About The Cougar JUGR

The Cougar Journal of Undergraduate Research (Cougar JUGR) is an open access preprint platform that makes STEM-related research conducted by undergraduate students at CSUSM publicly available. Each submission undergoes editorial review to ensure it meets the review criteria set forth by the Editorial Board (see Author Guidelines and Reviewer Guidelines). The purpose of this journal is to provide students with the opportunity to improve their writing by undergoing an editorial review process, to enable them to make their research available to the community at large, and to provide them with the opportunity to receive feedback on their research outside of a classroom setting. 

Focus & Scope

The inaugural issue of The Cougar JUGR, sponsored by the CSUSM College of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, features research publications conducted by CSUSM undergraduate students in any focused or interdisciplinary work involving STEM fields. Students from any major are invited to submit articles for potential publication as long as the conducted research utilizes methods common to STEM fields.  

All articles are reviewed by faculty at CSUSM using a common rubric to ensure publications meet the standards set forth by the editorial board. The editorial board will accept submissions of the following types: 

  • Topic or literature reviews on current advances in research
  • Original research papers
  • Conference proceedings
  • Research posters

Students who have submissions accepted to the journal will also have the opportunity to include a “Student Author Profile” to be featured along with their article. 

Copyright & Licensing

Authors retain copyright of their work. All submissions will be Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license, which permits unrestricted production, distribution, and adaptation, provided that citation of the original work is included.