"Electronic journal helps students appreciate value of publishing", Nursing Review, October 1999, p 12.
According to nursing scholar Heather Ladd, there are a multitude of reasons why nursing students should be trained in research methods. These reasons include improving quality of client care, improving relations between the fields of nursing and medicine, allowing better utilization or decreasing costs to community health funding, and finally to allow nursing to continue to progress, into the future, as a profession.
If you’ve never heard of Heather Ladd and her work, don't worry. In years to come, you can say that you read about her first in Nursing Review. Ladd is a Year 2 Bachelor of Nursing student at the School of Nursing & Midwifery, and her scholarly article, ‘Why should nursing students study research and its methods?’ was recently published in the School’s in-house electronic journal, Nuritinga. |
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Nuritinga: an electronic journal of nursing has been running now for nearly two years. The word ‘nuritinga’ is taken from the local indigenous population's Palawa language, and means ‘among ourselves’ or ‘our business’. Research and publication are very much ‘our business’ in nursing, and the journal was designed to run as an in-house forum for the publication of excellent student work - ‘among ourselves’.
The SNM believes in fostering a research culture in nursing. This culture includes publication and dissemination of findings, but acknowledges that new graduates and new researchers often find the process of publication daunting or ‘beyond them’. Nuritinga provides a safe environment where students can learn about submitting their work for publication, and then experiencing the satisfaction of seeing their work in ‘print’.
The journal is non-refereed, but all contributions are reviewed by three academics on the staff of the SNM before publication. Work can come from any student enrolled in the course, and draft articles are submitted either by students themselves or by staff who have been impressed with the quality of the student's writing and research skills.
Nuritinga was set up on the World Wide Web by Dr P J Martyr, a lecturer at the School. Martyr teaches the Year 2 unit ‘Scientific Perspectives in Nursing’ which teaches nursing students basic research reading, critique and methodology. "I saw very good quality student work simply going back into the filing cabinet, and it seemed a pity not to give it a wider audience," said Martyr. "And, given that our unit introduces students to the idea of publishing their work, an electronic journal seemed like the best way of combining the two ideas." Martyr designed the web site and format, including the graphics, and obtained an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) for the journal via the Internet site www.issn.org. Then Martyr approached two students whose essays were outstanding, and wrote a paper of her own, and submitted all three to the editorial panel for their consideration.
These three articles formed the first issue. A second issue is now on-line as well, with four student contributions. Martyr plans to offer book reviewing as well in the near future.
And the cost? "Nothing," said Martyr, "except my time, and the time of the editorial panel who read the work." Martyr has been the SNM's webmistress since 1996, and has developed her internet programming skills in other areas, including the CAUT-funded Pictures of Health project based at James Cook University, on-line editing of the H-ANZAU discussion list, and working as Book Reviews editor of the Electronic Journal of Australian and New Zealand History.
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