UPOU Student Journal
For quite sometime now we’ve been toying with the idea that there should be an outlet for the outputs of UPOU students. We’ve observed over the last so many years, students enrolled in the Special Problem (DEVC 290) course under the Master of Development Communication program, for example, have been turning in excellent mini-theses reports, which students submitted in hard-bound form, but since DEVC 290 (Special Problem) is only an ordinary course rather than a thesis, the students are not required to submit bound copies of their report. Instead, we’ve been asking them to submit reports in publishable form. Unfortunately, we’ve been unable to publish them as the UPOU didn’t have an existing publication for this purpose.
About a couple of years ago, we submitted a concept paper on the publication of an online journal to serve as an outlet for student outputs. Of course, like any other proposal, it took some time for it to be completely discussed, and last month the UPOU Chancellor issued an Administrative Order establishing the UPOU Student Journal, creating its Editorial Board (which shall also serve as the Student Journal Review Board), and appointing its first Issue Editor. The UPOU Student Journal is an official publication of the UPOU to serve mainly as an outlet for student works, and which shall be published semestrally. The Editorial Board immediately went to work and came out with a set of guidelines.
The UPOU Student Journal shall come out every June and December, and as much as possible shall carry the outputs of students the previous semester. For example, the contents of the December issue shall be selected from the submissions of students during the first semester, while the June issue shall carry the selected outputs of students during the second semester.
The maiden (first) issue of the UPOU Student Journal is supposed to come out this month, but we ran out of time. Therefore, the Editorial Board decided that the first issue shall be soft-launched in February 2012, during the Anniversary Celebration of the UPOU. It shall be fully accessible beginning in June 2012, however. Each issue shall carry at least six selected student papers.
UPOU students may submit for publication in the UPOU Student Journal their works produced in partial fulfillment of the requirements of their courses (i.e., nini-research reports, essays, critiques, book reviews, literature reviews, etc.) or programs (i.e., theses written in publication format).
The UPOU Student Journal is probably the first academic student journal officially published by a university whose contents shall come primarily from student outputs (we're not certain about this, though). This is just one way in which the UPOU demonstrates how it values the performance of its students in the realm of critical thinking and creativity. While for now the contents of the UPOU Student Journal shall be limited to outputs of UPOU students, it is envisioned that ultimately this journal shall accept submissions of students from other universities and higher education institutions in the country, and perhaps elsewhere.
The Issue Editor for the first two issues (both coming out in 2012) is Dr. Baggy Bagarinao, associate professor of education and UPOU’s University Registrar. The Editorial Board is comprised of the following: Dr. Lex Librero (Chair), and Drs. Mendie Lumanta, Jun Buot, Sandy Flor, and Celia Adriano (Members).
Watch out for the first issue to be launched in February 2012. Dr. Bagarinao is now starting work on this first issue.
***
New Advocacy Course
My very limited and rather sophomoric analysis and personal perception of the skills being developed by students in various disciplines, even at the graduate level, has led me to conclude that most academic degree programs offered in various HEIs in the Philippines are essentially training students to be too inward-looking and are, therefore, also wanting in systems thinking. Let’s take as examples students in two academic programs at UPLB which I have considered two of my favorites.
Students in the management or economics programs at UPLB are trained, and trained very well, in management and economic theories. Let me cite a simple example. Students of management, agribusiness, and economics are well-versed with the model of consumer economics, which is sometimes called materials economics. In general, the consumer economics model looks linear (extraction-production-distribution-consumption-disposal) and is perfectly acceptable to agribusiness, management, and economics people. Unfortunately, students of environmental science are not familiar with the significance of this model and, therefore, are very critical of it. Environmentalists claim that the basic activities required in the consumer economics model are actually anti-environment.
Let’s have a closer look. Here’s an oil company, extracting fossil oil from the oil fields. From the oil extracted from the earth, comes various products. One of these would be plastic which is used in the manufacture of plastic bags. The production of plastic and plastic bags and the distribution of plastic bags requires substantial use of energy to transport these products throughout the globe. People use these plastic bags for various purposes. In the developing countries, plastic bags are commonly used as containers for commodities bought from the wet market (like fish, meat, etc.). People would simply dispose off used plastic bags together with ordinary garbage, even together with bio-degradable trash. Worse, people, as lazy as they are, simply through these plastic bags on the streets and ultimately these find their way to canals and drainage systems, causing floods even during light rain episodes.
Rather than simply talk about this phenomenon as is usually done in universities, Dean Jun Buot of the Faculty of Management and Development Studies (FMDS) of UPOU is working on developing a course on environmentalism for entrepreneurs and businessmen. Dean Buot says that environmentalists must understand not only principles and rules about environmentalism but how these would affect business and industry. In the same vein, entrepreneurs and businessmen must understand the impact of their business activities on the environment and learn to appreciate the fact that they, too, must take care of the environment otherwise they’ll run out of raw materials for their business and industry activities.
The over-all intention of this course, as Dean Buot explains, is for course participants to achieve a certain level of systems thinking that would enhance their capacity and capability to arrive at mitigating measures that would be acceptable to both the environment and business-industry sectors.
A course titled Environmentalism for Entrepreneurs and Businessmen, indeed, sounds interesting. Watch out for it.
***
UPOU To Release Book on Thesis Writing
We've written about this in past entries. Let me give you an update, though. Just yesterday I signed the contract with the UPOU, which shall publish the book titled Writing Your Thesis. Within the next few days, Dr. Jean Saludadez, Director of UPOU's Office of Academic Support and Instructional Services (OASIS), the de facto publishing house of UPOU, will probably hire an expert to review the book before it goes to the press. Since the book shall be put under UPOU's Publish-on-Demand Program, I hope it shall be completed quickly to be in time for launching during UPOU's Anniversary Celebrations in February 2012.
Yesterday, too, the Board of Trustees of the UPOU Foundation, Inc. approved a proposal to establish the UPOUFI Bookstore. When the book, Writing Your Thesis, shall have come off the press, it will likely become available in the UPOUFI Bookstore. Watch out for the book and the opening of the UPOUFI Bookstore.
Happy Christmas shopping, everybody.
###
No comments:
Post a Comment