Part of the problem lies in Research Gate's way to display the information you submit to your profile. Indeed I noticed while adding abstracts and slides of conference presentations by each time indicating what they are (presentations or poster) and they then appear on my profile as "Conference Paper". I believe this is something we should report to Research Gate and pressure them to adapt their framework. In the current situation, I feel uneasy to have those pseudo conference papers displayed on my profile, but at the same time would like to communicate about my research activities...

Any idea on how to organize to get Research Gate to change that?

I totally agree with you - presenting data at a conference orally or as a poster, is simply that. It's a merit in itself, but it's not a "paper", which in my mind should be a peer-reviewed manuscript published in a recognized, scientific journal.

I think conference abstracts are of no real scientific value. Their value is simply to allow the conference participants to choose which oral and poster presentations to prioritize.

What I really dislike are so-called extended abstracts which are published in some form of conference proceedings. Both because these proceedings are usually inaccessible unless you've been at the conference yourself, but also because the authors enter a gray zone of double publication when the go on to publish the same data in a scientific paper.

This said, in my field (animal physiology and endocrinology), it is, however, sometimes possible to publish a "conference paper"! This is done by engaging a scientific journal to publish a "special issue" and then invite selected conference presenters to submit full manuscripts, reviews or original research papers. If you look at journals such as General and Comparative Endocrinology, Aquaculture, Journal of Fish Biology, you'll find issues which include such "conference papers". However, it should be noted that these papers go through the normal peer-review process of that particular journal.

Bjorn: Thanks for opening this up. To reply to your points -

I would like to see the scientific/academic community reach some sort of consensus on this issue.  It would serve to improve our professional practice, standardise output classification, ensure recognition is given where it is due, & perhaps in this context, raise the appreciation of conference activities (& burst the bubble of 'abstract publication').

Perhaps this calls for a 'taxonomy of professional outputs' to be formulated ?

Part of the problem lies in Research Gate's way to display the information you submit to your profile. Indeed I noticed while adding abstracts and slides of conference presentations by each time indicating what they are (presentations or poster) and they then appear on my profile as "Conference Paper". I believe this is something we should report to Research Gate and pressure them to adapt their framework. In the current situation, I feel uneasy to have those pseudo conference papers displayed on my profile, but at the same time would like to communicate about my research activities...

Any idea on how to organize to get Research Gate to change that?

Adrien:  I think much of this stems from the fact that presentations are maybe not given the credit they deserve. Conferences are places where we learn with/from each other. In making a contribution to this knowledge, we show our professional commitment, and also the willingness to engage with others about our work. It is a notable achievement to be selected to present orally at conferences, but as it is not a 'publication' & has no ''impact factor', then it does not tend to influence our institution's funding profile.  Thus, people get little 'credit' for what they do.

For those of us who attend conferences however, presentations are greatly appreciated, as is the opportunity to engage with the person themselves. I recently wrote a piece on how presentations could be made more 'open access', [http://www.euroscientist.com/], & perhaps this might give them more of the attention they deserve.  I am sure we all have papers in high IF journals ... that few people have read, so there has to be more than this credential to place value on our work.  Whilst some conferences ask for full papers (I don't necessarily like this practice), most of the time we simply deliver a lecture.  This in itself however, can (IMO) have more weight than an obscure journal article, but it is just ... different.  Until we (the academic/scientific community) recognise this difference however, then bodies such as RG are unlikely to be interested in changing their system.

I think this question would make a good article in itself, but I am not sure I would be brave enough to stand up in front of 500 conference delegates & tell them their emperor had no clothes on  ;-)

Conference paper also has different meaning depending on the discipline. In computer science and engineering fields, being able to present a poster and an accompanying paper is based on a rigorous peer-review (% selected is highly competitive). The long-form research article that accompanies the poster is published in the conference proceedings, is considered a peer-reviewed publication, and comes with a citation. This might be the basis for Research gate wanting its members to list 'conference papers'. 

Ravishankar: I love the way we can adopt 'different meanings' across disciplines ;-)

Presenting a long-form research paper & a poster is clearly a logical way of giving a suitable depth of information to the audience. Posters were originally intended to display a visual summary of a topic. People would see the summary, then stop & talk to the presenter, and this helped to firstly disseminate knowledge, and secondly to facilitate networking. As poster numbers grew during the mid-late 1970s, there was less capacity to see & discuss what was on offer (paradox of choice), so the idea of the IMRAD abstract was co-opted from journal articles. Not only did this lend conformity to posters, it also helped structure the work into areas where viewers wanted specific or concise detail. This gave rise to the idea that a poster is an illustrated abstract, but it is flawed in the fact that without a longer or more in-depth article (i.e. something that people can investigate further), a poster is actually an abstract of ... nothing.  Whilst most authors would be happy to write a short paper (@1000 words) to support a poster, I am not sure how many would be wiling to write a long paper, especially if it was going to have limited exposure (on-line or print). They may just head straight for the journal article. Also, conference organisers only have so much capacity to review & publish long articles, depending on the amount of presenting delegates a meeting has.

I am in favour of poster submissions being developed across the disciplines to give a greater depth of information. This could take the form of i.e. a short paper or podcast housed on-line, a structured abstract (not necessarily IMRAD) which is included in proceedings + on-line, and a poster which acts as a networking tool at the event (meet & discuss point). I think that this is 'do-able' using available technology, and it would give an expanded potential for others to see & use the presented (& funded) work. If a quality metric such as post-publication peer review, & altmetrics such as views, cites etc. are used, it would also get rid of unsupported ideas of quality & review. All of this is do-able using current technologies, but it needs a central service provision (conference organisers cannot afford & probably lack the motivation & expertise to do this individually).

The problem many people raise is that conference organisers do not have the time & capacity to quality-review the volume of papers & abstracts which get submitted to anything more than small-scale meetings (raised as early as 1990).

It is not uncommon to see 200+ posters displayed during a single session (in 2013, AGU featured 3654 posters in only 1 of 27 themed sessions [http://abstractsearch.agu.org/meetings/2013/FM.html]). In cases such as this, the idea that there is rigorous peer review is flawed: 

It is in no way argued that too much information is available or that it lacks potential quality, but rather that it needs more efficient management to be effective and useful. Then we can refer to the quality of conference presentations & papers in a more consistent & reliable manner  ;-)

Very insightful discussion that brought much clarity to the difference between a conference paper and presentation.

Many thanks,

Debra

Enlightened and well reasoned discussion.

Conference paper can initiat great journal papers

Ahmed: the research from events across a range of specialisms shows that @ 70% of conference papers (oral) & 99% of poster presentations do not actually get developed into published papers .... we have lots of hopes & good intentions, but we don't follow up on them as well as we might think :-(

Article Tracing the 'grey literature' of poster presentations: A map...

Not an expert, but it seems a 'paper' can mean different things in science, and in my opinion the various meanings are mostly all relevant on RG, just as on a CV. The only trouble is that RG does not yet appear to have all the major categories of papers, which is how I stumbled on this interesting discussion.