Conference Proceedings

A conference proceeding is the published record of an academic meeting such as a conference, Seminar, congress, symposium, or other professional meeting hosted by an academic or research organization. Usually, proceedings include full-length papers presented at an academic meeting or conference. The papers presented at an academic meeting go by a variety of names, like papers, abstracts, extended abstracts, poster abstracts, manuscripts, presentations, etc. The collection, which includes only abstract or extended abstract of papers presented by the participants known as Abstract book. If the publications are filled with full-length papers, they are considered proceedings, or conference proceedings. Conference proceedings show the leading edge of research by revealing emerging trends and new ideas before they appear in journals. Conferences and other professional meetings have their own impact by allowing other researchers to be involved and influence the direction of research at the early stages.

Conference proceedings typically contain the contributions made by researchers at the conference or other professional meetings. They are the written record of the work that is presented by fellow researchers which are usually distributed in electronic or/and printed volumes, either before the conference opens or after it has closed. Since the collection of papers comes from individual researchers, the character of proceedings is distinctly different from an educational textbook. Mostly there is no general argument connecting one contribution to the next paper. Each paper typically is quite isolated from the other papers in the proceedings. Most of the papers presented at conferences are working papers to present new concepts and techniques in a field that is not fully developed.  Hence, conference proceedings enable other researchers to be involved and influence the direction of research at the early stages.

Conference proceedings are a way to engage with leading-edge research prior to scholarly journal publication.  They may include findings, innovations, best practices, or new methodology. Young researchers may find conference proceedings very helpful in connecting with research trends, researchers, and institutions doing research on a particular topic of interest. Proceedings allow researchers to disseminate new concepts and techniques in a field that is not fully developed in a less formal setting than peer-reviewed journals.

In most cases, the proceedings get published before the meeting, and hence the proceedings are accessible to participants at the time of the event. In this way, the participants can look at the papers they are interested in and find out better insight during the presentation of that particular paper. However, in some cases, the proceedings get published after the conference and hence the authors utilize the opportunity to improve the paper based on the received feedback during the meeting. To have proceedings of the academic meetings are generally considered as good and always preferred, either before or after the event.

Publishing the selected articles in a journal is different, as the inclusion of an article to the journal’s special issue cannot be known in advance. Journal always need to ensure that the submitted papers meet certain quality criteria that might not be necessary for a conference article. Regardless of the organizer’s standard and peer-review process implemented by the organizing committee, the journal should always be considered and conduct independent reviewing.