GESR Journal Club Description

Description

GESR Journal Club is a regularly reoccurring scientific meeting, that is organized through GESR by one or more of its scientific committees or of its active members. This meeting should encompass a presentation by one of GESR members about a scientific topic, that he/she has any expertise in. This scientific topic should not be so broad to be introductory, on the contrary, it should leave the audience at the state of the art in the presented field of research, but starting from the common background of the audience.  

For a Journal Club presenting a research topic alone is not satisfactory, but developing the critical thinking about science and scientific thinking is the main issue. Therefore, putting the literature in critique is a major element in this meeting. Moreover, questions from other backgrounds and disciplines are more than welcome, not only because interdisciplinary research is very welcomed nowadays, but also because this broadens the vision of the presenter as well as for the audience.  

In summary, science is developed not because of the current broad knowledge, but due to the emerged scientific thinking in the medieval centuries. As we trying to build a bridge between the East, i.e. Egypt, and the West, i.e. Germany, we also understand that we have inherited the scientific method and philosophy from the Arabic Islamic civilization as well as from the modern scientific community, which is perfectly represented in the German one. 

Aim 

The aim of the Journal club can be represented in three main points - Presenting the state of the art in each research field, - Encouraging the scientific critical thinking through the afterwards discussion, and - Encouraging the interdisciplinary discussion. 

Club Management 

• The Journal Club meeting should occur monthly on first moday from 19:00 to 20:30 O'oclock.
•  The responsible member/committee should be nominated for a given time period in the general  meeting of GESR. 
• The responsible member/ committee should announce the upcoming event one month in advance,  and receive requests for presentation from GESR members not later than one month in advance. 
• The presenter should supply the presentation title , a brief agenda and a two-page summary one  week at most from the event itself.  As soon as the title is received, the responsible member should  announce the upcoming Journal Club meeting one week before the event. 
• The summary should consist of the research question, methodology, the significance of the  undertaken research and the drawn conclusions. The methodology will be additionally discussed  through the meeting from an epistemological point of view. 
• The announcement should include the title, presenter name and affiliation, brief agenda and the  timing of the event activities (presentation time, discussion, etc), in addition to the meeting online  link (e.g. on Zoom). 
• The chairman of the event could be nominated by the responsible member or to be him/herself. 
• The presentation should be recorded and made available afterwards, unless the presenter refused.  In the latter case, the presenter will be welcomed to provide GESR with the presentation slides  instead. 
• All communication regarding the journal club should be conducted on info@GESR-eV.de

Documentation and Dissemination 

In order to enhance the value of such an event, every event should be documented, either as a video  clip, as a presentation in addition to the aforementioned brief summary. 

The result of several  meetings should be reported in GESR Scientific Journal. In addition, each contribution will be  published with a doi number to facilitate an online access to it. Moreover, an outstanding presentation will be promoted to be done on a wider audience, and to be  supported by GESR to be taken into consideration in global contests or scientific events, where it  would be regarded as a scientific representative of GESR scientific activity. 

Also, the best  presentation in every 6 months will be selected and the presenter(s) will be nominated as the  presenter of the year. 

Announcement 

The Journal Club meeting should be announced according to mentioned regulation. 

Suggested Outline for each presentation 

1. Why this research work?  
2. Problem statement 
3. Background of the problem/ research question. 
4. Aims of the study 
5. Methodology 
6. Results 
7. Conclusions and significance. 
8. Assessment of paper 
9. Discussion of the used methodology.