In academia and librarianship, conference proceedings is a collection of
academic papers published in the context of an
academic conference or workshop. Conference proceedings typically contain the contributions made by researchers at the conference. They are the written record of the work that is presented to fellow researchers. In many fields, they are published as supplements to
academic journals; in some, they are considered the main dissemination route; in others they may be considered
grey literature. They are usually distributed in printed or electronic volumes, either before the conference opens or after it has closed.
A less common, broader
meaning
Meaning most commonly refers to:
* Meaning (linguistics), meaning which is communicated through the use of language
* Meaning (philosophy), definition, elements, and types of meaning discussed in philosophy
* Meaning (non-linguistic), a general te ...
of proceedings are the acts and happenings of an
academic field, a
learned society. For example, the title of the ''
Acta Crystallographica'' journals is
New Latin for "Proceedings in
Crystallography
Crystallography is the experimental science of determining the arrangement of atoms in crystalline solids. Crystallography is a fundamental subject in the fields of materials science and solid-state physics (condensed matter physics). The wor ...
"; the ''
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' is the main journal of that academy.
Scientific journal
In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research.
Content
Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such as s ...
s whose
ISO 4 title abbreviations start with ''Proc'', ''Acta'', or ''Trans'' are journals of the proceedings (transactions) of a field or of an organization concerned with it, in that secondary meaning of the word.
Authorship and editorship
Selecting and collecting papers for conferences is organized by one or more persons, who form the ''editorial team''. The quality of the papers is typically ensured by having external people read the papers before they are accepted in the proceedings. The level of quality control varies considerably from conference to conference: some have only a binary accept/reject decision, others go through more thorough feedback and revisions cycles (
peer reviewing
Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...
or refereeing). Depending on the level of the conference, this process can take up to a year. The editors decide about the composition of the proceedings, the order of the papers, and produce the preface and possibly other pieces of text. Although most changes in papers occur on basis of consensus between editors and authors, editors can also single-handedly make changes in papers.
Since the collection of papers comes from individual researchers, the character of proceedings is distinctly different from an educational textbook. Each paper typically is quite isolated from the other papers in the proceedings. Mostly there is no general argument leading from one contribution to the next.
In some cases, the
editors of the proceedings may decide to further develop the proceedings into a textbook. This may even be a goal at the outset of the conference.
Publication
Conference proceedings are published in-house by the organizing institution of the conference or via an
academic publisher
Academic publishing is the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in academic journal articles, books or theses. The part of academic written output that is not formally publ ...
. For example, the ''
Lecture Notes in Computer Science'' by Springer take much of their input from proceedings. Conference proceedings also get published through dedicated proceedings series as an edited volume where all their inputs comes from the conference papers. For example
AIJR Proceedingsseries published by academic publisher
AIJR. Publication of proceedings as edited volume in such series are different from publishing conference paper in the journals; also known as conference issue. Increasingly, proceedings are published in electronic format via the internet or on CD, USB, etc.
In the sciences, the quality of publications in conference proceedings is usually not as high as that of international
scientific journal
In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research.
Content
Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such as s ...
s. However, in
computer science, papers published in conference proceedings are accorded a higher status than in other fields, due to the fast-moving nature of the field.
A number of full-fledged
academic journals unconnected to particular conferences also use the word "proceedings" as part of their name, for example, ''
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America''.
Format
Conference proceedings may be published as a book or
book series, in a
journal, or otherwise as a
serial publication (see
examples). In many cases,
impact factors are not available,
although other
journal metrics (such as
Google Scholar h-index and
Scimago-metrics) might exist.
Bibliographic indexing often is done in separate
bibliographic databases and
citation indexes, e.g.,
Conference Proceedings Citation Index instead of
Science Citation Index.
See also
*
Serial (publishing)
References
{{Authority control
Academic publishing
Publications by format
Grey literature