An overview on Research and Publications

An overview on Research and Publications Dr. Manishankar Chakraborty, PhD, MBA Trainer, Consultant and Faculty Middle East

Introspect • Amit graduated from a engineering college and joined a reputed manufacturing unit. After spending five years, he was feeling suffocated as he had realized he wasn’t in the right job. Instead of managing the nuances in the shop floor, he felt it would be great, if he can groom the upcoming engineers. He became an engineering faculty only to repent as he was unable to cope up with the modern day student’s expectations. Rohit was academically brilliant and always had a flair for teaching people and therefore went for a teaching profession after completing his masters in management. His observational skills, coupled with analytical mindset, enabled him to explore and shape new ideas, culminating in getting five global patents in the first year of his teaching career. Sanjana didn’t have any specific career direction and got into a small pharmaceutical bulk drug manufacturing unit after pursuing her master’s in biochemistry. She left the job after six months as she was unable to work in shifts apart from handling the work pressure. On the advice of her pal, she decided to teach in an UG and PG program as she thought teaching was the easiest job, which can be done by anyone. After spending half an year, the HoD was asking all his faculties to go for research publications, when she felt she was an odd man out!

Fundamentals of Teaching • Empathy • Self-Motivated • Creative • Ability to soul search periodically • Research oriented mindset • Learn, unlearn and relearn • Ability to customize and implement • Work ethics • Setting examples • Walk the talk • Appetite to explore new horizons in the professional domain • Generate and disseminate knowledge • Peer Learning • Techno-savvy • Networking Skills-real and virtual

Importance of Research and Publications • Explore the unexplored areas • Gain identity amongst the teaching fraternity • Thrust to academic career • Contribute towards the knowledge enhancement • Improve the quality of life of people • Get patents for the innovation brought to the fore • Network with professional peers by brainstorming on like minded topics • Publish research proceedings in journals, periodicals and conferences • Ideate on existing topics thereby supplementing the existing domain knowledge • Improve on teaching abilities as a result of novel techniques implemented during research and response generated after publication • Collaborative teaching by researching and publishing with peers from other domains • Collaborative learning with students and peers

Sowing the Seeds • Ability to think loud and wild • Preparing hypothetical situations akin to ones domain area • Reading voraciously from secondary sources on allied topics • Shaping up the hypothetical situation on the basis of secondary literature study • Publishing the literature review analysis along with ones independent thoughts in local professional periodicals, dedicated columns in dailies etc. • Developing ability to reproduce thoughts/observations into teaching materials, viz. making small case-lets, short stories, simulations, role-plays, situations, teaching notes, monographs etc. • Publish ones own thoughts/analysis/observations in any and every platform available so as to habituate self with extrapolation of existing knowledge and writing skills • Brainstorm with similar and different domain faculties, thereby testing an hypothesis on a primary basis • Gather sound knowledge on all research tools along with their application

Academic Publishing • Includes publishing and distribution of academic research and scholarship. • Academic work published in journal article, book or thesis form. • Grey literature is not formally published but merely printed or posted. • Peer review or editorial referring qualify text for publications. • Quality of peer review varies from journal to journal and publisher to publisher. • Academic journals are interdisciplinary resulting in collaborative research.

New Developments-Academic Publishing • Transition from print to electronic form. • Business Models are different in electronic environment. • Open access via internet. • Open access publishing. • Open access self archiving. • Blogging(www.manishankarthetrainer.blogspot.com and www.manishankarscribbles.wordpress.com) and micro-blogging(www.twitter.com/manitwitts) for self archiving.

History of academic publications • 17th century scholars relied on Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. • Act of publishing academic inquiry was controversial and widely ridiculed. • New discovery was presented as anagram reserving priority for the discoverer but indecipherable for anyone. • Issac Newton used this approach. • Sociologists found that 92 percent cases of discovery ended in a dispute. • In 60s and 70s commercial publishers acquired top quality journals published by non academic societies. • Three for-profit companies (Reed Elsevier, Springer Science+Business Media, and John Wiley & Sons) account for 42% of articles published. • What data is available indicates that these companies have high profit margins, especially compared to the smaller publishers which likely operate with low margins.These factors have contributed to the "serials crisis" - from 1986–2005, the number of serials purchased has increased an average of 1.9% per year while total expenditures on serials has increased 7.6% per year.

