eSharp is a leading international gateway to academic publication for postgraduates. Based at the University of Glasgow, it encourages excellence in research through peer-reviewed publication and interdisciplinary exchange and enhances postgraduates' skills and employability by providing hands-on experience of journal management and editing, amongst many others.
We aim...
- to promote excellence in research amongst the postgraduate community through publication of a high quality academic journal
- to provide a permanent opportunity to postgraduates to gain experience of administering an e-journal
- to promote the journal as an asset to the University of Glasgow and to continually increase its presence upon the local, national and international academic stage
- to attract sources of funding and official recognition from within and beyond the University of Glasgow
Background
The idea for eSharp came about in July 2002, from the first Glasgow University School of Arts and Humanities postgraduate conference. Such was the success of the conference that the organisers felt that a postgraduates' journal was not only feasible, but also long overdue. With the aim of engaging the energies and creativity of their peers, a group of postgraduates formed the first editorial board; the field of e-publishing, itself a relatively new concept, was a perfect vehicle for the project.
eSharp has not looked back since. It has continued to publish bi-annually, building upon an increasingly international range of scholarly contributions and a growing readership. We currently have an ever-growing average of 7,300 pages viewed per month and 240 per day. Our authors come from the Universities of Glasgow, Cambridge, Harvard, Vienna, Hawaii, Virginia, Boston, Ohio, South Africa, North Carolina, London, New Brunswick, Edinburgh, Saskatchewan, Cornell and Hong Kong (amongst many others).
eSharp's work
eSharp's work is divided into five main areas:
Publishing: co-ordintating submissions and the editing process, including managing the relationship with eSharp's international pool of hundreds of peer-reviewers.
Web management: designing, evaluating and maintaining our public face - and also gathering and analysing data on our readership.
Publicity: organising events to launch our new issues, co-ordinating publicity both within the University and outside of it and seeking to gain recognition for the work of the journal and its projects.
Finance: attracting financial support and managing the budget in an accountable manner.
Training: identifying and supporting the editorial board's own training needs, to develop their skills and enable the publication of consistently high-quality content.
In order to enhance a full range of skills, board members often choose to be involved in more than one aspect of eSharp's work. Such opportunities provide invaluable experience and preparation for a professional career after postgraduate study. We also have an emphasis on being happy, well-rounded postgraduates: we're lucky enough to be able to enjoy some social time from time to time with people who aren't in our fields and who can chat about things which don't involve our PhD or Masters' research.