Wanted -volunteer writers for Student Journals blog site

The following request was posted today at The Research Cooperative (http://researchcooperative.org)

One of the aims of the Research Cooperative is to promote interest in research writing and publishing among university students from the moment they begin university.

At some universities, in some countries, student journals and newspapers are published by students or university departments. They vary in style and aims, but they all provide students opportunities to start writing for an audience, and a publisher, and to work with editors.

Even a student newspaper with broad topic coverage might publish early efforts at science writing by students. Some student journals, like the late TANE journal of the late University of Auckland Field Club, New Zealand, can be nurturing grounds for professional scientific writing.

What is happening now in the Internet era?

Some time ago I created a blog site to start looking at student journals, but did not have time to develop the idea further. Members of the Research Cooperative who would like to contribute to this as a side-project of our network are invited to visit the blog and join:

http://studentjournals.blogspot.com/

Eventually, I would like to hand control of this blog to another person, and link the Research Cooperative to the blog site as a permanent collaborative project.

NZ Union of Students' Associations

Marketing & Advertising Spending by Institutions
An online document published June 06, 2005

'The policy of user-pays public tertiary education, and the notion that the student is a consumer and education a product, has been the sinister result of an increasingly market-based and competitive environment within New Zealand�s public tertiary education system over the last 20 years.'

This online document was published by the New Zealand Union of Students' Associations (NZUSA), a federation of student associations and the largest student body in New Zealand. NZUSA represents students at Universities, Colleges of Education and Polytechnics.

In the age of internet, student organisations are more likely to publish documents one by one, online, as an ad hoc series. The present weblog will occasionally advertise such publications, but our main interest is in edited publications (journals, newsletters, and other serials) that invite submissions in an open manner

A mixed bunch

Student journals are a mixed bunch. Four main kinds of student journal can be found on the internet:

(1) Personal diaries of school students (may or may not be linked to school activities)

(2) Online publication of research carried out by school students

(3) Personal diaries of university students (may or may not be linked to university activities)

(4) Online and/or print publication of research carried out by university students


Our interest is mainly in the last category

Welcome

Did not know what I was getting into when I invented this wee blog name. So checked "student journals" as an exact search on Google and found 151,000 hits (January 31, 2006).

Some students do like to write! We promise an investigation of the extent of this scene. Who and where and why. What is serious and what is not.

The big plan is to link the herepresent to Research Cooperative forums and generate more interest in writing for journals that might not like you, even if you like them.

With the same search also found an ad by the Development Gateway, offering "Free Access to Open Materials for Teaching, Learning and Research". There is a lot to look at there too.

EEK. Too much! I give up. Will try doing a month of work tomorrow.

PJM in Kyoto