MSc Professional Project: Publishing Your Thesis

We understand that many students have a strong desire to have their results and/or thesis published in scientific journals or healthcare institutions, as this can hugely benefit the profile of the student in their professional field. Please see our guidance below regarding Learna's policies on this.

Authorship

The established practice is that you, the student, are the first author and your supervisor is 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 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.

Personal Details

Please use your current employment details/address. The tutor/supervisor can use both their professional practice address or:

University of South Wales,

Pontypridd,

CF371DL.

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 you. 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.

Publishing Before Marking/Graduation

Please be advised that students are allowed to go forward with publications prior to the submission deadline of their Professional Project. This would, indeed, add additional strength to the project if a student could demonstrate that they already have results published, and this would not infer the potential mark in any way. However, you will not be penalised for not publishing your project.

Please note: all ethical requirements must be officially in place and granted prior to publication, whereby a statement is provided to illustrate that the work 'was undertaken towards the requirements of an MSc in [Subject] at the University of South Wales' as indicated above.

Should you require any further information with regards to this at all, please do not hesitate to contact the Student Services team, who will be happy to assist, or contact the relevant teams if necessary on your behalf.