e-Supervision (III). Olive Mugenda. e-Supervision to support the development of doctoral studies in Africa

Notes from the workshop on Doctoral education and e-Supervision, organized by the Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP), the International Association of Universities (IAU), the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and the Kenyatta University (KU) within the project Personal Learning Environment (PLE)-PhD project financed through the IAU LEADHER programme, and held in Barcelona, Spain, in October 31, 2013. More notes on this event: plephd.

Olive Mugenda, Vice-Chancellor, Kenyatta University (KU), Kenya
e-Supervision to support the development of doctoral studies in Africa

Ensure that quality of training programmes is everywhere.

Doctoral students are often already employed at the university.

Most phds in Africa are employed at the university. It is not usual to find phds that are not at the university.

Age average of phd students is 30-50, very different from other places.

Challenges of doctoral education in Africa:

  • Shortage of phds in universities: growth of academic staff has not matched the growth of enrolment, low levels of research in some disciplines.
  • Quality of phds: quality of institution depends on the quality of the academic staff, and the quality of doctoral students depends on the quality of the supervision.
  • Low completion rates: part of it due to lack of or bad supervision.
  • Lack of international exposure of faculty: lots of inbreeding too. Quality of faculty is, to a large extent, dependent on the international exposure acquired in graduate & postdoctoral education.

Factors the impact the quality of PhDs:

  • Lack of institutional and programme policies: organization, incentives, discipline expectations, a clear supervision policy with detailed responsibilities, etc.
  • Supervision itself, that requires support and challenges.
  • Massification of higher education, high number of people globally.

e-supervision

  • To complement internal supervision and support.
  • For supervision to be more effective.
  • Connecting the supervisor and the student regardless of space.
  • Intensive use of ICTs.
  • Also in the thesis defence.

Advantages:

  • Use the services of renowned experts.
  • Increase the quality and improve the experience.
  • Productive and effective way to manage and supervise students.
  • Strengthen local research capacity and regional networking, holistic and inclusive approach, active involvement of institutions… and students themselves.
  • To extend research and employment opportunities into remote, rural and hard-to-fill locations.
  • Access to desirable research internships.
  • Minimize supervisors’ travel time.

Challenges

  • Lack of a well defined e-supervision professional code of conduct.
  • Poor e-supervisor and e-supervisee technological knowhow, access to technological infrastructures.
  • e-Supervision is costly.

Recommendations

  • Develop an e-supervision framework.
  • Define the role for e-supervisors, and the student and supervisor e-relationship.
  • Assurance of quality.
  • Remuneration of e-supervisors.
  • Institutional collaboration on e-supervision.
  • Recognition of e-supervisor work by home and beneficiary institutions.
  • Capacity building for e-supervision.

Discussion

Miquel Duran: how many time can the doctoral students allocate to their PhDs, especially the ones that “need” the PhD? Mugenda: lecturers normally have time allocated for that.

Chrissie Boughey: how do we transpose the different models of supervision of the different disciplines into e-supervision? Mugenda: regarding research methods, it is a matter of finding what is actually different and what is common. And then centralize what is common and distribute or adapt what is really different.

Hilligje van’t Land: if the e-supervisor is not from the university, how does it fit with local relevance, and with local content? Will the strategy be in line with the university’s strategy? Mugenda: this is a minor problem in comparison with the amount of students that want to do a PhD and not be able to do it. And it is also a matter of binding the e-supervisor with the university.

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Doctoral education and e-Supervision (2013)

e-Supervision (II). Ismael Peña-López. e-Supervision: framing the debate

Notes from the workshop on Doctoral education and e-Supervision, organized by the Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP), the International Association of Universities (IAU), the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and the Kenyatta University (KU) within the project Personal Learning Environment (PLE)-PhD project financed through the IAU LEADHER programme, and held in Barcelona, Spain, in October 31, 2013. More notes on this event: plephd.

