Publishing in high-impact Multi-

disciplinary Journals

Professor AMIR HUSSAIN, PhD, Fellow UK HEA, Senior Member IEEE

Founding Chief-Editor: Cognitive Computation journal (Springer, USA: http://springer.com/12559)

Founding Chief-Editor:(NEW) Big Data Analytics journal (BioMed Central: http://biomedcentral.com)

Publications Chair, Annual 2015 INNS Big Data Conference (http://innsbigdata.org)

Associate Editor: IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks & Learning Systems

PhD Director & Head, Cognitive Signal Image & Control Processing Research (COSIPRA) Lab

Division of Computing Science & Maths, University of Stirling, Scotland, UK

E-mail: ahu@cs.stir.ac.uk http://cs.stir.ac.uk/~ahu/ http://cosipra.cs.stir.ac.uk

Computing Science Department has been ranked 10th in UK in the recent UK Guardian Newspaper’s University League Table (Computing Science & Informatics) 2011

Stirling University has been ranked in the top 50 in the world in 2012 The Times Higher Education 100 Under 50 table, which ranks world's best 100 universities under 50 years old

Nearly two-thirds of University research rated internationally leading or excellent in the most recent 2014 UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) assessment exercise (carried out by UK government!) King AbdulAziz University, Jeddah’15

(Journal published by Springer Neuroscience)Editor-in-Chief:Amir Hussain

A Personal Narrative (interactive!) Example Publisher Case Study Example multi-disciplinary journals General Tips

Publishing strategies Where to publish? Submitting to journals What works Reflections

Review of an Example Paper: Discussion / Q&A

Presentation Outline

Springer is the second-largest publisher of journals in the science, technology, and medicine (STM) sector and the largest publisher of STM books. It publishes on behalf of more than 300 academic associations and professional societies. Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media, one of the world’s leading suppliers of scientific and specialist literature. The group publishes over 1,700 journals and more than 5,500 new books a year, and has the largest STM eBook Collection worldwide. Springer has operations in 20-plus countries in Europe, the United States, and Asia, employing some 5,000 people.

Example Publisher: Springer

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Multi-disciplinary Journal Publishing Examples

Open Choice / Subscription based Journal: “Cognitive Computation” journal (Springer, NY, USA) - www.springer.com/12551

Launched in 2009, (by founding EiC: Prof A. Hussain) (SCI/ISI indexed in 2011, first five year impact factor ~ 1.4)

Open Access journal: “Big Data Analytics” journal (Springer/BioMed Central)

http://www.biomedcentral.com/ To be launched in May 2015 (founding EiC: Prof A Hussain)

All papers automatically published in PubMed

Publisher & EiC Aims: PubMed Central indexing within 12 months and ISI-SCI indexing with 3

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Subscription-based/Open-Choice Publishing in Multi-disciplinary Journals: ExampleSpringer’s Open Choice: Your research. Your choice.Springer’s Open Choice program allows authors to publish open access in the majority of Springer's subscription-based journals.When you choose Open Choice, benefits for you and your readers include: High visibility, as all articles are made freely available online for everyone, immediately upon publication Easy compliance with open access mandates, as all articles are CC BY licensed Reuse and immediate deposit of final article in any repository Authors retain the copyright to their work Automatic export triggered to PubMed Central/Europe PubMed Central (PMC)*

Identification of open access articlesOpen access articles can be identified as open access in the article PDF, HTML and in the article metadata. They are also clearly labeled at SpringerLink using the open access button.

Copyright and open access licenseIf authors choose open access in the Springer Open Choice program, the copyright remains with them, the authors of the article.

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Subscription-based/Open-Choice multi-disciplinary Journal Case Study: Cognitive Computation Aims & Scope: Provides a new pioneering interdisciplinary platform for the dissemination of cutting-edge research, current practices and future trends in this emerging discipline that links together neurobiology, cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence.

Explores all aspects of cognitive agents, including (but not limited to): perception, action, affective and cognitive learning and memory, attention, decision making and control, social cognition, language processing and communication, reasoning, problem solving, and consciousness.

Cognitive Computation is an international, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal that publishes cutting-edge articles describing original basic and applied work involving bio-inspired computational accounts of all aspects of natural and artificial cognitive systems.

It provides a new platform for the dissemination of research, current practices and future trends in the emerging discipline of cognitive computation that bridges gap between life sciences, social sciences, engineering, physical and mathematical sciences, and humanities.Related subjects » Artificial Intelligence - Bioinformatics - Neuroscience - Theoretical Computer Science

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Open-Access Journal Case Study: Forthcoming BMC Journal on Big Data AnalyticsAbout the Open-Access Journal Publisher: BioMed Central is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher of 276 peer-reviewed open access journals. The portfolio of journals spans all areas of biology, biomedicine and medicine and includes broad interest titles, such as the flagship BMC Biology and BMC Medicine alongside specialist journals, such as Retrovirology and BMC Genomics. Also mutli-disciplinary ones, such as BioData Mining (http://www.biodatamining.org/ ) & the forthcoming Big Data AnalyticsAll original research articles published by BioMed Central are made freely accessible online immediately upon publication. BioMed Central levies an article-processing charge (APC) to cover the cost of the publication process. Authors publishing with BioMed Central retain the copyright to their work, licensing it under the Creative Commons Attribution License which allows articles to be re-used and re-distributed without restriction, as long as the original work is correctly cited. BioMed Central is now owned by Springer Science+Business Media, and also hosts the SpringerOpen platform.

