Academy - Knowledge Sharing

Transmission of knowledge among academicians occurs through offering, sharing and acquiring of ones own knowledge. This happens through a number of ways. An academic can publish his findings or research output through a number of ways viz., journals, conferences, symposiums etc. An academic can learn a subject through a number of ways viz., attending workshops, seminars, crediting courses and reading through books. Knowledge sharing is possible through all the above mentioned means.

Academic Journals

An academic journal is a periodical, which publishes research articles and review articles, after peer-reviewing the articles. Usually, journals publish articles relating to a particular discipline, targeting a special group of readers. Research articles discuss novel and original research findings whereas review articles discuss critique of existing research. Every article is peer reviewed by a group of reviewers before publication. A journal which publishes articles without peer-reviewing is referred as a ‘professional magazine’.

Proceedings of meetings of the Royal Society published in the 17th century are considered to be one of the earliest research journals. Although considered controversial at that time, the act of publishing research journals has become so successful in the recent years. This is reveled by the increasing number of journals and of papers over the years, especially in the past few decades. This has increased the research consciousness among the scholars. However, the topics covered in any single journal have tended to be too narrow resulting in a decreased readership and citation. Great journals like Science, Nature etc., have overcome this drawback by publishing research articles of high academic caliber as well as targeting a general readership.

Most of the journals are available online to facilitate easy search and access of research articles. Although the readership/interactivity of readers is less as compared to an open academic internet forum, the journals provide a more reliable body of research knowledge. Owing to this reason, scholars depend on journal articles rather than any internet forum for reliable research knowledge.

Scholarly articles

Apart from original research articles and review articles, journals also publish book reviews, technical letters and short communications.

Original research article:

Original research articles present new results obtained through original research carried out by the authors. The articles are expected to explain with completeness the undertaken research issue/problem. A high quality is generally expected of the results in terms of reliability, precision, accuracy etc. The authors are expected not to hide or ignore any important result which would leave the paper incomplete. They have to answer with rigor all the issues raised and incorporate all the corrections pointed out by the reviewers. Furthermore the article is expected to be written in neat language without grammatical errors.

Review article:

Review articles are usually intended to review the research progress in a specific field/discipline. Review articles may cover the research progress either over a short span of time or for a longer term. Some review articles focus a specific topic whereas others discuss a survey of more general topics. Some articles list all significant articles in a given subject; others judge the state of research progress in the concerned field.

A journal issue may contain only a few review articles while the remaining articles are original research articles. There are few journals which are entirely devoted for publishing review articles. Book reviews are also published in journals along with other articles.

Technical letters or Short communications:

There will be separate section in some journals, where they publish articles called as short communications. These articles are short in length compared to original papers and are not elaborate. These articles present a new result which are not complete in itself but worth publishing. The review process of such articles is shorter compared to full paper.

Peer Reviewing of Articles

Academicians make voluntary submission of their articles to academic journals. Upon receipt of a submitted article manuscript, the journal editor has to decide whether to reject the submission outright or begin the process of peer review. He takes the decision, based on the relevance of the article content to the journal and standard of research investigation. Once he is convinced that the article will be of interest to the readers of the particular journal as well as worth publishing he will send it to reviewers for peer-reviewing. The editor has to choose two or three reviewers for peer-reviewing the article. Usually, the reviewers are none other than the researchers working in similar or closely related subjects who recommend approval or rejection as well as request error correction, clarification or additions before publishing. Based on the reviewers’ opinions the editor decides whether to publish the article, return it to authors for revision, or to reject it. Articles on controversial topics may receive additional levels of review. Accepted articles may be subjected to further editing by journal editorial staff before they appear in print. Usually the process is lengthy and takes a few months to get the article published in its final form.

Journals have developed a hierarchy, partly based on the reputation acquired through maintaining the standard by having a strict review policy. Scholars tend to submit their important work to the most prestigious journals for publication, as it would add more value to their academic profile. Unless being an outstanding work, the article may not be published in prestigious journal. Thus, more prestigious journals are more likely to receive and publish outstanding research work.

References and citations

Every research paper is expected to cite a number of papers which are related to the current paper. Quality of an already published paper (or the impact it creates) is considered to depend on the number of other papers published later, that cites the paper. This is measured by a factor called impact factor. There are factors to indicate the number of citations received by the article over a given span of time. To indicate the decreasing trend of the number of citations there are factors such as ‘average half –life of articles’. This helps to rank the journals. The academic journals are categorized for ranking purposes as ‘Science Citation Index’ and ‘Social Science Citation’.

Academic conference

Academic conferences provide an opportunity for scholars to present the research ideas in person to a special gathering of academicians and industrialists. Usually conferences are focused to a particular topic of research. This helps to bring together all the academicians who work in the same field who otherwise are dispersed across different parts of the world.
Usually, an academic conference includes plenary lectures, invited lecture, keynote lecture other than the contributed paper presentations. Workshops, Poster presentations, Panel discussions and industrial exhibition are also included in a conference program.

The conference proceedings may contain a compilation of abstracts or the full papers.

Plenary lecture:

A conference would often start with a plenary lecture following the inauguration of the conference. The talk will be given by academics of high caliber who have contributed to the development of the subject about which the whole conference is based on. They would talk about the breakthrough development and importance of the subject which would motivate the delegates to ascertain full participation in the conference. Also there would be a closing plenary before the closing ceremony to motivate the delegates to do research in the subject.

Keynote lecture:

Each day of the conference would start with a keynote lecture, where researchers who are doing leading research on the subject would present their research findings. This gives the delegates the opportunity to listen to the pioneers of the field. The talk would generally focus the state of art or current status of the research. Also there would be a question answer sessions at the end of the talk which would help the delegates who want clarifications about the talk. The time allotted would be about 45 min including a question answer sessions.

Invited lecture:

There would be three to four sessions every day and each session would start with a invited talk. Academics who have good number of papers would present their recent research findings. These talks would help the delegates to get to know the adavnces of the field.
People from industries are also some times invited which would help delegates to get to know the industrial requirements, challenges and opportunities

Contributed papers:
The sessions would be organized focusing a specific theme (sub topic) of the conference. The session chairman would conduct the session. Each speaker would be given 15 to 20 min time to present their work. They are expected to clarify the issues raised by the audience delegates on their paper.

Poster presentations:

Students who are doing research are encouraged to present poster presentations. In this session there would be big hall the authors should put up the poster in the allotted area. During the poster session the delegates who come would interact with the authors of the posters.

Panel Discussion:

Industrial exhibits:

There would be industrial exhibits in the conference campus where the delegates can interact with the people from industries.

Academic Symposium

It is generally organized for the purpose of get to know other peoples work through open discussion.

Academic Workshop

Workshops are often focused towards a specific advanced topic where academicians get introduced to a new advanced topic of current research.
Workshops will often be conducted for less a week time.

Short term courses

Number of short term courses will be organized focusing graduate students and students about to graduate. The topics are generally chosen which provides the academicians with lot of potentials so that they will have better opportunities in their career. These courses may be organized for less than a months time.

University/Institute courses

Academic courses are offered by universities and institutes. Courses may be categorized as regular, evening, correspondence.
Bachelor programs train the students who have completed pre university courses. Having a bachelor degree a student can enroll for Masters degree. The student can continue to do research to get a PhD and may further continue with Post doctoral programs.
Open University courses provide the opportunities to learn who doesn’t have a regular academic record. Such courses can generally be taken by any body without any prerequisite. Age is not a bar and any body who is interested to study can do it.

Self learning

Self learning is always possible through a number of textbooks and online study materials available.