Professor Dr. Murali Raman June 1 st 2015 Removing the Barriers: Publishing Scholary Work (inTop-Tiered Journals & other academic outlets) an Editorial Perspective

Outline 1. Background of the presenter 2. Some fundamental questions 3. Defining Top-Tiered (TT) journals (j) 4. Rules of publishing – code of ethics 5. Why TTJs? 6. What editors look out for 7. Some strategies 8. Q&A

1. Background - Prequalification More than 75 tier 1,2 and 3 pubs combined, pre, during/post doctoral work in the US and upon return Editorial board for several Tier 1,2 and 3 journals and numerous TTJs locally and internationally More than 70 papers collectively over the past 5 years in conferences Special edition for new journal KMEL, Associate Editor JITCAR, IJBMR, IJKM, SPAR etc Co-Chair for Sub-track on knowledge evolution for HICSS 2010 (IEEE-backed conference), with Dr. Saravanan Reviewed more than 100 papers in the last 5 years alone H-index of 14

Questions 1. Why publish academic work? 2. How is an academic publication different relative to normal publication (media etc?) 3. Where should we be publishing in? 4. When does one start publishing? 5. How to start for a novice? 6. How do we create a publishing culture within an institution?

2. What are TTjs? Depends on who you ask There are several major categories that can be used to guide in defining what TTJs are: Industry specific journals – that have high readership but give less emphasis on academic theory – e.g. CACM has a readership based of more than 150,000 Advanced theoretical-empirical backed journals – listed on top tiered indexes Journals that are recognized by major scientific communities via listing or citations in indexes e.g. ISI, SCOPUS, Cabel, ISI Web of Knowledge etc

2. For MMU – Our Goal TTJs – defined by the MMU Master journal listing Focus on this for promotion/recognition/Phd Viva purposes Strategy though: Must be MMU Tiered 3 and above Possibly listed in both SCOPUS, ISI, ABDC Why?

3. Code of ethics Publishing can be a game Good publishing conduct: Names appears with consent Name appears as one has contributed either in (i) idea stage, or better still co-authored the paper Good supervisors – let students take the lead and not otherwise in naming convention

4. Why TTJs? Basis for promotion/academic ad advancement Basis for good/strong CV Building a name amidst scientific community

5. What Editors Look For? Usually decision if the paper will be accepted/rejected can be done in 15 minutes Editors often do a quick read or scan the paper to examine: If the overall theme of paper fits with theme of journal If paper has good contribution to both theory and practice If the problem formulated is indeed good i.e. addresses some gap If the methodology is sound at a glace Presentation is very clear – no grammatical blunders Maps to journal format/general style

6. Strategy 1 - Research Topic Fills gap(s) called for journal(s) targeted The above can come from: New/enhanced methodology in solving an on-going problem Challenging some/most of the empirical finding from prior papers in the journal Works on suggestions on research topics/areas as called for by the editors themselves

6. Strategy 2 – Read before Write Don’t blindly shoot to journals without clearly understanding if the papers does conform to what the journal is looking for:- E.g. sending a quantitative paper to a IEEE journal that stresses on prototype developed E.g. sending a conceptual paper to a TTJ well known for rigorous methodology Do your homework first by reading papers relevant to your topic, that has been published before Send the editor an if unsure if the theme fits – albeit some level of risk is involved here

6. Strategy 3 – Get Internal Feedback Go through an internal peer-review with your colleagues Take feedback constructively Revise and then submit to journal

It’s quite normal for getting rejections from TTJs at first submission However, this does not mean that your paper is not good – probably the theme was not met or met well Use feedback to revise and send to another TTj – no issues, we all do this… There is a home for every paper 6. Strategy 4 – Norm

Discussion Questions

Questions What are the challenges that you currently face – preventing you from producing high impact research outputs in your career? For the issues identified, what are some of the suggestions that can be used to address/overcome the above challenges? How do you think we (faculties) can support to assist you in overcoming/addressing these challenges? Experience sharing – research issues, problems, solutions in general