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Open-Access Journal Case Study: Forthcoming BMC Journal on Big Data AnalyticsPUBLICATION MODE: Fully open-access only, with an article processing charge (APC) applicable for each accepted paper, currently set by the publisher at £1325 for 2015 (authors from institutions which have BioMed Central Membership, could be entitled to have their APCs covered in part or full through their Membership - a list of BMC members can be found at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/inst/ )

OVERVIEW: BIGDAT is a new pioneering multi-disciplinary platform for the dissemination of research, current practices and future trends in the emerging discipline of Big Data Analytics, that bridges the gap between life sciences, social sciences, engineering, physical and mathematical sciences. BIGDAT is a fully open access journal, which will increase its reach and visibility, and all published papers will be indexed in PubMed.

AIMS: BIGDAT is a multi-disciplinary open-access, peer reviewed journal, which aims to publish cutting-edge articles describing original basic and applied work involving biologically-inspired computational accounts of all aspects of Big Data science analytics.

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Open-Access Journal Case Study: Forthcoming BMC Journal on Big Data AnalyticsSCOPE: BIGDAT invites high-quality original research articles and timely reviews on current developments in the field, covering all aspects of Big Data Analytics, including, but not limited to the following topics:- algorithmic, theoretical and computational approaches (such as deep learning networks, nature-inspired and brain-inspired cognitive computation, statistical and mathematical analytics, visualization and informatics),- implementations and platforms (such as neuromorphic, GPUs, clusters and clouds, open-source software),- and applications (in domains as diverse as genomics, medical, healthcare, clinical, biological and neuro-informatics, natural robotics, language processing, meteorology, geoscience, multimedia and business intelligence, social media and network analytics, trend discovery, opinion mining, smart cities, surveillance, transportation, power, energy and economic management, internet search, biological, chemical, physical, environmental, oceanic and planetary sciences, and e-Science in general)

Keywords: Big Data, cognitive systems, learning, analytics, visualization, informatics, neuromorphic, GPU, clusters, clouds, open-source software, real-world applications

General Tips to publishing!Main stages research to publication: Planning & structuring

Doing the Literature Review

Data collection & fieldwork

Analysis

Writing

Dissemination

Possible Publishing strategies (Dr Mark Hampton, Visiting Professor, UTM and University of Kent)

'Shot gun' or 'sniper'? i.e. large number of papers but lower quality (easier) journals? OR taking far longer, fewer paper to carefully target highest ranking journals ?

Both strategies have costs/benefits Shot gun: benefits - you get the numbers, a mass of publications (useful for some

promotion panels/external funders who don't know about journal quality!). You start to get your name known.

Publishing strategies

Benefits: easier journals to get into, so often less work per paper. Some of lowest journals are desperate for papers! BUT

Shot gun: costs – you are not hitting the best journals.

Your international peers know this.

Lowest ranked journals can be seen as waste of time by govt research committees etc, savy funders etc.

Since it is so easy: can feel less rewarding

Publishing strategies

Sniper: benefits – publication in the most prestigious journals can open doors for funding, promotion.

You are in company of top international academics in your field: it shows your quality.

Top journals are often more referred to by peers, researchers etc. since better circulation internationally

Publishing strategies

Benefits – if the top journals reject your paper you can use the referees' comments & submit to lower ranked journal.

The reverse doesn't work!

Personally can be very rewarding & hugely satisfying to publish your work in the best journals

Publishing strategies

Sniper: costs – slow & difficult process (top journals have extremely high rejection rates) so papers need to be best you can get them to have any chance

Fewer papers produced in same time you could have turned out more papers for low rank journals (can be a problem for promotion boards)

Publishing strategies

You need to consider your own strategy.

Take advice from senior staff who publish (not admin folk or non researchers!)

Need to also consider your institutional strategy –

is it a numbers game (volume of publications) or a quality game?

Next: how to tell the quality of a journal? What is a 'high impact' journal?

Where to publish?

Local context (national listings, informal 'rules', subject lists etc) Knowing about the journal – disagreement, no international agreed list! Growing number of attempts at journal rankings (ISI Citations, Scopus, Thomson Reuters

impact factors; Harzing, discipline-specific lists e.g Association of Business Schools etc)

Where to publish?

Used by funders, govts, university admin as a effort-saving proxy to show 'high quality' journals.

