In November last year I taught the Advanced One-Name Studies course. The course lasts for six weeks, comprises of five lessons and a reading week. Students have the opportunity when signing up for the course to choose the assessed option, with the article assessed by the tutor, which is me.

Students have a window of around two and a half months to complete the article, which can be on any topic related to the surname registered with the Guild of One-Name Studies or being researched.

I was delighted when at the beginning of March my inbox received a series of emails from the students with the articles ready for assessment. They were all marked against the criteria and were equally enjoyable to read. Each one was well researched, pulled together with the originality varying considerably. Each contained citations and a bibliography.

The purpose is not just to write an article for the course, but in doing so, the latter elements of the Seven Pillars, which I have talked about often are met. Publishing material about the study is enabling it to other researchers to be aware of the study and that may very well yield connections and avenues for research.

The published article is a snapshot of research up to a given point. Regardless of that, it is able to be preserved for other researchers in the future.

In my view the students could each use there article as a building block to establish a further body of work. I am not going to share the articles here, doing so without the consent of the students would not be appropriate, but they all did exceedingly well and the grades varied between 80-100%. I am delighted for them.

The Advanced course in One-Name Studies will be taught again in November 2021.