Finding a conference or journal to publish your article as an undergraduate

An undergraduate student recently asked me where should he publish his research work. This blog post is from the reply I drafted for him.

 

Depending on who you ask, you will get a totally contrasting opinion. I also answer the question based on who is asking. Let me explain.

Some researchers/professors want to strictly publish in top-tier conferences and journals.

You can check the conference ranking here: https://portal.core.edu.au/conf-ranks/

Journal ranking here: https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php

For journals, Q1 means, top 25% journals. They are good to target.

For conferences, A* are the top-most ones. "A" are good too. Then you have B and C conferences. There are also unranked conferences. Unranked conferences are ok as long as they are not predatory. If you know who is organizing those, that can be good.

Don't submit to predatory conferences (such as those hosted by WASET) and predatory journals. Some journals are in the gray zone and not well respected. For example, MDPI and to some extent - Frontiers In. Avoid those.

Now, we should be realistic too. Most of the undergraduate research (including Google Summer of Code) is something undergraduates do during a semester. Then, once the semester is over, the students usually do not stick around. So, if we want to publish something out of that, either we should make it a part of a larger research, or aim accordingly. We are unlikely to get an "A*" conference or Q1 journal publication without some extra work beyond that one semester of undergraduate research.

Another factor to consider when you publish is the cost. For journals, Article Processing Fee. Open Access journals charge around $2000 or more. Many journals waive that fee for corresponding authors from developing countries. But you need to check. Otherwise, stick to journals that do not ask for that fee to publish.

For conferences, you cannot skip this fee. Because for conferences, this fee also covers the conference organization and participation cost. If you submit a paper to a conference, then one of the authors must attend the conference and present the paper. Some conferences allow remote presentation - but they usually still expect the full article processing fee (which can be almost $1000). So, if you are submitting a paper to a conference, be prepared to pay for that. Usually, your university should have some fund to cover your registration. But usually they cannot cover students who are not from the same university.

If you submit your paper to a conference, even if they allow you to present remotely if you want, it is best to go to present in-person. That way, you can experience the conference in full. But then be prepared to spend for the flight tickets, hotels, and meals. Usually, the total cost for such a conference trip (as a conference usually lasts around 4 days) is around $4000 (it depends on the location and the hotel you stay, of course). Then, the visa challenges. For many researchers from the developing countries, getting a visa to Europe or US is a challenge on its own. Oftentimes, it is not worth the hassle and we end up finding conferences that are in the same country where we live or a country where we already have a visa or a visa-free access.

So, you are going to make a decision based on all these factors.