Ismael Peña-López, lecturer and researcher, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC)
e-Supervision: framing the debate

We can define four stages in technology adoption:

  1. During appropriation people get to know what new technologies are out there, they learn how to use them, they master them… but not necessarily use them or use them in a specific environment and for a specific purpose. E.g. learn that text editors exist, learn how to use them, but still use typewritters.
  2. In the adaptation phase, old technologies are replaced by the new ones, but just to perform exactly the same tasks, routines, processes. E.g. typewritters are thrown away, but text editors are used to type the very same letters. The cost of using a new technology is clearly here an expenditure, as no major benefits appear.
  3. Improvement happens when benefits begin to overrun the cost of using new technologies. Here, costs are investments that pay back in the medium and long term. E.g. text editors are used intensively allowing for thorough edition (copying, pasting, formatting, etc.), tracking changes and versions, passing documents along (by e-mail, that is, another concurring technology) so that they can be commented, reedited, etc.
  4. Last, and most important, transformation implies that the whole process is though (almost) from scratch, deploying the full potential of new technologies to redesign processes and tasks. E.g. documents begin not with an original from a single person, but collaborative tools come in place (like wikis, pads or the like) where everyone can contribute at the same time, with no need for centralization, no need for preset structures, etc.

e-Supervision can be described in this framework. Thus, there is not a single definition of what e-Supervision is, but a continuum of definitions as e-Supervision itself evolves from adaptation to improvement, and from improvement to transformation (and including a phase 0 of adoption, which is by the way most needed).

  1. During appropriation e-supervision is, actually, supervision. Period. Everyone is using technology, but not for supervision purposes.
  2. In the adaptation e-supervision can be defined as electronic supervision as traditional tasks (meetings, reviews) are done with the help of technology: videoconferences, support of digital documents. This phase is needed because it bridges both worlds (supervision with e-supervision) but has to be quickly overcome, as the cost of the change of technology does not come with any evident benefit.
  3. Improvement happens when these benefits of e-Supervision imply an evolution, an evolved supervision. Tracking changes, control version, creation of communities of practice and communities of learning within (or with-out) learning management systems… even xMOOCs can imply several opportunities for improvement of old practices.
  4. Last, and most important, transformation is rethinking e-supervision (almost) from scratch. It’s about enhanced supervision, deploying all the potential of research 2.0, connectivist MOOCs, peer-to-peer assessment, e-portfolios, personal learning environments. That is, rethinking the whole research and supervision practice, now taking into account not only tools, but the concurrence of other actors, of new roles (and responsibilities

[click here to enlarge]

Downloads:

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Prezi slides:
Peña-López, I. (2013). e-Supervision: Framing the Debate. Workshop within the LEADHER PLEDS Project at the Open Univeristy of Catalonia, 31 October 2013.
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Prezi slides as PDF:
Peña-López, I. (2013). e-Supervision: Framing the Debate. Workshop within the LEADHER PLEDS Project at the Open Univeristy of Catalonia, 31 October 2013.

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Doctoral education and e-Supervision (2013)

e-Supervision (I). Opening Session

Notes from the workshop on Doctoral education and e-Supervision, organized by the Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP), the International Association of Universities (IAU), the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and the Kenyatta University (KU) within the project Personal Learning Environment (PLE)-PhD project financed through the IAU LEADHER programme, and held in Barcelona, Spain, in October 31, 2013. More notes on this event: plephd.

Hilligje van’t Land, Director, Membership and Programme Development, IAU

There is a dire need for real phds, in Africa or elsewhere, virtual or not.

There also is a need to collaborate, to innovate in the field of how to foster brand new research and how to support the new research done by PhD students.

Added to that, there is a need for research networks: it is important to note that supervision is also part of being a network.

A very important challenge is how to provide technical support, how to bring into research ethical dimensions, or how to lead the administrative changes that have to accompany the changes in research and in supervision.

But most important of all, beyond theories, we have to see how to put e-supervision into practice, to make it happen.

Marta Aymerich, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC)

One of the keys of research and PhD is supervision. It is not a trivial matter and thus needs being addressed properly.

ICTs have provided very powerful in knowledge related tasks. We thus need to leverage the power of ICTs in research in general and in supervision in particular.

We need to discuss the structures in place for doctoral education.

Olive Mugenda, Vice-Chancellor, Kenyatta University (KU), Kenya

There is a dire need for research and for PhDs.

We especially need to train the trainers, people that will earn their own PhDs so that they can supervise/train others.

The whole process needs to be accountable, in general terms of performance, but especially in terms of ensuring quality.

We can’t keep the old model of supervision, we have to open up supervision.

We have to change paradigm, get out of old way of thinking and foster e-supervision.

Jaume Casals, Vice-Chancellor, Universitat Pompeu Fabra in representation of the Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP)

PhDs are the jewel of the crown, thus we have to harvest them with care.