History of academic publications • Unlike most industries, in academic publishing the two most important inputs are provided "virtually free of charge".These are the articles and the peer review process. Publishers argue that they add value to the publishing process through support to the peer review group, including stipends, as well as through typesetting, printing, and web publishing. Investment analysts, however, have been skeptical of the value added by for-profit publishers, as exemplified by a 2005 Deutsche Bank analysis which stated that "we believe the publisher adds relatively little value to the publishing process... We are simply observing that if the process really were as complex, costly and value-added as the publishers protest that it is, 40% margins wouldn’t be available."

Crisis in Academic Publishing • Crisis due to budget cuts at universities. • Increased cost of journals. • Humanities particularly effected as they are unable to publish monographs. • Research findings revealed that in 1986 libraries spent 44% of their budget as compared to 56% on journals. • 12 years later the ratio skewed to 28% and 72% respectively.

Future of academic publishing • Models investigated are open publications model and community oriented features. • Online scientific interaction through online forums and networking portals.

Scholarly Paper • Academic work/paper are published in academic journals. • Consists of original research results or reviews of existing results. • Peer review by one or more referee, academics in the same field checks the content of the paper and decides whether it is fit for publishing. • A paper undergoes a series of reviews, edits, and re-submissions before being finally selected or rejected. • Process may take weeks, months or even years. • More popular the journal, more is the time required for the completion of the review process. • This delay may lead to some scholars self archive a pre-print copy of their paper for free download from personal or institutional website. • Papers are available in hard and soft form. • Sometimes papers are available immediately through open access journals, or after 12-24 months embargo to protect against subscriptions. • Journals having this delayed availability are sometimes called delayed open access journals.

Peer Review • Peer review is a central concept for most academic publishing; other scholars in a field must find a work sufficiently high in quality for it to merit publication. • The process also guards against plagiarism.

Plagiarism • Copying and not acknowledging the original source. • Presenting someone else’s work as ones own. • Publishing without seeking original contributor’s permission. • Changing from direct to indirect speech and quoting as ones own.

Citations • Academic authors cite sources they have used. This gives credit to authors whose work they use and avoids plagiarism. It also provides support for their assertions and arguments and helps readers to find more information on the subject. • Each scholarly journal uses a specific format for citations (also known as references). Among the most common formats used in research papers are the APA, CMS, and MLA styles. • The American Psychological Association (APA) style is often used in the social sciences. The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) is used in business, communications, economics, and history. The CMS style uses footnotes at the bottom of page to help readers locate the sources. The Modern Language Association (MLA) style is widely used in the humanities.

Publishing process • The process of academic publishing is divided into two distinct phases. The process of peer review is organized by the journal editor and is complete when the content of the article, together with any associated images or figures, are accepted for publication. The peer review process is increasingly managed online, through the use of proprietary systems, commercial software packages (e.g. ScholarOne Manuscripts, Aries Editorial Manager, and EJournalPress), or open source and free software (e.g. Open Journal Systems). • Once peer review has been completed, the original author(s) of the article will modify their submission in line with the reviewers' comments, and this is repeated until the editor is satisfied.

Categories of paper An academic paper typically belongs to some particular category such as: • Position paper, Vision paper • Theory research paper • Research paper • Case report or Case Series • Technical paper • System paper • Technical note • Survey paper • Species paper

Publishing Process • The production process, controlled by a production editor or publisher, then takes an article through copy editing, typesetting, inclusion in a specific issue of a journal, and then printing and online publication. Copy editing seeks to ensure that an article conforms to the journal's house style, that all of the referencing and labelling is correct, and that there are no spelling or grammatical errors. Typesetting deals with the appearance of the article — layouts, fonts, headings etc., both for print and online publication. Historically, these activities were all carried out in-house in a publisher, but increasingly are subject to outsourcing. The majority of typesetting is probably now done in India and China, and copy editing is frequently done by local freelancers, or by staff at the typesetters in India or China. Even printing and distribution are now tending to move overseas to lower-cost areas of the world, such as Singapore. • In much of the 20th century, such articles were photographed for printing into proceedings and journals, and this stage were known as camera-ready copy. With modern digital submission in formats such as PDF, this photographing step is no longer necessary, though the term is still sometimes used. • The author will review and correct proofs at one or more stages in the production process. The proof correction cycle has historically been labour-intensive as handwritten comments by authors and editors are manually transcribed by a proof reader onto a clean version of the proof. In recent years, this process has been streamlined by the introduction of e-annotations in Microsoft Word, Adobe Acrobat, and other programs, but it still remains a time-consuming and error-prone process.

