Blog Editorships in the Faculty of Law
The Law Faculty hosts a number of blogs on its website, as well as being responsible for several blogs that are hosted externally[1]. Some are supported by generous donations, others from research grants, and some from the relatively new Faculty Internet Engagement Fund.
Blog Editorships are recognised as being an exceptionally valuable career development opportunity for students, allowing them to engage with current issues in the field, giving them editorial experience, and allowing them to engage with practitioners. The marginal benefits of this training and career development aspect of the work are likely to decline over time, as the student gains the relevant experience and engagement.
A Blog Editorship appointment will normally be for one year, but it will be for the Senior Editor of the blog to determine the appropriate length of time of each Blog Editorship appointment, and they will balance the benefits to the student against the need for them to spend time on other academic activities, and the need to ensure other students also have access to the benefits of Blog Editorship in the future. The length of an appointment to an externally-funded blog might be shorter or longer than one year, depending on the availability of external funding. Extensions without advertising will normally only be possible if there is a new and different reason that justifies the revised end-date, such as to enable the completion of a defined, time-limited project for the blog. Blog Editorships will always be advertised, and a student may be reappointed to the same role only if no other suitable candidate applies for the role. In some cases, depending on the likely workload in editing each blog, a post may be advertised which involves editorship of more than one blog.
Blog Editorships will always be advertised as ‘Internal only’ to graduate students in the Faculty of Law, and may also be opened up to graduate students elsewhere in the University if requested to do so by the Senior Editor. An external appointment (i.e. someone not currently a student) may be made only if no suitable internal candidate applies for the role.
Advertisements will appear on the ‘student work opportunities’ section of the Faculty website, following the standard RA template.
[1] The creation of a new blog is subject to approval by the Communications and Web Advisory Group. For more information please see our Microsites Code of Practice on the Policies and Statements section of the website.