Bakersfield College’s online journal, the Roughneck Review, published its latest issue on Oct. 31.

The Roughneck Review is a new campus entity, publishing works submitted by current and former students, and approved by an editorial staff of BC professors.

The works may be written assignments, art projects, or any other type of work done for a class.

Brad Stiles originally proposed the project, and its first publication was in April 2011. Roughneck Review is online only.

Stiles gave background on the online approach of the publication and its purpose.

“Part of the reason for [being online] is that it is much more economically efficient to produce,” said Stiles.

“We don’t rely on budgets for this. It’s a labor of love, nobody gets paid for this, we are doing it for the students only.”

Stiles is the main person behind the website.
“I designed it myself from scratch,” said Stiles.

“I do it all with a couple of free programs, but it’s not the first time I’ve done this.”

In 2000, Stiles created a website similar to the roughneck for Clackamas Community College in Oregon City, Ore.

Stiles also discussed Roughneck Review’s promoting tactics.

“We are trying to generate community interest for this with our little postcards that we have at places like Dagny’s and other high profile hang outs,” said Stiles. “We are also contacting directly educators of various other schools around to let them know that we exist so they can show it to students.”

Stiles finds the Roughneck Review to be a great resource for students to showcase their publications, but also for professors to refer to in the classroom.

“Instructors who put things in can pull their work up on screen in front of the class to show how a student responded to an assignment in a good way,” said Stiles. “So faculty can get some use out of this.”

With the Roughneck Review still in its early stages, Stiles has his eyes on the future, where he hopes to have an actual printed publication.

“We are looking at the possibility of having a ‘best of’ that would be a hard copy that people could purchase,” he said. “We’re going to have to find out who is going to decide that, but that is sometime in the future.”

The Roughneck Review has had a positive response, with students and professors both submitting, and the editorial committee is excited for more submission.

“We really want student submissions,” he said.

“We have an eager editorial committee who want to read good student works.

“It’s our pleasure always to tell students that they are going to be published, and it is a very exciting thing to be on the Roughneck.”

Stiles stressed the most important reason for the Roughneck Review.

“The real reason this is in existence at all is to give the students the chance to show off their work to the world,” said Stiles.