Monograph • A monograph is a work of writing upon a single subject, usually by a single author. It is often a scholarly essay or learned treatise, and may be released in the manner of a book or journal article. It is by definition a single document that forms a complete text in itself. An author may therefore declare his own work to be a monograph by intent, or a reader or critic might define a given text as a monograph for the purpose of analysis. Normally the term is used for a work intended to be a complete and detailed exposition of a substantial subject at a level more advanced than that of a textbook. Monographs form a component of the review of literature in science and engineering. • Librarians consider a monograph to be a nonserial publication complete in one volume or a finite number of volumes. Thus it differs from a serial publication such as a magazine, journal, or newspaper.

White paper • A white paper is an authoritative report or guide that helps solve a problem. • White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions, and are often requested and used in politics, policy, business, and technical fields. • In commercial use, the term has also come to refer to documents used by businesses as a marketing or sales tool. Policy makers frequently request white papers from universities or academic personnel to assist policy developers with expert opinions or relevant research.

Green paper • In the Commonwealth, Ireland, and the United States[1] a green paper is a tentative government report of a proposal without any commitment to action; the first step in changing the law. Green papers may result in the production of a white paper. • A green paper released by the European Commission is a discussion document intended to stimulate debate and launch a process of consultation, at European level, on a particular topic. A green paper usually presents a range of ideas and is meant to invite interested individuals or organizations to contribute views and information. It may be followed by a white paper, an official set of proposals that is used as a vehicle for their development into law. • A green paper in Canada, like a White Paper, is an official document sponsored by the Crown. Green papers tend to be statements by the government, not of policy already determined, but of propositions put before the whole nation for discussion. They are produced early in the policymaking process, while ministerial proposals are still being formulated. Many so-called White Papers in Canada have been, in effect, Green Papers, while at least one Green Paper - that on immigration and population in 1975 - was released for public debate after the government had already drafted legislation.

Journal Links • Engineering Journals • http://www.asee.org/papers-and-publications/publications • http://www.jee.org/ • http://www.aaee.com.au/journal/ • http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/tf/03043797.html • http://www.ijee.ie/ • http://www.engsc.ac.uk/journal/index.php/ee • Management Journals • http://jom.sagepub.com/ • http://www.managementjournals.com/ • http://journals.aomonline.org/amj/ • http://www.wiley.com/bw/journal.asp?ref=0022-2380 • http://www.doaj.org/doaj?cpid=18&func=subject • http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=1367-3270 • http://www.academicjournals.org/ajbm/ • Science Journals • http://www.sciencemag.org/journals • http://www.sciencemag.org/ • http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journals • http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html • Education Journals • http://jte.sagepub.com/ • http://aer.sagepub.com/ • http://www.aussieeducator.org.au/education/other/educationjournals.html

Do’s for R&P • Start off at the earliest. • Leverage all platforms to publish whatever you think is your own thought/action. • Voracious reading of secondary literature. • Peer review by critical colleagues or peers. • Target based approach of completing research and publication related submission within a time-frame. • Benchmarking with established researchers. • Observatory and Analytical Skill sets an absolute must. • Writing skills to be enhanced through continuous reading and writing. • Understanding different style of writing in different journals. • Proper knowledge of using different publishing tools present online and in Microsoft Office. • Ability to take negative feedback with a positive tinge. • Ability to welcome change with an open heart and mind.

References • http://manishankarthetrainer.blogspot.com • http://manishankarscribbles.wordpress.com • http://twitter.com/manitwitts • http:// en.wikipedia.org/

Thank-you! • Happy researching and publications! • emailmanishankar@gmail.com

An overview on Research and Publications