Undergraduate Research Publications

  • Publishing My Research Papers
I had to take one more month after my final year exams to complete my experiments and after that, I started writing my first research paper using the results of the first part of my research study. About three months were used for the writing process since it was my first time, and I had many things to learn and correct. I had a strong desire that I would present my first paper at an international conference held in a foreign country. Therefore, after drafting the content of my paper, I searched for a research conference held in Asian countries. First, it was difficult to find an appropriate research conference because there were many research conferences just organised for monetary purposes without proper standards. So, I was struggling with how to identify such conferences. After doing some search and self-study, I was able to find some strategies to find reliable conferences and they are as follows.

  • Research Conferences I Attended for My Undergraduate Research Publications.
  1. 8th International Conference on Nutrition and Food Sciences (ICNFS) which was held in Bali, Indonesia in 2019. 
  2. International Conference on Agriculture and Food Security (AGROFOOD) which was held in Colombo in 2019. 
  3. 1st International Online Conference on Agriculture - Advances in Agricultural Science and Technology (IOCAG 2022).
From ICNFS, I was able to gain many remarkable moments by talking with field experts from other countries (Professors and research students), improving my knowledge of research methodology from others’ presentations and visiting some beautiful places in a foreign country. Since the journal affiliated with the second conference rejected my second paper, I had to find another journal or a conference. Last year, I submitted that paper to a Sri Lankan university conference, but due to its’ rejection, I had to find a conference again. With the reviews I obtained from these two rejections, I edited the paper again. Then after doing a thorough web search, I was fortunate to find an international conference organized by Agriculture, a peer-reviewed open access international journal of MDPI which was free of charge. Thus, my second paper got accepted by 1st IOCAG 2022 and now it has been published.

  • Some Strategies I Followed to Find Reliable Research Conferences. 
1. I went through conference websites and checked for their past events. Many conference websites include details about their past conferences. If it was held for at least a few years, then I was sure about it to a certain extent. I checked the photos of their past conference participants and awarding moments to verify whether it was really held.

2. Then, I checked whether that conference was listed under google scholar metrics or Scopus (Any standard citation database). Ex: Go to Google Scholar --> Left side top corner --> Metrics --> Type the conference name in the search bar --> See whether it is listed with its’ h5-index. (If h5-index is high, that means the published papers from the conference have a high number of citations). However, please be aware that there may be a possibility of having two conferences with the same name in the world. So, please check it carefully. Additionally, some conference websites mention that they are Scopus indexed (or any other), but on the official websites of the Scopus database, they are not listed. Therefore, try to verify with the official websites of citation databases.

3. If I could not find the impact factor of the conference from such databases, I checked the conference proceedings (publications) of their past conferences. I referred to a few publications and found their number of citations in Google scholar. In addition to that, I also contacted a few past conference participants who published their papers in that respective conference to ask about the reliability of the conference and their experiences. Additionally, I also checked where my online publication would be available. If it were under a good publisher or a journal, it could be helpful to make a quality publication (Ex: IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect, etc).

4. At one time, I also put a question in ResearchGate to get confirmed the validity of a research conference. Thus, I was able to get some feedback from the experienced research community.

5. Supervisors are knowledgeable about good conferences and journals. Therefore, it is always better to contact the supervisor first regarding this and ask for some suggestions. After that, you can follow some of the above tips to find alternative options. In the initial phase of finding a conference, I was not aware of such unreliable conferences. I found lots of conferences relevant to my research area in one conference series. When I informed my supervisor, she called back to me and told me that it was a predatory/ scamming conference series. I was fortunately saved with my supervisors’ comments.

6. I also checked whether the registration fee for the conference and the travelling expenses were bearable for me.

7. There are also predatory journals in the world. You can find them from Beall's List or the other list available in the following links. When finding a good journal, you can also do the same thing mentioned in step 2. Journals are divided into four qualities; Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4 where Q1 means the highest quality and Q4 represents the lowest quality. From the “Journal Citation Reports”, you would be able to get an idea of their impact factors and citations and determine whether it is a good journal for publishing your paper. Most of the journals have a publication fee which should be paid by the author. However, please be aware that there may be a possibility of having two journals with the same name in the world. But you can differentiate them with their ISSN codes. https://beallslist.net/ https://predatoryjournals.com/journals/
  • My Publications
  1. Antioxidant Capacity and Total Phenolic Content Variations against Morinda citrifolia L. Fruit Juice Production Methods. http://www.ijfe.org/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=show&catid=133&id=674
  2. Antioxidant Capacity with Physical Property Variations of Morinda citrifolia L. Juice in Traditional Fermentation. https://sciforum.net/paper/view/12177
  • Covering Expenses for My Publications/ Conferences
In my case, I was working when I submitted my first paper to the first conference. Since all the money allocated for our research project was already over for purchasing experimental materials, I had to self-fund. All the registration fees, flight fare, and hotel charges were paid with my money. Since I already expected that, I was saving money from the beginning of my career after graduation. Total expenditure was about two hundred thousand rupees (LKR 200,000). But it depends on the conference, country, and a few other factors. However, it does not mean that every student has to self-fund like me. In my case, I had no other known methods to get financial assistance for making my dream come true. At my university, there were a few of my friends who worked as demonstrators in the department and participated in foreign conferences by getting funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) or using available funds from the supervisor. Since I was not working at the university at that time, I was not eligible to apply for the NSF research conference allowance. Therefore, there are such institutions/funds, and you can get some advice from your supervisor and seniors.

Hello, I am Malsha Hansini Samarasiri who graduated from the University of Moratuwa in 2018. I worked as a lecturer in my university for 1 year contract period. Currently, I am a PhD student at NTU, Singapore.