“The Department of Applied Sciences at the Higher College of Technology (HCT) in the Sultanate of Oman is emerging in research as evinced through the increasing number of  quality scientific research publications from the faculty in the past five years. The research projects done by  the  students  of  the  Applied Sciences  Department at the Diploma and B. Tech levels are continuously getting published in the internationally recognized journals indexed by Thomson Reuters and Scopus with commendable ISI impact factor”. Upon a request from Dr. Sadaf Zahra, Head of the Department of Biotechnology at the Waljat College of Applied Sciences (WCAS) to Dr. Samiya Salim Al-Jaaidi, HoD of Applied Sciences Department of HCT, Dr. Pankaj Sah, lecturer of Applied Biology was nominated by Dr. Samiya in consultation with Dr. Ghaitha Suleiman Nasser Al-Abry, Head of Section of Applied Biology to deliver a ‘Guest Lecture’ on the topic entitled “How to turn students’ research projects into research papers?”

Dr. Pankaj Sah had given the Guest Lecture on 27th April, 2016 from 2:00 to 3:00 pm at the Department of Biotechnology, WCAS. The objective of the lecture is to spread the awareness about the research and the quality scientific publications emanating from the research work to the students of that department. The B. Tech students who attended the lecture are motivated to publish the research output from their projects.

Dr. Sah was successful in convincing the audience that “the research results do not exist until and unless they are statistically analyzed, well written in the form of a good research paper, reviewed by the peers and are finally published as research papers in the scientific research journals of international repute”. He also highlighted the importance of research publications in the field of biotechnology and science. He had discussed about the various types of research communications and also elaborated on the basic points in writing a good research paper starting from the abstract to the acknowledgements.

The students were motivated by the presenter when the ‘10 golden rules’ used in the publication of research papers are presented to them. The importance of ‘Data Mining and Statistics’ in producing quality research publications was presented in detail. The role of good scientific writing skills was also presented.

Dr. Pankaj Sah had advised the students to develop the habit of reading quality journals in order to increase their scientific skills and research interests. He had stated that the future of science in Oman is linked with the contributions from the young and   budding   Omani scientists. In total Dr. Pankaj presentation was successful and it accentuated all the details about the art and science of research publications.

PHOTOS CREDIT:
Students from the Department of Biotechnology at the WCAS