CELT | Good Practice Exchange
Transcript for Creating a Student-Led Academic Journal
Kim Heyes (KH): My name is Kim Heyes and I am a graduate teaching associate which is basically half my role is teaching and half my role is as a PhD student.
Marcin Wozniak (MW): My name is Marcin Wozniak, I am a student experience support tutor at Cheshire Campus.
KH: It was began last year when Elaine Craig came to me and said that she had had this fantastic idea. She'd been to a conference and Nick Lund who she's talked to about it, one of the psychology tutors had suggested that she came and spoke to me about it which she did and then from there I thought ‘well actually that's a really great idea, to set up this student journal run by students for students.’ The student experience in Crewe had kind of been waning somewhat so we had been thinking about ideas that could get the students enthused with their work and also with a community. The idea was that we would showcase work from all students, so students that were proud of their work. It didn't have to be work of excellence to start with but what we would do with them if they were proud of their work was that we would work with them to enhance it, to help them with academic writing skills, with their academic reading so that they could actually make it into a better piece themselves, something that could be publishable.So the whole idea was around us working with the student to make something excellent and we wanted to make sure we published all kinds of work so whether that's art work, contemporary arts or dance, anything like that, sport, so they could send us anything on any format and we would try and publish that.
MW: So there are a number of roles that students can get involved with to help us run the journal. One of the most important roles is the editorial board so peer-reviewing of other articles. We are always looking for students from different disciplines to get involved and peer-review other articles. Marketing: so making sure that the others know about the journal, so social media. Other roles such as graphic design, we would need graphic designers to help us design and develop how the journal looks, we want to keep it engaging and evolving throughout the course of the research project and when the journal becomes its own thing.
KM: The students who have been involved have really enjoyed it and it has seemingly brought together people as a community and really enlivened that community spirit within them.
MW: I think the journal is a great opportunity for all the students from different disciplines to work together with the other students. It is a great opportunity for them to meet other like-minded people, perhaps who study on other courses. It's a space where you get to know other people who might be a little bit different to what you know, they might have different skills so you can learn from them and I think that's a great opportunity to experience this real working environment. When students go outside they'll have to work with different types of people in a different situation, something that's definitely a great opportunity in relation to employability but also this notion of student experience. Having a good time and actually having a social group which is very important for students in university.
Student Comments
Laney Craig (LC):The idea started at a conference in Manchester when we went with our unit leader for psychology and I heard all these other universities talking about how they have students help edittheirjournals. I asked Dr Nick Lund how I could get involved with that. I came back to Crewe campus and spoke to Kim about my passion and my idea to start a journal and she had similar ideas as well and the collaborationkind of went from there really.She recruited a couple of staff members to help and I recruited a student body to help do itand then together we published.
Luke Melin (LM):The initial part is the CV, because I've now been able to stand in front of people interviewing me and say I'm a published academic.BeforeI've actually gone into the real world,I’ve been published and I can say ‘this is what I've written, it's been recognised as being worthy enough to be published into a student journal’. I've got more confidence because I've got my other projectswhich give me the confidence within my teaching. My confidence side of my teaching is fantastic but the writing side is something that I kind of always go 'I can't write, I can teach but I can't write' but now I've been published and I've been a part of something that's so incredible and something that I'm so passionate and proud of I'm now able to say ‘well Ican write, it might take me a while but Ican publish something that's really useful.’So confidence is a massive thing for any student really.
LC: I had an open day to do a doctorate that I was really interested in and throughout the open day the professor was talking about the gap betweenresearch and theory and any applicant has to demonstrate their passion for research as well as practice. I spoke to him afterwards about thejournal and what we were doing with it and his jaw was on the floor. I said “do you think I should include it in my application?” and he said “it will put you head and shoulders above anybody else because you've engaged, you're enthusiastic about research, you obviously love practice as well because you've applying to do a doctorate”. I think what the journal can do to advance your career is just huge and it's just fun to be a part of as well. It's fun to have the guys around you, it's fun to have asense of achievement and to shove your face full of buffet at the launch day, it's great, it's really good fun but academically it's wonderful to have voices represented.