Undergraduate students co-authoring peer-reviewed papers with professors

¶ … value of educator and students working together to co-author peer-reviewed papers (Jalbert, 2008). The program in which the paper describes was conducted over a six-year period and led to several published pieces. The author argues that this type of arrangement, between professors and undergraduates, is a win-win arrangement. It is often the case that professors can use an extra hand in their research and undergraduate students can also benefit from participating in the research.

Research that is conducted with undergraduate assistance has received increased attention over the last couple of decades; it has even been recommended as one solution to educational reform initiatives by the National Science foundation. The study used many undergraduate students and provided mostly anecdotal evidence is support of the arrangement. Although there are some negative results that can occur in such an arrangement, however the authors belief that these are not considerably significant and most of the negative risks can be easily mitigated.

Article's Relevance

The article is relevant because it involves a newer method for students to learn in a more real life environment. This arrangement could help undergraduates to be more capable of performing research on their own and has many inherent benefits. However, there are many potential ethical considerations that should also be considered. For example, professors could you students to do the work that they should be really doing. Professors could use student labor to do at least part of the work that they are supposed to be doing.