Incorporating Scientific Publishing into an Undergraduate Neuroscience Course: A Case Study Using IMPULSE.

Since the Boyer Commission Report (Boyer Commission, 1998) first appeared there has been steady pressure on undergraduate educational institutions to improve the level of student engagement in learning, particularly in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) disciplines. Before that, as Katkin (2003) wrote, the research institutions’ responses were “for the most part slow, scattered, and largely at the margins.” Primarily Undergraduate Institutions, so-called PUIs, have done a better job of connecting student learning to practical experience, but all institutions, from community colleges to research I universities, are struggling with the economic limitations of trying to provide hands-on experiences in the sciences. An important part of research training is teaching how to write, submit, and revise an article. Most graduate programs include courses both on scientific writing and article review as part of student training; undergraduates also need these opportunities. In recent years there has been an explosion in undergraduate journals, as documented by Tatalovic (2008), reflecting the growing interest by students and their mentors to create those opportunities. There has also been a surge in articles on how to teach scientific writing (Goldbort, 2006; Reynolds, et al., 2009), and specifically using peer reviewing (Woodget, 2003; Prichard, 2005; Blair et al., 2007; Hartberg et al., 2008), indicating the pressure to provide that training as well. However, the integration of these two types of training, how to do research and how to publish and write, and the impact that writing and publishing might have on the research experience, has not, we believe, been addressed. Earlier work commented on this lacuna in the literature (Lopatto, 2004), although there are many articles on how research itself promotes understanding (e.g., Healey, 2005; Baxter Magolda, 2009). The current study examines that specific question, looking particularly at the students’ experience of primary research when publishing is a stated goal. In 2003, a group of undergraduates decided to start an online, international journal, IMPULSE, expressly for undergraduates (Jones et al., 2003). The intent was to help students bypass often stagnant, science-classroom learning and encourage them to engage in the full scientific process, from project to publication, as well as participating in the review process (Jones et al., 2006; Jones et al., 2009). While the last eight years have seen a slow recognition of this opportunity, as seen by references to IMPULSE in literature on students publishing (Ruszkiewicz et al., 2006; Traywick, 2010) it has been mostly individual students who see the possibilities and join the review team or submit manuscripts. However, a few faculty have begun to envision ways of integrating publication into their curriculum. In one case, the possibility of publication was a reward for the best paper produced in a class. An instructor from Lake Forest College chose a paper from others in the class and invited that student to submit his manuscript for publication (Paul, 2006). There has not, however, been an examination of how the publishing opportunity and subsequent experience affects the research learning. The current report outlines a novel means of involving all of the students in a class in authentic, primary research that leads to writing and submitting a manuscript for potential publication. The protocol described allowed the students not only to draft a manuscript, but also to submit it for review and receive the referees’ comments, and revise the manuscript for further consideration. To our knowledge this is the first example of an undergraduate course providing the experience for all students enrolled in the class of taking a project from initial conception, through experimental design and research, to completion of a manuscript for submission, review, revision, and publication.