Issues within article publication among the postgraduate students

Abstract

One of the requirements that the master and doctoral students should fulfill in Indonesia is related to article published as part of their graduation requirement. Many master and doctoral students have difficulties whenever they have to deal with this requirement with regards to the statement. As a result, when the master and doctoral students have completed their dissertation, they are unable to publish their articles. In contrast, their article should be published since article publication has been required for their graduation. Therefore, through this study, the researchers would like to describe the master and doctoral students publishing their articles and the difficulties these students should deal with when they compose their scientific articles.  In conducting the study, the method that had been adopted was the qualitative method using the phenomenology approach. The data were collected from master and doctoral students throughout 15 universities in the Java Island by means of questionnaire distribution, interview, and virtual focused group discussion; in total, the number of the respondents was 22 people. After the data had been gathered, the data were analyzed by using the procedures of Bogdan Biklen. Then, the results of the study show that: (1) the policy of article publication for the master and doctoral students are different in adjustment with the needs of the respective university; (2) the learning process of article composition within the university has been performed by holding the course and/or the coaching clinic of article composition; (3) the intensive involvement into the article composition by academic advisors should be prioritized for the master and doctoral students since the article composition demands the engagement of the academic advisors; and (4) the difficulties that the master and doctoral students should deal with in article publication cover: (a) defining the art of state; (b) developing ideas; (c) reviewing results and discussions; (d) looking latest references; (e) adjusting templates; (f) adjusting themselves to the use of foreign language; and (g) starting to compose their article.