MSc Professional Project: Publishing Your Dissertation

Authorship

The established practice is that you, the student, are the first author and your supervisor is a senior author (named last in the author list). Additional authorship can be discussed within the authorship team; however, most, if not all, journals ask for a statement of contribution by each named author and all authors are contacted as part of submission and publication by journals.

As part of the declaration of submission, there needs to be a statement that “the work was completed in partial fulfilment of an MSc in ... from the University of ...”

For example, if your course was in partnership with USW: “the work was completed in partial fulfilment of an MSc in ... from the University of South Wales."

Supervisors may be willing to provide additional support to you in preparing an article for publication, but they are not required to do so. First of all, discuss it with your supervisor. If they are unable to help, but you are still looking for additional support, contact Student Services, and they will put out a request for volunteer tutors to help you as a co-author. You will need to supply details of your subject material and proposed title.

The 3Ps: Project, Publications, and Policy

We encourage students to aspire to high-quality outputs across all three key areas:

• Your MSc thesis (Project) serves as the foundation of your academic contribution
• Conference presentations, posters, and journal articles (Publications) help disseminate your findings to the wider community
• Contributions to healthcare practice and education (Policy) ensure your work has a real-world impact

Publication Standards

When seeking to publish your work, aim for indexed journals that maintain rigorous academic standards. Be vigilant about predatory publishers that charge fees without providing legitimate peer review or academic recognition, as outlined by Elmore and Weston (doi: 10.1177/0192623320920209). We recommend using verification tools like https://thinkchecksubmit.org/journals/ to evaluate potential journals before submission. When submitting papers to conferences, ensure it is a recognised professional society/body, has a robust peer review process and the conference proceedings are published and indexed. 

Personal Details

Please use your current employment details/address. The tutor/supervisor can use either their professional practice address or the university's main address for your school.

Ethics

Journals will ask for ethics approval confirmation for any research project. Ethical principles for all our research projects follow the Declaration of Helsinki. If there is any confusion or clarity sought around ethical approval procedures, please refer questions to Student Services at Learna. No projects should commence past the Project Proposal stage if they are considered high risk, as these need to be re-formulated and moved to low-risk projects.

Payment

Some journals require payment of publication charges or even upon submission for review. In most cases, the student is expected to cover this cost, however, Learna does hold a bursary fund for students meeting certain criteria. 

The only requirements are that the student includes Learna Ltd and their dissertation supervisor in their acknowledgements, and publish in a Scopus-indexed journal/present with a reputable organisation. By accepting the bursary, the student also grants us permission to publicise their success on our website, blog, and social media.

The scheme is for a bursary of £200 towards the cost. Once proof of publication has been provided, our colleagues in our Finance team can reimburse the student. Students pay first and send proof to request reimbursement.

Notification

To paraphrase the American Physicist John Archibald Wheeler (writing in 1911), we live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. Every publication is a new grain of sand adding to our island of knowledge.

If you publish, do let us know - we love to hear about your achievements. Please email our Student Services team at support@learna.ac.uk.