First steps in Academia: creating publishing opportunities for young authors

ALDO MERLINO; ALEJANDRA MARTÍNEZ

Berlin

Congreso; PKP Publishing Conference; 2011

PKP

The quality and quantity of papers published in peer reviewed articles are, along with degrees and qualifications, parameters that Argentinean Academia considers to evaluate the performance of university professors and researchers. Through publications, degrees and qualifications, it is possible to accede to fundraising, scholarships, research allowances, etc. However, universities in Argentina are actually oriented to educate students to be professionals more than academicians. For that reason, young graduates that intend to accede to the academic career have scarce competences during their first steps. The proceedure of publishing is strange for them, so they have to struggle to learn what it takes to become an academician, after many initial failures. These failures attempt against their career prospects because in Argentina, the younger is the applicant, the better are her/his chances to be accepted in Academia. With the objective of encouraging and supporting these young applicants’ interests, Universidad Empresarial Siglo 21 –located in the city of Córdoba, Argentina-, develops since 2007 a scientific peer reviewed on-line journal, oriented to its graduates’ academic development. The journal has several goals: to introduce graduates into the process of writing and publishing scientific texts; to make visible their research works (final dissertation for graduation); and to offer the community an open and free access scientific publication in which research papers are displayed. In this presentation we’ll refer to the experience of creating and developing Revista de Ciencia y Técnica of Universidad Empresarial Siglo 21.