The Journal of Special Topics , which is the centre of the project. Papers written by staff consist of brief comments with implied suggestions for further work, possibly including short reviews of topics where necessary. These are published as required to keep up the momentum. Students work in groups on selected topics and submit their own papers, which are their contributions to the development of published material, or, somewhat unusually, may be something of their own. They may also make a case for further observational or experimental data.
Papers are typically page and are sent to other groups to be refereed.
In our pilot run the journal was print-based and staff acted as editors. In the current development the journal will be electronic and students will take a turn at belonging to the editorial board with staff playing a supervisory role only. There is one timetabled contact session per week where staff are available to offer help and guidance to the groups, but staff are also generally available at other times to help if necessary. The aim is to produce 3 student issues of the journal to make up the 10 credit module. Marks are awarded for submission of papers, proposals for experiments or observations, referees reports and for published work.