Proceedings of the sixth Postgraduate Students Workshop on Publishing

Abstract

A one-day postgraduate students’ workshop on publishing was held on 27th May 2021. It brought together 139 participants comprising 110 postgraduate students ,17 academic staff members and 12 non-academic staff members of the University of Embu (UoEm). The workshop aimed to sensitize the postgraduate students on manuscript preparation, navigating the peer review process, common challenges that face postgraduate students in research and publication, the importance data analysis in a manuscript and intellectual property especially patenting. The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Embu, Prof. Daniel Mugendi Njiru, in his opening remarks, emphasized on the need for quality publications indexed by reputable indexing bodies such as Scimago. He acknowledged the students who had published in high impact journals and thus contributed to the webometric ranking of the University. The Deputy Vice-Chancellor (ARE), Prof. Kiplagat Kotut, emphasized the importance of students applying the knowledge from the workshop in preparing their manuscripts. Dr Hellen Njura who graduated from UoEm in 2020, walked the participants through her struggles, endurance, resilience and triumph in her journey of publishing. The importance of having SMART objectives and data analysis dominated discussions during the plenary sessions. The workshop was facilitated by; Prof. Romano Mwirichia the Director of Research and Extension, Prof. Nancy Budambula the Director of Board of Postgraduate Studies, Dr. Daniel Nthiwa and Dr. Julius Mugweru lecturers in the Department of Biological Sciences, Mr. James Njue the University Librarian and Dr. Hellen Njura, a PhD graduate from UoEm.