The publishable practicum

Three graduate courses whose aim is to transition participants from students to colleagues are described. All take the student group on a full journey from the initial idea sparking research, through literature searching to refine the idea, study design, data collection and analysis and final written output. Their unique feature is that the final output is a paper submitted for publication rather than a more usual project report. The student experiences the full scientific process including peer review, reinforcing to students that the standards applied are the same ones by which the instructor is judged. Publication is a positive incentive for students in the course, as it appears on their resume when they most need it. In terms of results, all three appear to be popular as well as useful courses.