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Let students enjoy the power of print
7 August 2008
Academics welcome a new trend for undergraduate journals. Zoe Corbyn and Matt Rooney report
They can give talented undergraduates an opportunity to shine and can even encourage them into an academic career. But lecturers are missing out on a valuable teaching tool by failing to embrace the idea of undergraduate research journals, a British pioneer of the concept said this week.
Celia Knight, a senior lecturer in biology at the University of Leeds, introduced one of the first undergraduate journals in Britain in 2003 and was also behind the first national journal, Bioscience Horizons, launched last year. She said that many academics were either unaware of the journals or viewed them as unnecessary.
"(Without more academic input) we are not going to develop them in a way that is really helpful for UK universities," she said. "We need to know that British academics see the value of this ... The number of journals is growing, but many academics are still missing out on a hugely useful tool."
With the new academic year looming, she urged academics to get involved because the concept is still developing. The journals, which became prevalent in the US in the 1990s, give undergraduates an outlet to publish the findings of their research. There are at least ten in Britain, most of which are subject specific.
Dr Knight said that some academics were opposed to the journals, believing that if the research was good, it should be published in the mainstream.
"No one is suggesting that this should replace (publication in mainstream journals). Our point is that undergraduates need all the help they can get," she said, adding that most undergraduate research would be unlikely to make it into mainstream journals because of the volume of experiments required.
Helen Walkington, a principal lecturer in geography at Oxford Brookes University, who has set up two undergraduate journals, said they "closed a gap" in the research cycle. "When undergraduates do a dissertation as part of their degree it does not get disseminated widely ... Unless you go that extra step and get students to publish their work, it is not giving them the sense of achievement and feedback," she said.
Mike Neary, the founding director of the Reinvention Centre for Undergraduate Research, a project between the universities of Warwick and Oxford Brookes to get research-based learning into the curriculum, said: "Undergraduate research papers are not just about adding to your CV. They provide students with an opportunity to shine. Students are actually involved in the job of research for the institution."
zoe.corbyn@tsleducation.com
HEART DISEASE PAPER HELPED LAND MY POSTGRAD PLACE
Samantha Fahy's research paper is published in the current edition of Bioscience Horizons, Britain's only undergraduate journal supported by a professional publisher.
The paper is based on the dissertation from her University of Leeds undergraduate pharmacology degree, and its findings may have implications for the treatment of coronary heart disease.
"I knew I wanted to work in research and this was not only great practice from that point of view, but it was also a stand-out feature on my CV when I began applying for PhDs," said Ms Fahy, who is now in the first year of her PhD at King's College London.
The journal, published twice a year by Oxford University Press, is dedicated to publishing the results of final-year bioscience projects in the UK and Ireland. Students' work is peer reviewed by academics, comes back with corrections and, of course, cannot be published elsewhere.
Readers' comments
As the researcher, with an editorial role, on The Plymouth Student Scientist, one of the ten or so undergraduate journals you mention in your very useful article, I would like to add a plea to the promoters of these journals. In a similar way to the mainstream vs. undergraduate debate in respect of quality, so there is a danger of the increasing number of undergraduate journals trying to outdo each other and making claims that appear to be attempting to set them apart from the others. <p>An example is with the above article - HEART DISEASE PAPER HELPED LAND MY POSTGRAD PLACE, in which Bioscience Horizons is stated as being ..."Britain's only undergraduate journal supported by a professional publisher." So what? If we are trying to give undergraduates all the help they can get and deserve, then making them feel that their articles are less worthy because the journal that is publishing the work is not supported by well-resourced professional publishers, or is not national, for example, is not helpful. Where some academics are reluctant to support non-mainstream journals, it would be a shame if they conceded to a certain degree, only to stop short of more 'local' versions because they may be seen as being in a different quality tier.
As Manager of ‘Reinvention: a Journal of Undergraduate Research’, another of the ten undergraduate journals mentioned in this article, I would like to agree with and add to Dr Celia Knight’s comments regarding the value of undergraduate journals and their place within the range of existing academic publications. Reinvention is multi-disciplinary, open to all undergraduate students internationally and run collaboratively by staff and students at Warwick and Oxford Brookes universities. The aim of the journal is to provide a supportive environment for students to learn about writing for publication and as such peer review feedback is structured and comprehensive. Students are also given more support from the journal team than they might expect from a ‘traditional journal’, all of which we hope gives confidence and experience to our authors and encourages them to publish more widely, within undergraduate journals or other existing academic publications. <p>Our experience so far, as we work on our third issue of the journal, is that there is no shortage of demand for undergraduate publications such as ours. We receive very high quality submissions from students internationally and our website (www.warwick.ac.uk/go/reinventionjournal) has received over 30,000 hits from over 5,000 individual visitors since the launch of the journal last September. The overwhelming response from academics has been very positive, but I must agree again with Dr Knight that raising awareness of the existence and value of undergraduate journals is a job in itself. <p>As Mike Neary explains in the article, the Reinvention Centre believes that by connecting research and teaching, undergraduate students become productive collaborators in the research culture of their department and by publishing their research, students are given a voice within that research culture. If Reinvention also helps to break down the barriers undergraduate students often experience in the traditional publishing arena, wherever the student goes on to publish their work, the journal will have been a success.