Annual Research Session (ARS FoEOU-2025)

About the Event

The Annual Research Sessions-Faculty of Education, OUSL – 2025 (ARS FoEOU-2025) will be held on February 6, 2025. ARS FoEOU-2025 offers a unique forum for faculty members and students to present and discuss their research findings.

Research Session Themes: 

1 – Early Childhood and Primary Education
2 – Special Needs Education
3 – Educational Leadership and Management
4 – Assessment and Evaluation
5 – Curriculum Development and Designing
6 – Adult, Lifelong and Distance Education
7 – Educational Technology
8 – Creative Arts

Date: 06.02.2025
Time: 11.00 am onwards
Venue: Faculty of Education, The Open University of Sri Lanka, Nawala, Nugegoda.


Call for Extended Abstracts

The Faculty of Education at the Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) invites all students and academics enrolled in PhD and MPhil programs, as well as those who have those who have successfully completed their research projects in the MEd, MEd-SNE, or BEd programs, to submit extended abstracts for the ARS FoEOU-2025.
Extended abstracts will be published in the online proceedings of the ARS FoEOU-2025.
Submissions can be either in English, Sinhala, or Tamil.

Important Dates:

* Call for Extended Abstracts  – 05.09.2024

Submissions will be accepted till 30.10.2024
Deadline for submission of Abstracts is 30.10.2024

* Notification of Acceptance of Extended Abstracts 

Once accepted, the corresponding authors will be notified by 1st week of December 2024.
The extended abstract together with reviewer comments will be made available to the authors

* Registration – January 1-15 2025

After submitting the extended abstract, author/s must complete and sign the author declaration form (LINK)
Please scan the signed form and email it to the arsfoe@ousl.lk


Submission Guidelines

Guidelines for Authors

An extended abstract should contain references, comparisons to related work, key theories, and other details found in an extended paper. Thus, an extended abstract is more than a long abstract. It should clearly specify theoretical and empirical gaps that the researcher is addressing, a concise review of seminal work, a brief description of the methodology used, results obtained, the expected contributions(s) to theory and practice, and the conclusion resulting from the study.

The elements of your extended abstract can be organized in the following order listed:

Title
Author(s)
Affiliation
Introduction
Main Body Text (including a concise review of extent literature methodology, findings, discussion, and summary sections)
References

Title/Authors

Include a brief, informative title for the extended abstract. The title should be pre-formatted in the correct style (Initial Caps, 18-pt. Times New Roman boldface, left-justified). Immediately beneath your title, type the last name with initials of the author(s) in Times New Roman 12-pt. bold type, left-justified.

Below the names of the author(s), state his/her affiliation(s) and complete mailing address(es) in regular body text in 12-pt font.

Introduction

The introduction of your extended abstract should state the nature of research gaps you are addressing and why you are studying it. It should provide background information about the work and its significance, while highlighting other relevant literature and specifying how it relates or differs from your work. You should also discuss the scope and limitations of your study in the introduction.

Body

The body of your extended abstract should follow the introduction and should include methodology, results, discussion, and the directions for future research. The methodology section should be descriptive enough that the reader can identify what was done. References to methodology are appropriate. The findings and discussion sections may be combined. Within the body of your extended abstract, you can apply as many first-, second-, and third-level headings as you need.

References

References should be cited within your extended abstract using APA 7th (American Psychological Association) style. Examples of reference formats are given here. For additional information on formatting references, refer to the seventh edition of the publication manual of the American Psychological Association.

Extended Abstract Length

Extended abstracts should be at least three pages, but not more than five pages in length including the references. Word limit is 1500 – 2,000 words.

Using Predefined Styles

The style elements identified in this section have been defined for you to lend consistency to the group of papers that comprises the conference proceedings. Times New Roman is the preferred font type.

Use the following levels of this font type to describe the different sections of your extended abstract:

Title: 18-point Times New Roman Bold

Author: 12-Point Times New Roman Bold

Heading 1: 14-POINT TIMES NEW ROMAN BOLD, ALL CAPS

Heading 2: 14-Point Times New Roman Bold

Heading 3: 12-Point Times New Roman Bold

Normal: 12-point Times New Roman

Margins

Use 1-inch margins for top, bottom, left and right margins. Text should be left-justified. All pages should include a page number on the bottom right corner of the page. The number should be in “Normal” font style (12-pt Times New Roman).

Line Spacing

Line spacing should be single (0 before and 0 after), leave 1 line space between headings and body text, body text and next heading; and between paragraphs.

Tables

Tables must be created using the Microsoft Word table functions and included as part of the text immediately after the first point of reference. DO NOT place them at the end of your extended abstract. For improved readability, keep your tables as simple as possible.

Table 1. Table Header

* Bulleted and numbered lists should be created by using the word processing toolbar functions for these items.

 

Any explanations of table data should immediately follow the table and be formatted as plain body text. DO NOT include table explanations within tables. Notations and references, such as superscript letters and number notations, are acceptable within the table and a legend describing notations should follow directly beneath the table.

Figures

Figures include charts, graphs, and drawings. All figures and other graphics should be embedded, or electronically placed, within the text immediately after the first point of reference. DO NOT place them on separate pages at the end of your extended abstract.

Figures must be labeled properly using Times New Roman 12-pt bold font, with the X and Y axes clearly labeled, and include a legend as appropriate. The figure title should be Times New Roman 12-pt, bold font and appear immediately below the figure (centered).

Authors are requested to submit extended abstracts in electronic form (MS-Word) using the following email …………………..

The extended abstract will be read by a panel of anonymous reviewers as the basis for acceptance of the paper for presentation. If you have any queries about extended abstract format or submission, please contact:

Dr Ayomi I. Irugalbandara
Session Chair/ARS FoEOU-2025
aiiru@ou.ac.lk
Mobile – 0704348448


Copyright and Open Access Policy

Extended abstracts will be published in the online proceedings of the ARS FoEOU-2025 and adopts an open-access policy, thus providing immediate access to its content openly and freely to the public.

All published extended abstracts will be published under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC BY-SA 4.0) License (See https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ ). While the Open University of Sri Lanka retains the copyright as the publisher, the content will be free to download, re-distribute, and adapt, as long as the original author/s and ARS FoEOU-2025 attributed, and the derivative is released under CC-BY-SA license


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