Communications of the ACM
ndergraduate Peer-Reviewed Research Journal Debuts
Credit: Council on Undergraduate Research
The first issue of Scholarship and Practice of Undergraduate Research (SPUR) — a quarterly academic journal of the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) — has been published, featuring research on and assessment of undergraduate research in the United States and other countries.
Responsive to the recent National Academies report calling for further study of undergraduate research in STEM, the journal seeks to increase understanding of undergraduate student-faculty engagement in research, scholarship, and creative work in all disciplines and at all types of higher education institutions. SPUR replaces CUR's previous journal, CUR Quarterly.
The inaugural fall 2017 issue covers the following topics:
- An analysis of funding for the NSF REU Site Program in biology from 1987 to 2014;
- A call for increased emphasis on inquiry learning to improve students' critical thinking skills;
- A model that addresses faculty workload while supporting faculty-mentored student research;
- Student-staff partnerships in undergraduate research in Canada;
- A comparison of student outcomes in Research Experiences for Undergraduates programs.
SPUR Editor-in-Chief James LaPlant, assistant vice president for research and professor of political science at Valdosta State University, says, "As captured by the acronym for our new journal, SPUR, our goal is to encourage and stimulate scholarship on the assessment, best practices, theory, and international perspectives of undergraduate research for the benefit of the higher education community across the United States and the globe. The SPUR Editorial Board and I are very excited about our expanded page count, improved layout, and redesigned table of contents that we hope our readers will enjoy."
CUR president Anne Boettcher, director of the Undergraduate Research Institute and Honors Program at the Prescott campus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, says, "James LaPlant has done an amazing job with articles on assessment by David Lopatto; inquiry-based learning by Carol Geary Schneider; and funding undergraduate research by Joseph Shields, Julio Rivera, and Joseph Wall. I cannot wait to read these and the other first-issue articles."
Future SPUR themes will focus on innovative learning spaces that promote undergraduate research, undergraduate research and student success outcomes, and the place of undergraduate research in fostering diversity and achieving equity.
For further information on the journal is available on the SPUR webpage.
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