Day/Time: Thursday, May 26, 2:30pm – 3:30pm
Student Journal Forum: From a local event to a Canada-wide movement
Presenters
- Mariya Maistrovskaya, University of Toronto Libraries
- Sarah Severson, University of Alberta Library
Description
Student Journal Forum started as an in-person half-day event at the University of Toronto in 2015. It was piloted by a cross-departmental group of librarians who came together to help connect a diverse group of student editors to publishing resources, best practices and to each other.
Seven years later, this annual event has grown into a Canada-wide virtual gathering. The shift to online during the COVID-19 pandemic was a key catalyst to open up the forum to students to connect remotely, and for the event to be jointly organized by multiple libraries across Canada.
The nature of the Forum has evolved as well. From its inaugural focus on the delivery of faculty and librarian-led lecture-style literacy sessions to students, it moved to student-centred, peer-led and participatory learning sessions. In 2022, for the first time, the Forum featured an open Call for Proposals to let students take the lead on the content they wanted to talk about.
Finally, the Forum helped establish and strengthen the connections between different Canadian libraries that offer student journal publishing support. This network continues to operate throughout the year, beyond the annual event, in the form of offering open virtual workshops for student editors and sharing useful publishing resources. In this presentation, we will reflect on the evolution of the Student Journal Forum, its successes and challenges, and explore potential future directions in which libraries could support student journal publishing.
Using Open Access Publishing to Promote Undergraduate Research
Presenters
- Brett Say, Director of Honor Research Programs, University of Pittsburgh Honors College
- Angel Zheng, Undergraduate Student, University of Pittsburgh Honors College
- Corey Schultz, Undergraduate Student, University of Pittsburgh Honors College
- Samantha Kirschman, Undergraduate Student, University of Pittsburgh Honors College
Description
This presentation provides a case study, from an academic department’s perspective, that details how university libraries can help departments develop training programs and interdisciplinary policies that support the development of undergraduate student journals. The Pittsburgh Undergraduate Review (PUR) provides undergraduate students an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, online forum to publish research and creative scholarship. Sponsored by the University Honors College, and supported by the University of Pittsburgh’s open access journal publishing program, the PUR strives to build an integrative community of undergraduate scholars and showcase student work done under the mentorship of faculty mentors.
Since university libraries often have access to systems and resources academic departments do not, as well as a strong knowledge of these systems, this presentation will outline the ways university libraries can provide unique value to academic departments that want to develop open access student journals. The presentation outlines three distinguishing features university libraries can consider when helping departments develop undergraduate journals – An interdisciplinary knowledge of publishing standards, a student peer review training process, and centralized support structure for journal administration.
The presentation utilizes the PUR journal as a case study for developing a new journal or expanding an established student journal. A history of the library and Honors College collaboration is outlined, and presenters will provide advice on potential obstacles libraries and academic departments might face when trying to establish a similar and provide a suggested outline for journal policy development.