Annual Research Symposium 2015

Faculty Sessions

1. The Editorial Committee for the Annual Research Symposium of the University of Colombo invites the academic staff members and the postgraduate students of the University of Colombo to submit abstracts to be considered for presentation at the technical sessions of the Annual Research Symposium to be held in October 2015. Every abstract must be accompanied by an extended abstract, which together should be based on original research work. All accepted abstracts will be published in the Proceedings of the Annual Research Symposium 2015 of the University of Colombo.
2. The deadline for submission of abstracts and extended abstracts:21^st August 2015.
3. Guidelines for the preparation of abstracts and extended abstracts are attached. Please follow the instructions carefully and note that abstracts and extended abstracts not prepared according to the guidelines provided, or submitted after the deadline, will not be considered.
   To be considered, each submission should include the following three documents:
   1. Abstract – within the range of 300-350 words
   2. Extended abstract (inclusive of background, objectives, research design/materials and methods, results/findings, conclusions) or Synopsis- not exceeding 1,000 words
   3. The author’s declaration form.
4. Important deadline: Authors should send in their abstracts and extended abstracts along with the author’s declaration form to the respective Editorial Committee faculty representative on or before the 21^st of August 2015.
   The following members were appointed as the Editorial Committee members to represent each Faculty:

• Call for Abstracts – Word | PDF 
• Guidelines for Faculty Representatives of the Editorial Committee – Word | PDF
• Declaration Form for Corresponding Author – Word | PDF
• Referee Report – Word | PDF 

Guidelines for Faculty Representatives of the Editorial Committee:

Please adhere to the following deadlines with regard to the abstracts and extended abstracts:

• Discuss with the respective Dean of your Faculty and appoint a committee with representatives from each of the departments in the Faculty to coordinate the review work.
• Deadline for submission of abstracts and extended abstracts – 21st August 2015.
• Send each of the abstracts along with the extended abstracts to at least 2 reviewers with the referee report.
• Deadline for completing the review – 21st September 2015.
• Submission of revised abstracts, incorporating reviewers’ comments – 30th September 2015.
• Edit the abstracts, i.e. correct grammatical and typographical errors and ensure that the spacing, author names and institution names are according to the provided guidelines.
• Deadline for submission of accepted abstracts to the Editor in Chief – 30th September 2015.

Please ensure that each abstract fits into one A4 Page.

Please note: Abstracts must be written in clear, comprehensible, and grammatical English. While the Editor in Chief will do the final language corrections, he reserves the right to reject any abstract which is sent in so poorly written that such language correction is difficult or impossible.

Each faculty representative is expected to provide the theme of the symposium to the Deans of each Faculty and obtain a message from them to be published in the proceedings. The message should be edited and sent to the Editor in Chief by 31st August 2015.

We would be grateful if you could follow the above-given deadlines and send the edited abstracts along with the Dean’s message to enable us to compile and print the proceedings in time.

Guidelines for Submission of Abstracts and Extended Abstracts

1] Guidelines for the preparation of abstracts

i. The abstract must report original research.

ii. The title should be brief and explain the study reported. Capital letters should be used only for the first letter in the first word of the title and proper nouns.

iii. The author/s names and addresses:

♦ Capital letters should be used only for the initials and the first letters of the surnames of authors.

♦ The address of the Institution in which the work was carried out should be included under the author’s name.

♦ If the collaborators are from different Institutions, the addresses of the Institutions should be included in the brief. In this case, the addresses of the co-authors should be indicated by a number in superscript after the authors’ names and before the respective addresses (as shown below).

Example (multiple authors):

I.P. Menikpurage¹, D. T. U. Abeytunga¹, R. L. C. Wijesundara²

¹ Department of Chemistry, University of Colombo, Colombo 03.

² Department of Plant Sciences, University of Colombo, Colombo 03.

iv. The text of the abstract should be within the range of 300-350 words.

v. Standard abbreviations of SI units should be used.

vi. The original and two legible copies of each abstract should be submitted. The two copies should carry only the title and the text and should not contain the name(s) of the author(s) and place(s) where the research has been carried out.

vii. Acknowledgements should be restricted to the names of funding agencies providing sponsorship.

viii. Use the font “Times New Roman” size 11 with 1.5 spacing on A4 paper.

2] Guidelines for the preparation of extended abstract (should be submitted with each abstract)

i. The text should not exceed 1000 words.

ii. The text should cover the following aspects: Background, Objectives, Research Design/Materials and Methods, Results/ Findings, Conclusions and References.

iii. The original and two legible copies of the text should be submitted along with the abstract.

iv. Tables and diagrams can be included and should be referred to in the text as Table 1 or Fig. 1.

v. References: Should be limited to only essential ones.

vi. Use the font “Times New Roman” size 11 with 1.5 spacing on A4 paper.

3] Declaration by the authors

i. The annexed declaration form must be completed by the Corresponding Author and sent with each abstract and extended abstract submitted.

ii. All correspondence will be addressed to the Corresponding Author. If the Corresponding Author is a postgraduate student, then it is mandatory that the declaration form should be signed by the supervising author/s.

iii. The abstracts should be presented by a staff member or a postgraduate student of the University of Colombo. In the event that the presenter indicated in the application is unable to present the paper it is the responsibility of the Corresponding Author either to withdraw the paper in advance or arrange for one of the Co-Authors to present the paper.

For any further information, please contact the Assistant Registrar/Academic and Publications.
e-mail address: acpbuoc@gmail.com

Dr Ranil D. Guneratne,
Chair – Editorial Committee
Annual Research Symposium – 2015

Assistant Registrar/Academic and Publications.
Dr Sampath Seneviratne (sam@sci.cmb.ac.lk) – Symposium chairman
Dr. Ranil D. Guneratne – Editor/ Anual Research Symposium 2015