Is a rationing device No one single list is universal nor internationally agreed BUT some journals tend to appear

on multiple lists (especially multi-disciplinary journals, spanning various disciplines – target your focus wisely!)

Also 'list of lists'. Best example – work of Prof Anne-Wil Harzing (Melbourne University) Journal Quality List (JQL)

http://www.harzing.com/jql.htm

Submitting to journals

Most journals accept online submission. Often quite slow/complicated sequence. Take care & allow enough time!

Normally simple upload of your final files. You should have followed journal style guide (web page/copy of journal) closely eg how to set out, references style etc

Online system builds PDF of your (main text, figures, tables, refs)

Submitting to journals

Normally chance to check before final click to submit – worth doing as I've found 'bloopers' & could edit my paper before it goes in

Fill in contact details & affiliation etc.

NB. 'Corresponding author' is the one who will deal with the journal (doesn't have to be 1st author) & sometimes the email on final paper (not all journals)

What works?

Referees & journal editors look for a contribution to the subject, or at least one or more of the multiple subject areas, for the case of multi-disciplinary journals

Some journals ask you to explicitly spell it out when you submit

Even if they don't – think – what is the contribution, and in which subject area!?

The 'so what' question! Why should your paper be read? And by whom!

Get senior colleagues to review your choice(s) of target areas, and also ask him/her to review your draft paper before submission!

What works?

Increasingly journals, including multi-disciplinary ones, want a contribution to technical/theory-building in at least one subject area.

This is much harder!

No easy short cut.

BUT does your paper do something new? Apply a theory in a new way or to a new area or aspect?

We can't all develop new paradigms BUT can hook onto existing body of work

What works?

In my story- my papers are a mix of case studies & some theoretical development.

Most IEEE journal papers tend to be more theoretical.

Link to changes in journals – new editors – new preferences. E.g. multi-disciplinary trend towards more postmodern (e.g, multi-disciplinary cognitive, Big Data computing science) approaches.

Benefit of networks & conferences

What works?

You get informal sense about journals, new trends etc. (read some of the target journals’ published on-line papers, top downloads/most cited papers usually free, Open Access always so!)

Sometimes a good conference paper (good impression) can → invited to write paper for journal Special Issue

Special Issues, although refereed, often 'lighter touch' as already invited by editor.

Often easier to get published than 'cold calling' submission to popular journal

Reflections

How do I do it? My work is normally cognitive Big Data based

I don't normally explicitly target certain journals BUT have a general idea of ‘multi-disciplinary journals’ where the paper might be aimed (I find multi-disciplinary journals rather easier to target! – see example case study/paper!)

Paper writing (for me!) is an art not science!

Reflections

I always plan. If solo author I plan all main sections in detail.

If co-writing, I plan the paper with co-author & agree who writes which sections

Authorship: solo author & co-authors. I do both! Advantages & disadvantages.

If you write with others - be careful! Positive overall but need clear deadlines & agreement over who does what, deadlines

Reflections

Need to agree on author order (1st & 2nd authors on title page).

Different ways: depends who worked most on paper or equal share? If one did most normally they are 1st named author

If equal share: alphabetical order of surnames. If you co-write again you can reverse the order to be fairer!

Reflections

Process as before. Final draft goes to critical friend or 2. Paper revised from feedback.

Ready to submit. I choose the target journal carefully (as mentioned earlier, I look at quality lists, read their web pages)

Recommend you take advice from senior staff & colleagues who publish

Don’t wait too long! Go for it and Best of luck!

Next: Review of a recent/example paper published in a multi-disciplinary journal

Review of Example Published Paper Journal: Expert Systems with Applications (Elsevier, ISI IF ~2)

http://www.journals.elsevier.com/expert-systems-with-applications /

Aims & Scope: Expert Systems With Applications is a refereed international journal whose focus is on exchanging information relating to expert and intelligent systems applied in industry, government, and universities worldwide.

The thrust of the journal is to publish papers dealing with the design, development, testing, implementation, and/or management of expert and intelligent systems, and also to provide practical guidelines in the development and management of these systems.

The journal will publish papers in expert and intelligent systems technology and application in the areas of, but not limited to: finance, accounting, engineering, marketing, auditing, law, procurement and contracting, project management, risk assessment, information management, information retrieval, crisis management, stock trading, strategic management, network management, telecommunications, space education, intelligent front ends, intelligent database management systems, medicine, chemistry, human resources management, human capital, business, production management, archaeology, economics, energy, and defense.

Papers in multi-agent systems, knowledge management, neural networks, knowledge discovery, data and text mining, multimedia mining, and genetic algorithms will also be published in the journal.

Acknowledgements

Cognitive Signal Image Processing and Control Systems Research (COSIPRA) Laboratory

• Dr Mark Hampton, Visiting Professor, UTM and University of Kent.

• Springer Publishing Colleagues!

Thanks for listening!

Questions?

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