Co-authoring with undergraduate students: An emerging process from the semi-periphery of the world of science

Learned Publishing. 2022. Vol. 35. No. 3. P. 332–340.

Plakhotnik M. S.

Undergraduate students benefit from writing for publication and co-authoring with faculty, who in turn find value in collaborating with students. Yet, compared to graduate students and novice researchers, undergraduates are rarely in the focus of research and practice around scholarly writing and co-authorship. Furthermore, this limited knowledge is primarily, if not exclusively, produced by scholars in countries that dominate the international publication landscape. How faculty and undergraduates from countries in the semi-periphery of the world of science collaborate to co-author scholarly publications is not clear. This paper describes a process that has led to publishing articles with undergraduate students in the semi-periphery in English language journals indexed in Web of Science (SSCI), Scopus, and the AJG guide. The process consists of two phases that differ across such dimensions as goals, length, key steps, and contributors' roles. The process demonstrates that collaboration with talented undergraduates is not different from co-authoring with novice and experienced scholars in its final outcome, a high-quality article, and its process of creative ideation, rigorous execution, and collective contribution. I discuss how journal editors, universities, and other researchers in the semi-periphery could change the ways in which they approach publication collaborations with undergraduate students.

Keywords: Scopus, web of science, scholarly writing, teaching management students, co-authoring