Rethinking Undergraduate Publication:

Pacific Northwest Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities

James J. ButlerCo-Managing EditorProfessor of Physics

Director of Undergraduate ResearchPacific University

Forest Grove, OR

Natalie LuptonCo-Managing Editor

Associate Professor of Retail Management and Technology

Central Washington UniversityEllensburg, WA

About Our Journal

Name Change!

http://commons.pacificu.edu/pnwestjurca/

Journal Highlights

• Undergraduate Authors − faculty mentor sponsorship required− faculty mentors co-authorship optional

• Professionally Peer-Reviewed− Minimum of two faculty members from institutions around the nation (or international) with appropriate background− Faculty reviewers encouraged to include (separate) reviews from undergraduates at their institutions

• Interdisciplinary− Submissions accepted from all disciplines (or combinations of disciplines)− Capability to publish photos, videos, music, etc.

• Open access with no fees

An Open Dialogue About Undergraduate Journals

Some Data Regarding Professional Journals

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A.E. Jinha, Learned Publishing, 23, 258-63 (2010); M. Mabe, Serials, 16, 191-97 (2003)

Growth of Professional Peer-Reviewed Journals (all disciplines)

~ 14,700 journals in 2001

What About Undergraduate Journals?

Tatalovic Study (2008)

• Investigated number undergraduate science journals found via internet search

• 35 journals (69% US; 20% UK; 11% Croatia, France, and Sweden)

• Median age = 8 yrs; Mean age = 12 yrs

• 43% discipline specific; 57% broadly science

M. Tatalovic, Journal of Science Communication, 7 (3), 2008

What Undergraduate Journals of All Disciplines?

Very preliminary study (Butler, 2012) – information gathered from undergraduate journal websites

• Journals located using − CUR listing: http://www.cur.org/ugjournal.html− Digital commons listing: http://digitalcommons.bepress.com/online-journals/− Ulrichsweb− Note: MANY more journals are out there (Google “undergraduate journal”) that are not listed

• Estimated number of journals each year by using initial publication year reported on journal website

• Only used information from journals that appear to be actively publishing (no obvious way to track journals that have been created and then become inactive)

• Type of peer-review interpreted from information on journal websites

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Undergraduate Journal Growth

Undergraduate Journal Growth

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~ 3% growth rate

~ 10% growth rate

Some Undergraduate Journal Statistics

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Undergraduate Journals by Scope

Undergraduate Journals by Region

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Undergraduate Journals by Scope and Region

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Aim of Undergraduate Research Journals

M. Tatalovic, Journal of Science Communication, 7 (3), 2008

1. Allow students to experience the peer-review process2. Teach students how to conduct a science research project in its entirety,

including writing-up and publishing results as a research paper 3. Showcase the quality and high standard of undergraduate research at the

institution4. Acknowledge the students’ hard work 5. Provide students with the opportunity to publish early in their career, a

valuable, enjoyable experience that can also help them to find a postgraduate course, internship or a job as it gives information to the employer about the skills and enthusiasm of such students

6. Provide pupils and younger students with an idea of the standard of research they can aim for at the institution

From journal websites in Tatalovic study:

Discussion Questions

1. As professional scholars, what are our goals for involving undergraduates in publication? How do you see undergraduate journals fitting (or not) with those goals?

2. Given the rapid growth in undergraduate journals and the ease with which new journals can be produced it is possible to envision a time when nearly every college/university has at least one undergraduate journal. What opportunities and challenges do you see for undergraduate publication given this proliferation of journals?

3. What do you see as the relative importance of disciplinary vs interdisciplinary and institutional vs. national undergraduate journals?

Undergraduate Journals and Peer Review

Undergraduate Journal Review Methods

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Undergraduate Journals by Scope and Review Method

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Discussion Questions

1. Does the level and type of review process determine relative prestige of an undergraduate journal? Is relative prestige of the journal an important aspect of the goals of involving undergraduates in publication?

2. There has been an increasing focus on both student research and faculty publication at primarily undergraduate institutions. Should co-authorship on a publication in a faculty-reviewed undergraduate journal count toward faculty promotion and tenure?

Peer Review Debate

“The way scientists and research institutions are evaluated also needs revision. An inappropriately high value is placed on publication in certain journals. Increased competition for the limited slots in these preferred journals exacerbates the natural aggravations of peer review experienced by authors.”

– B. Alberts et al, “Reviewing Peer Review,” Science 321 (2008)

“In the next years we envision the growth of various tools for research evaluation, including open source and those operating with open API/protocols. Such tools would primarily operate on the Web and include the variety of methods for research evaluation, so that PC chairs or journal editors (or even people playing some new emerging roles which do not exist yet) will be able to choose.”

– A. Birukou et al, “Alternatives to Peer Review: Novel Approaches for Research Evaluation,” Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience 5 (2011)

“So we have little evidence on the effectiveness of peer review, but we have considerable evidence on its defects. In addition to being poor at detecting gross defects and almost useless for detecting fraud it is slow, expensive, profligate of academic time, highly subjective, something of a lottery, prone to bias, and easily abused.”

– R. Smith, “Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 99 (2006)

As the number of open access electronic journals (undergraduate or otherwise) and other electronic publishing venues continues to grow, what constitutes “peer-review”:

Traditional reviews by peers? Number of downloads? Number of citations? Number of “likes”?

Or will we move to a world with open peer review and no journals?http://peerevaluation.org/

Discussion Question

Thank You!