I tweeted about this, but I am currently working hard to resubmit a paper to an international journal where the Editor-in-Chief told me that “acceptance is difficult.” While reading a paper for that purpose, I thought the findings sounded familiar, and then I realized my own paper was cited. Since it was an international paper, I was very happy.
For the sake of responding to conditions, I have been looking through and searching various international journals. I was looking at the Top 25 Hottest Articles in Elsevier’s Computers & Education journal, where I had a paper accepted previously (which, thanks to that, means I get assigned peer reviews). They are released every two months, and the latest one is for July to September 2009. I was thinking things like, “Oh, I see, the educational use of Second Life was widely read around this time,” or “There are reviews, too. A framework for mobile evaluation? That looks interesting.”
Then, when I looked at the ranking of papers read between April and June 2009, my paper was at number 25 in the Top 25! Whoa! Seriously? This is actually quite a happy moment. That paper was a lot of work. I was steadily responding to the conditions, but there was one rather tough condition, and I remember consulting with Professor Kitamura at the University of Tokyo. I borrowed his wisdom on how to deal with it. I am grateful to Professor Kitamura.
Thank you very much. When you are in an FD-related center, it is truly scary because the consciousness of research seems to gradually fade away, and there are parts that are difficult unless you always have a strong will to “do research!” and “publish in peer-reviewed journals!” However, I am truly happy and moved that my work was read by many people, even for just a short period, in an international journal, especially one with an impact factor in the field of Educational Technology. Even if it is “read,” it does not necessarily mean it is being cited; it could be read as a target of criticism, so it might not be unconditionally good. However, I am happy just knowing that it was read by researchers and students overseas who are interested in the field of Educational Technology.
Thank you so much (though it won’t get through in Japanese, haha). My research doesn’t easily spread in Japan; in Educational Technology, people say, “I don’t really understand CALL,” and in English education, they say, “It wasn’t done by an English educator,” so I am in a somewhat half-baked position (of course, the fact that I don’t submit much to Japanese journals is also a factor). Nevertheless, I would like to continue conducting research that can be useful for everyone’s research and practice.

http://top25.sciencedirect.com/subject/social-sciences/23/journal/computers-education/03601315/archive/22/