Announcements

MDPI Thailand held an author training session at the Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, on 28 August 2024. Such training sessions aim to provide authors with a comprehensive understanding of MDPI’s publishing process, writing skills, and usage of AI in publishing. By equipping authors with these essential skills, MDPI seeks to empower them to excel in their studies and actively contribute to the academic community.

At the beginning of the session, Assist. Prof. Sarayut Supsook, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, gave an opening speech and welcomed speakers from MDPI. He thanked the publisher for sharing valuable insights. He emphasized the importance of these sessions, especially for Ph.D. students, as they offer essential knowledge for their academic and professional growth. The Dean encouraged everyone to make the most of the training, recognizing its significance for future research endeavors. Additionally, Assist. Prof. Sarayut Supsook exchanged gifts with Dr. Janenipa Saupsor, the Deputy Office Manager of MDPI Thailand, as a token of appreciation.

Following this, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sutee Anantsuksomsri, the Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, began his opening speech by expressing gratitude to MDPI for organizing the author training program. He emphasized the importance of a smooth publication process, noting that it is critical for the faculty's researchers. He highlighted that this event is particularly valuable as it equips attendees with the knowledge and guidance needed to publish their research as quickly and effectively as possible. The Deputy Dean also shared his personal experience of publishing with MDPI, stating that it was a positive experience. He emphasized that this event represents a great opportunity for everyone involved to advance their research and publication efforts. He concluded by thanking MDPI once again and underscored the significance of this event for both individual researchers and the faculty.

In the first presentation, Dr. Janenipa Saupsor, the deputy office manager of MDPI Thailand, shared insights into MDPI’s journey from its establishment in 1996 to becoming a leading open access academic publisher today. She highlighted MDPI’s global presence and its commitment to providing free access to scientific discoveries through over 400 scientific journals. In addition, she introduced relevant journals such as Buildings, Smart Cities, and Sustainability, which are helpful for choosing the best-suited journals to publish research papers in the field.

The second session, “How to Write Scientific Papers in English”, was led by Dr. Nithinan Sawettanai, a member of MDPI’s Editorial Processing Committee. She began by explaining the step before manuscript preparation: conducting a literature search and reading to ensure the originality of ideas. Moving on to the main content, she outlined the three basic structures of a manuscript published in MDPI: front matter, main text, and back matter. She provided several good examples and remarks on each section of the manuscript. Additionally, she mentioned the English Language Editing and Figure Editing services offered by MDPI Author Services, which are professional, convenient, and time-saving for authors when preparing their manuscripts.

Afterward, Dr. Supattra Panthai, the Managing Editor of the journal Populations, shared “How to respond to Peer Reviewers”. She covered various aspects of the open access publishing model and MDPI’s reviewer model. She engaged the audience, finding that several attendees, including Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sutee, had experience as MDPI authors and reviewers. Thereafter, she explained the MDPI editorial process, detailing the types of revision decisions—accept, minor revision, major revision, or reject—and their meanings. She also shared practical tips for responding to reviewers and provided insights into the types of questions authors might encounter during revision. In closing, she encouraged the audience to stay persistent, open-minded, and professional in their response to reviewers.

The final presentation, “Artificial Intelligence in Scientific Publishing”, was given by Dr. Kamolchanok Deesrisak, the Scientific Advisor of the journal Healthcare. This session began with an overview of artificial intelligence (AI) from various perspectives, followed by an updated model, "Generative AI (Gen AI)", and its capabilities. She explained the connection between Gen AI's performance and its applications in scientific publishing, highlighting both its benefits and potential challenges. ChatGPT and Gemini were used as examples. Afterward, she provided the audiences with the MDPI's guidelines on the use of AI for both authors and reviewers, as well as the challenges in academic publishing. Before closing the session, she introduced some AI tools developed by MDPI’s AI team, designed to enhance processes and services for both internal and external users.

The presentations sparked high engagement among the participants, evident from the enthusiastic participation in the Q&A session and private discussions with the speakers afterward. The audience asked questions about manuscript writing, similarity checking, the peer review process, the tone of responses to reviewers, disagreement with reviewers’ comments, self-citation issues, and AI-assisted manuscript writing (limitations or publisher ethics and regulations). Upon the session’s conclusion, the participants reflected on their learning, demonstrating a clear understanding of the session’s content.

Finally, MDPI would like to extend its heartfelt thanks to the university professors, speakers, and all participants for their valuable contributions to making this event a success. Their dedication and enthusiasm are greatly appreciated.

Please do not hesitate to start a conversation with us at [email protected] if you would like to hold an author training session with MDPI in Thailand.