Hi! You might not have heard of us yet but we are the [X]position team. We are the leading undergraduate research journal at the University of Glasgow and are delighted to tell you about a bit about our history, what’s new and why we think this is a cool opportunity for your students.

Who are we?

We are Caitlin, Rosalind and Amber and we work in SLD (Student Learning Development) at the University. We can be found in the McMillan Round Reading Room (the miniature colosseum looking building beside the library!) and are the editorial team for the journal. Caitlin is the Digital Learning Technologist, Rosalind is the ELA (Effective Learning Advisor) for the College of MVLS, and Amber is one of the International Advisers. Together we make up a multi-disciplinary team to reflect the wide variety of submission types and topics we get from our students.

[X]position was founded in 2016 as a standalone journal by the same team that founded the Let’s Talk About [X] conference and the whole ethos was to give undergraduate students the opportunity to showcase their research in a professional journal setting. Published articles come from students across all four colleges and the journal’s mission is to help foster interdisciplinary communication at the University.

What’s new?

This year we have relaunched the journal with exciting new plans. We’ve introduced a theme for the first time and we’ve expanded and updated our accepted submission types. Our theme for this issue is An Evolving Digital World; a purposefully broad and topical theme to invite submissions from across all four colleges, including anything from how AI is affecting artists to advancements in AI enabled robotics. Our updated submission types also explicitly allow for co-authored papers, alongside ‘less traditional’ journal submission types like reports, book reviews and letters. We hope this opens doors for students who previously might not have felt that [X]position was something that they would be interested in, and we also believe it better reflects the changing nature of the world of work beyond academia.

Why we think this is cool (although we’re biased)

Obviously, the first thing that comes to mind is bragging rights for your students about having their work published! [X]position is in the process of becoming indexed to allow others to reference the authors’ work. Previous students have found it really rewarding to work with their postgraduate mentors to gain experience in collaborative working and translating their work for a multi-disciplinary audience. This is a huge boost for their confidence and their communication skills, both within and outwith the University environment. Subject areas represented by recent authors have been thrilled to have their students do so well, and have also found it really helpful when it came to PSRs. We think it’s a great opportunity for students to showcase what they’re capable of to the University, any further education applications and prospective employers. It gives authors a chance to demonstrate high levels of communication skills to a range of audiences.

Want to know more?

You can find us at our website which includes all our past volumes and issues. Please also feel free to drop us an email: our contact info can be found on the website. We love to receive enquires from staff and students about [X]position as it’s a project we’re really passionate about.

If you want to know more about more about us outwith the journal context and SLD in general, you can find us on the SLD website.

Written by the [X]position team: Caitlin, Amber and Rosalind