The Office for Graduate Research (OGR), University of Santo Tomas Graduate School, headed by its Director Prof. Dr. Grecebio Jonathan D. Alejandro, organized a webinar titled “Towards a High Impact Publication” on November 5, 2022. The OGR offers webinars every term to enhance graduate students’ knowledge, skills, and competence in research. The OGR continues to search for an appropriate platform to advance the research productivity of all students, given the current situation.
In his welcome remarks, Prof. Alejandro emphasized that OGR sponsors seminars/webinars for graduate students to widen their perspective on the research process and increase research outputs through journal publications as this is an important thrust that OGR hopes to strengthen. The webinar was offered to help students understand the dynamics and importance of the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) of the Clarivate Analytics. Prof. Alejandro also highlighted that the research work must not only be published in journals with high impact factors, but must also be categorized under Quartiles 1 or 2 rank set by the Journal Citation Reports (or JCR) of the Clarivate Analytics to promote quality in academic publications. The JCR is also the basis for the “Best Published Paper” awarded each academic year to 4 different clusters.
GS Science cluster faculty member Prof. Allan Patrick G. Macabeo, Ph.D., discussed information and perspectives on how to prepare manuscripts for submission to high impact journals indexed in Thomson Reuter’s Web of Science and Scopus. He emphasized that one particular talent critical to the success of a graduate student is the ability to publish, especially if the career goal is to become an academic or research scientist. Publishing topnotch research not only allow academics to propel and advance new scientific knowledge, but also forms the basis of a future research program and a groundwork for a successful profession as a research scientist. Further, he pointed out that submitting and publishing manuscripts in a high impact journal entails many considerations such as relevance, reputation, indexing, peer review service, cost and scope. Therefore, focused preparation and technical soundness and completeness are gateways toward high impact publication.
Edward H. Puzon, Head Librarian of the UST Miguel de Benavides Library’s Graduate School Section provided instructions on how to access and navigate the Library’s electronic resources. The presentation moved along with the steps for accessing Web of Science (WoS), particularly Journal Citation Reports (JCR), where the Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and the Quartile Ranking were discussed. Mr. Puzon also presented a useful feature of another WoS product, the Master Journal List, which is the Match Manuscript, whereupon inputting one’s research title and abstract, one would be able to generate a list of journal titles as options for potential publication submission.
Prof. Michael Anthony C. Vasco, Ph.D., Dean of the Graduate School, delivered the closing remarks. He stated that a successful publication in a high impact journal is a mark of quality acceptance of a research output and it will attract other researchers to cite the contribution of your research. With the publication requirement instituted by the Commission on Higher Education to both the masters and doctorate students beginning AY 2023-2024, it is imperative that graduate students and faculty advisers should ensure that research works are published only in high quality academic research journals.
The webinar was attended by administrators led by Dean Michael Anthony C. Vasco, faculty members, and more than 140 graduate students across disciplines enrolled in thesis and dissertation writing this term.
