Editorial
Abstract
A recent issue of the international journal Science (31 August, 2001) features a section on trends in undergraduate education. There, Cristina González observes that "undergraduate research conferences and journals are becoming a permanent fixture on the university's landscape."1 As this, the third edition of the Rutgers Scholar indicates, such activities are a fact of undergraduate life at Rutgers. A quick survey on the web shows that we are in good company: Some other institutions of higher education now publishing electronic journals of undergraduate research include the University of Washington, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Florida, Caltech, and the University of California at Berkeley and at Los Angeles. The trend reflects the recognition of high quality in undergraduate research, the energy and enthusiasm of undergraduate researchers, and the relatively low cost of journal production. The styles and methods of journal production are as diverse as the students who do the underlying research, but all the participants share a commitment to the continuing importance of exploration and discovery and of making the results known.
In this issue, the technical power of the web emerges more fully. A. Martinez and D. Silver have linked the text of their article to audio and video files that show how the complex animation methods they discuss translate into a finished product. The article by H. Kang and R. V. Simmons depends on a more subtle evocation of the capabilities of the net. The topic is the importation of Chinese words into Korean and their evolution in spoken and in written form. On appropriately equipped browsers (those with the Arial Unicode font installed) characters from three entirely different systems of writing - Korean, Chinese, and Roman - as well as the phonetic coding of linguists will appear in a single document. What more telling marker could there be of how closely connected we have become?
1) González C. (2001) Undergraduate research, graduate mentoring, and the university's mission. Science 293, 1624-1626.
