Appendix One: Why start a student journal?
Benefits and challenges of publishing a student journal #
Student journals rely on the volunteer labour of editors and peer reviewers. To attract and retain volunteers, it’s important to be clear about the time requirements, benefits, and potential challenges of participating in your journal. A good first step is to consider the value that the journal will personally bring to authors, editors, reviewers, readers, and other stakeholders. By thinking about these issues early on, you will be able to define goals and policies that will support the journal’s long term success.
Benefits #
- Sharing your work with a global audience
- Enhancing your resume or CV
- Contributing to your field of study
- Honing your analytical skills
- Improving the quality of your writing
- Gaining experience with scholarly communication and academic publishing
- Learning to review your peers’ work
- Learning to revise your work in response to constructive feedback
- Enhancing your knowledge of the literature in your field
- Preparing for graduate school
- Working collaboratively with faculty
- Gaining transferable skills (e.g., project management, communication skills)
- Enhancing the reputation of your university or academic department
Challenges #
- Publishing a journal is a major time investment
- Balancing work on the journal with other commitments can be challenging for editors, authors, and peer reviewers
- The workload in any given week can be unpredictable
- Many journals receive the bulk of their submissions at the end of the term, when students are busy with exams and final papers
- Journals experience regular turnover as students graduate
- Editors and peer reviewers must be recruited and trained every year
- Undergraduate students don’t have experience with the peer review process
- Developing peer review skills takes time and practice
- It is beneficial to have guidance from experienced reviewers
- Require excellent communication and time management skills to stay on track
- Most student journals operate with limited or no funding
