Instructions for Conference Planners

Conference Abstract Book Template

You can download a copy of the URNCST Journal conference abstract book template here. Please do not alter the formatting or fonts that have been provided, as they have been specifically adjusted to expedite the typesetting process. To ensure that your submissions comply with URNCST Journal formatting, please download either the structured or unstructured abstract template and upload it directly to your website. Note: If you are unable to download the files, please re-try using the Firefox browser and/or try these backup links: abstract book template, structured abstract template, unstructured abstract template.

Submission Process

All conference abstract books must be submitted online by one of the authors of the book, and should not be submitted by anyone on their behalf. The submitting author (likely the primary conference planner) takes full responsibility for the conference abstract book during submission.

Effective January 2021: The URNCST Journal will publish the abstract book of any undergraduate science or technology research conference or case competition free of charge! If you are a conference planner and wish to publish your event's abstract book in the journal, please contact the editor directly at editor@urncst.com for full terms and conditions.

To expedite the publication of your conference abstract book, please ensure that you read these submission instructions very carefully to ensure that the manuscript adheres to the URNCST Journal formatting guidelines.

At the URNCST Journal, we understand that many undergraduate research projects are sometimes a portion of a graduate student or professor’s larger study, and publishing your work in the URNCST Journal does not prevent you from publishing overlapping work in another journal the future. All abstracts are published with the understanding that the conference’s planning committee had provided sufficient instruction to authors regarding whether abstracts may be re-published if they have already been published elsewhere, and both conference planning committee members and authors should be aware that other research journals may not allow for overlapping publication.

File Formats:

Please submit your manuscript in Microsoft Word format only (DOC, DOCX).

Conference abstract books submitted to the URNCST Journal should contain the following sections:

Title page

Abstract

Keywords

Table of Contents

Conference Abstracts

Conflicts of Interest

Authors’ Information

Acknowledgements

Funding

Title Page

The Title Page should provide the 1) full title of the conference including the year and/or nth time the conference has been held, 2) full names, institutional affiliations and addresses, and email addresses for all conference abstract book authors, 3) an indication of the corresponding author. Only the first letter of the first word of the title and after each colon, and proper nouns should be capitalized. Please do not use abbreviations in your title. Authorship should be assigned based on the recommendations made by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE); individuals who do not meet authorship criteria should instead be listed in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript.

Title

The Title should include the full title of the conference including the year/nth time the conference has been held.

Abstract

The Abstract should not exceed 200 words and may contain any pertinent details relating to the conference such as the location, theme, categories of submissions (i.e. oral, poster, etc.), and any relevant conference resources readers can access (i.e. website).

Keywords

Provide three to ten keywords representing the main content of the conference abstract book, each keyword separated by a semicolon (i.e. cancer; biology; genomics).

The Table of Contents should include conference abstracts organized by subheadings based upon how your conference is organized (i.e. oral vs. poster presentations, 1^st year vs. 2^nd year presenters, biology vs. chemistry submissions, etc.) This section should exist alone on its own page.

Conference Abstracts

All conference abstracts should be organized in a word document in accordance with the Conference Abstract Book Template. All abstracts should contain a full title, list of authors and their affiliations, and the abstract text. Individual abstracts may be accompanied with a table, figure or illustration if deemed necessary, however, this is discouraged. While a section editor from the URNCST Journal will be assigned to the abstract book submission, please note that your conference planning committee is responsible for the content (including peer-review) of all of your abstracts. A line on the first page of the published conference abstract book will read the following: “These abstracts have been reproduced directly from the material supplied by the authors, without editorial alteration by the staff of the URNCST Journal. Insufficiencies of preparation, grammar, spelling, style, syntax, and usage are the authors.”

Conflicts of Interest

The “Conflicts of Interest” section should declare any real, potential, or perceived conflicts of interest between the duties or responsibilities related to research, and personal, institutional or other interests associated with each conference abstract book author. A conflict of interest can exist when an author’s interpretation of data or presentation of information may be influenced by their personal or financial relationship with other people or organizations. If all authors have no conflicts of interest, please state “The author(s) declare that they have no conflicts of interest.” In any case, please explicitly state which authors do and do not have conflicts of interest so that this is made clear to the reader.

Authors' Contributions

Please outline the contributions made by each author using the following format, where each author is referred to by their initials:

ABC: founded the 1st annual conference in science and technology, served as a planning committee for the conference, drafted the conference abstract booklet, and gave final approval of the version to be published.

DEF: served as a planning committee for the conference, assisted authors with their abstract submissions, and gave final approval of the version to be published.

GHI: served as a planning committee for the conference, reviewed the abstract submissions and ensured that they adhered to correct formatting standards, and gave final approval of the version to be published.

If a contributor did not meet the criteria for authorship, they should be listed in the Acknowledgements section.

Acknowledgments

Please acknowledge anyone who contributed towards the conference planning but did not meet the criteria for authorship. Examples of such contributors include those who provided purely technical help, formatting assistance, a department chair who provided only general support, or those who contributed as part of a large collaboration group. Authors should obtain permission to acknowledge all those mentioned in the Acknowledgements section.

Funding

Please include all funding sources associated with your conference.