Dr. Zakir Husain Library of Jamia Millia Islamia organized a one-day webinar on “Academic Publishing & Enhancing Research Effectiveness” on June 9, 2020
The objective of the webinar was to provide the young teachers and researchers with insights on understanding research ethics ,academic integrity , concept of plagiarism / editors’ requirements for enhancing research effectiveness and increasing the quality research output.
The webinar, watched by nearly 1500 participants on Google Meet Platform and You Tube Channel of Library , both from India and several other countries like Afghanistan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Bangladesh , was inaugurated by the Vice Chancellor of Jamia Millia Islamia, Prof. Najma Akhtar.
In her address, Prof. Najma Akhtar observed that while publishing papers and writing books , it is very important to maintain highest standards and follow UGC guidelines with regard to academic integrity . It is also important to know how to avoid plagiarism by giving references properly and using online reference management tools . She further observed that these days when we are living in a knowledge driven society, it is very important to not only conduct quality research but also create its impact in society, industry and academia. We all should use various measures to publicise our research by using academic and social media platforms like Research Gate , Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn etc so that our research reaches widely and generates desired impact and improves both number of citations and h-Index of researchers and their affiliating institutions for better ranking, accreditation and funding etc.
Prof. Akhtar advised the participants that we should also make our research accessible freely through platforms like ShodhGanga and most of research work of JMI is available to public through Jamia Academic Repository. Jamia is also part of National Digital Library and regularly contributing research work and rare collection to it. Several our Departments and even our library is engaged in developing MOOC and contributing to MHRD initiatives like Swayam and Swyamprabha etc. She concluded by saying that Jamia has recently scaled up its digitization unit and in coming time will produce more in-house contents which will be very useful for online teaching and learning in situations like current lockdown.
The first technical session of the webinar was conducted by Ms. Swati Mehriahi, Executive Editor at Springer Nature who very clearly and exquisitely explained the various aspects of research paper writing. She spoke about the transitions in and the needs of the publishing world and how young researchers need to prepare for it. Some of the key topics covered during this presentation were: Writing for International Journals: Structure, Style and Accuracy, Selecting a Journal for your Manuscript, Peer Review Process, Publication Ethics , Plagiarism, Citations, Open Access and Avoiding pitfalls
The second technical session of the webinar was conducted by: Mr. Ashim Sachdeva, Mr. Varun Piplani & Mr. Anand Bajpai from TurnitIndia Education Private Limited. The panelists lengthily dwelt upon issues like academic integrity , ethical conduct and menace of plagiarism . They shared various component of plagiarism detection tool “Turnitin” and demonstrated how effectively it can be used to check similarity of contents in research work. They emphasized upon the need for clear cut policies with regard to plagiarism so as to maintain uniformity across the institutions and also create more awareness about online tools.
The last session of the webinar was conducted by Mr. Vishal Gupta , Customer Consultant from Elsevier who spoke on the topic “Citation Analysis using Scopus and Reference Management using Mendeley”. The objective of this session was to empower researchers and help them understand how Elsevier tools like Scopus, ScienceDirect and Mendeley can enable them plan and organize their research effectively. His talk also helped researchers understand the editor and reviewer’s perspective while publishing, Understanding the publishing process, finding the right journals, understanding of research metrics including h-index, Citescore, SJR, SNIP and FWCI and assessing research quality. He also ecouraged the participants take up free certified courses on Elsevier Researcher Academy for their personal and professional development.
All the session were followed by question answers sessions in which participants interacted with the respective speakers. The webinar was co-ordinated by Dr.Tariq Ashraf . the University Librarian of Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.
