303, and 15th, out of 756, in Linguistics and Education & Educational Research, respectively. While these rankings are encouraging and are a testimony to the wide reach of the research published in the journal, we should not forget that our core values should remain the same, irrespective of our ranking. ReCALL has embodied for almost four decades, and we hope it will continue to embody, the values of innovation, inclusivity, and scholarly rigour by promoting technology-enhanced language learning through empirical and theoretical research in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and related disciplines.

Cambridge University Press (CUP) funds a prize for the “best paper” published in ReCALL in the three most recent issues (36.3, 37.1, and 37.2) leading up to the Editorial Board meeting at the EUROCALL conference, held this year in Milan. This year’s prize was awarded to Müge Satar, Paul Seedhouse, Ahmed Kharrufa, Sara Ganassin, Melinda Dooly, Johanna Buitrago Peña, Elifcan Öztekin, Sumru Akcan and Belma Haznedar (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0958344024000351) for their paper “Migrants’ digital skills development: Engaging with and creating digital cultural activities on the ENACT web app”. This paper highlights the important role of engaging migrants in creating culturally rich digital content that fosters mutual understanding and social inclusion. The findings demonstrate that digital literacy development is achievable and beneficial through practical, culturally grounded activities. The paper advocates for supportive, inclusive teaching approaches that appreciate participants’ strengths rather than deficits. This paper was part of the special issue Migrants’ and refugees’ digital literacies in life and language learning, edited by Linda Bradley, Nicolas Guichon and Agnes Kukulska-Hulme. The issue showcased migration as a central topic in CALL research. Migrants face unique challenges in learning new languages and integrating into host communities, and digital technologies can play a crucial role in addressing these challenges by supporting the acquisition of language skills effectively and enhancing migrants’ digital literacy and promoting, more significantly, social inclusion.

The deadline for the expression of interest in publishing in our next special issue, Artificial intelligence and CALL: Exploring the implications of generative-AI tools for language education, to be edited by Branislav Bédi and Neasa Ní Chiaráin, ended on 30th September 2025. It is not an exaggeration to say that it has attracted massive interest. We are excited that we can soon publish cutting-edge, rigorous research on the use of AI in language education that allows us to further understand the dynamics and implications of such technology for language learning and teaching once the initial AI hype has calmed down. Although the issue is likely to be fully available in 2027, stay tuned for FirstView papers on the topic on our website.

And speaking of AI, as stated in our last editorial, ReCALL updated its policy on the use of generative AI, with the requirement for authors for full transparency of use, or non-use, in line with current practice at CUP and in most scientific journals. We are certainly witnessing a transformation in academic practices, particularly in relation to research and scientific publishing. While the leading journals in our field are striving to adapt to the new reality brought about by using AI tools, the pace of innovation and adoption of this technology is forcing editorial boards and editors to constantly reassess how best to adjust to this new situation. Researchers who wish to publish in our journal should be fully aware of the need for complete transparency in their communication with the Editors-in-Chief, Associate Editors and, more importantly, the readership regarding the use of AI, both in the research stage and in the writing of their articles. Scientific journals currently bear a major responsibility to ensure that the research published in their pages upholds the highest standards of scientific quality and scholarly rigour. This is a task that concerns us all.

As always, we must thank our reviewers, a total of 131 people from 29 different countries, who completed reviews between 1st October 2024 and 30th September 2025. Many of them reviewed more than one version of the same paper, with some reviewing several submissions. Their contribution is immense. They offer insightful feedback that helps authors refine their manuscripts to meet ReCALL’s standards and significantly aids the editors in making final decisions. Although this work is done voluntarily and often without due acknowledgement, it remains a cornerstone of the scientific publishing process. A very big thank you then to all the following:

