Development of an in-house Journal of Undergraduate Research in the Biological Sciences: ORIGIN

Project Leader	Dr Jac Potter
Organisation	University of Chester (now at Trinity College, Dublin)
Contact	biology.origin@chester.ac.uk
Partners
Grant type	Teaching Development
Completed	February 2002

Description

This project developed a journal, Origin, with the specific remit to publish annually the best of the undergraduate research in the Biological Sciences at University College Chester. The philosophy driving the journal is to offer student authors a realistic experience of publication and to disseminate the published work. Within the biological science community there has been considerable recent discussion concerning how support should be provided to encourage undergraduates to develop their research skills. Origin is one potential mechanism that may act as an incentive to encourage undergraduates to develop some of the skills required of bioscientists. A key feature of Origin is that it is outside the curriculum but closely linked to closely to final year project modules and some Level 1 and Level 2 modules. Origin is also inclusive - open to all students at University of Chester completing novel research in the discipline. Origin has an ISSN number and is distributed to the British libraries. The abstracts are available on the journal website. Copies of the entire journal, either in paper format or on a CD-ROM are available for a small charge. Please contact the editor to place an order (biology.origin@chester.ac.uk).

Outcomes and downloads

• Origin website: http://www.chester.ac.uk/origin/
• Presentation: Journal of Undergraduate Research given at a Centre event on Making the Most of Final Year Projects
• Case study: Origin - publishing undergraduate student research in an extra-curricula house journal

Links

A list of other undergraduate journals is available at

http://www.fbs.leeds.ac.uk/students/ejournal/Biolog-e/links.php

Another project carried out by Jac Potter:

Just in Time Teaching: can it deliver improvement in undergraduate communication skills?