Margarita Alonso Ramos, Mohammad Amiryousefi, Scott Aubrey, Zsuzsanna Bárkányi, Neil Barrett, Daniela Bartalesi-Graf, Branislav Bédi, Lucía Bellés-Calvera, Cathryn Bennett, Serge Bibauw, Françoise Blin, Jill Boggs, Kate Borthwick, Lisa Bradley, Jack Burston, Alessandra Cacciato, Fidel Çakmak, Silvia Canto, Mónica Stella Cárdenas-Claros, Chin-chi Chao, Hao-Jan Chen, Yazdan Choubsaz, Jozef Colpaert, Ngo Cong-Lem, Frederik Cornillie, Peter Crosthwaite, Phung Dao, Kristin Davin, Sofia Di Sarno-García, Jihua Dong, Melinda Dooly, Khaled Elebyary, Søren W. Eskildsen, Fiona Farr, Ana Frankenberg-Garcia, Abbas Pourhosein Gilakjani, John Gillespie, Marta Giralt, Alice Gruber, Mingyue Gu, Nicolas Guichon, Agata Guskaroska, Marwa Hafour, Regine Hampel, Francesca Helm, Tahereh Heydarnejad, Kevin Hirschi, Anesa Hosein, Hsiang-ling Huang, Ping-Yi Huang, Qiang Huang, Philip Hubbard, Peter Ilic, Sake Jager, Juhyun Jang, Kristi Jauregi-Ondarra, Jaeho Jeon, Jenny Lin Jiang, Lianjiang Jiang, Napat Jitpaisarnwattana, Sofie Johansson, Carmenne Kalyaniwala, Chien-Wen Kao, Naoko Kasami, Brent Kelsen, Minkyung Kim, Mariusz Kruk, Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, Gosia Kurek, Chun Lai, En-Minh (John) Lan, Bradford Lee, Jang Ho Lee, Ju Seong Lee, Sangmin Lee, Mike Levy, Congxin Li, Rui Li, Di Liu, Guangxiang Liu, Tanjun Liu, Yeu-Ting Liu, Jarvis Looi, Amel Lusta, Qing Ma, Marni Manegre, S. Susan Marandi, Sameh Metwaly, Imma Miralpeix, Atsushi Mizumoto, Susanna Nocchi, Carlos Ordoñana Guillamón, Magali Paquot, Xuyan Qiu, Barry Reynolds, Mahshid Rezaeyan, Elaine Riordan, Esperanza Román-Mendoza, Firooz Sadighi, Randall Sadler, Afsaneh Saeedakhtar, Aysel Şahin Kızıl, Mehmet Sak, Aysel Saricaoglu, Cédric Sarré, Takeshi Sato, Shannon Sauro, Peter Sayer, Mathias Schulze, Rustam Shadiev, Suhad Sonbul, Sinem Sonsaat-Hegelheimer, Glenn Stockwell, Carola Strobl, You Su, Peppi Taalas, Dara Tafazoli, Mark Teng, Guy Trainin, Marco Triulzi, Wen-Ta Tseng, Miguel Varela, Boris Vazquez-Calvo, Anton Vegel, Nina Vyatkina, Ciara Wigham, Yi-ju Wu, Mehmet Yavuz, Zhonggen Yu, Nicole Ziegler and Bin Zou.

Also, I wish to thank the members of the Editorial Board who stepped down at the end of 2025: Frederik Cornillie, Regine Hampel, Kristi Jauregi, Andrea Kárpáti, Agnes Kukulska-Hulme, Mike Levy, Detmar Meurers and Mat Schulze. Thanks for your contribution to the journal and for your commitment to excellence and academic rigour.

On a personal level, this has been my first year as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal. I would like to thank Professor Alex Boulton for all the help and guidance he has given me; without him, this task would have been very hard to manage. I would also like to express my gratitude to the journal’s editorial team, the Associate Editors, the CUP team and EUROCALL for their trust.

2026 will be a year of gradual changes for the journal, with new members joining the Editorial Board, the establishment of the new Advisory Board, new Associate Editors and, of course, new studies that will allow us to continue advancing in our mission to support first-rate research on technology and language learning and teaching. As Graham Davies said in a keynote delivered exactly 20 years ago at the UCALL Conference, University of Ulster at Coleraine¹, natural language processing and AI would shape the future of CALL in a not very distant future. It seems that we are already there.