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Doctoral education and e-Supervision (2013)

e-Research: social media for social sciences (revisited)

On February 15, 2012, I am speaking at a research seminar at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute on how to use online tools on the process of doing research. This is a very slightly modified version of a former seminar that I did back in January — e-Research: social media for social sciences —, so all the things that were said there apply here: RSS feeds (and a feed reader) are your best friends, a personal website is not an option, adopt tools as you need them (not all of them in a row and without a sense of purpose), and be digital.

Since I began my crusade for the adoption of web 2.0 tools (now social media) to enhance research, I have evolved from the “you do need all this stuff” motto to “you do not need all this stuff… but a couple of things are a must”. So, I would really like to stress a couple of points:

  1. In a knowledge society, ICTs are a must. They are a train that you cannot let pass: you will either jump in or you will be crushed under its wheels, but there is no stepping aside. This especially applies for knowledge workers (e.g. scientists). Some people still see the use of some tools (blogs, twitter, RSS feeds) in science as rocket science: this is not even wrong. ICTs are to scientists what tractors are to farmers. Of course you can live without them, but it is very likely that you will be working with less efficiency and less efficacy.
  2. Yes, mastering ICTs and those always changing social media require a certain degree of digital competence, which is not innate and, thus, has to be acquired. As the Spanish saying says: there are neither hurries, nor pauses. But lack of digital competence should not stop you from trying to use social media for research (“those ain’t for me”), the same way you began with your elementary maths to end up calculating multinomial logistic regressions.
  3. Be digital. Just be it. If you are duplicating your tasks, you are not being digital (enough). Social media is about leveraging what you already did on your computer by putting it online. Your papers, your slides, your notes, your readings… if they’re on digital support, they can be online with minimum effort (if they ere not on digital support, please see point #1). I tend to say that e-Research is about making your “digital life” overlap 90% of your “analogue life”. There is an added 10% extra work, indeed, but it is worth doing it compared to benefits.

[click here to enlarge]

Downloads:

logo of Prezi presentation
Prezi slides:
Peña-López, I. (2011). e-Research: social media for social sciences. Research seminar at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute. February 15, 2012. Barcelona: ICTlogy.
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Slides as a PDF:
Peña-López, I. (2011). e-Research: social media for social sciences. Research seminar at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute. February 15, 2012. Barcelona: ICTlogy.
logo of PDF file
Book chapter:
Peña-López, I. (2009). “The personal research portal”. In Hatzipanagos, S. & Warburton, S. (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Social Software and Developing Community Ontologies, Chapter XXVI, 400-414. Hershey: IGI Global.

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e-Research: social media for social sciences

On January 12, 2012, I spoke at a research seminar on how to benefit from the use of social media to enhance research, both in the stage of being aware of the advancement of one’s discipline, and in the stage of diffusing one’s own research production.

The seminar had three different parts.

During the first part, I provided an introduction to social media, where I mainly explained the main ways that information can be shared (and, thus, also monitored): RSS feeds, widgets and open APIs. Put short, RSS feeds share preset bits of information (e.g. an article, a list of articles, etc.), widgets share preset bits of information plus a preset way of presenting it (a list of last tweets you can embed on a website, a like button, etc.) and open APIs allow an external user to ask a database for customized collections of data (e.g. put on a map the last tweets on a given subject).

During the second part — the core of the seminar — I went through an imaginary typical research process, from the moment one has an idea that wants to explore until the research is over and a research output can be presented. I draw two parallel timelines where I complemented the traditional way of doing research (on the right in the presentation) and how this could be enhanced with social media (on the left in the presentation). I stressed the idea that social media is a complement and never a substitute of the traditional ways of doing research. That is, tweeting about a topic or writing on an academic blog should not stop anyone from attending conferences or writing academic papers.

The last part of the seminar was a debate about the pros and cons of using social media to do research.

There are four points I would like to highlight from that debate and that were directly or indirectly asked to me during our talk.

  1. What is the basic, fundamental tool: RSS feeds. Period. It is for me very important to be aware of the fact that, with the help of RSS feeds, you don’t have to look for information, but information will get to you. And this is a significant leap in reaching higher stages of efficiency and efficacy in managing information.
  2. If you are a knowledge worker and you are not present in the information landscape, you are not. Having a personal/research group/research project website is not an option, but a must.
  3. Where to start from? It depends. Begin with a part of your research. If you are in the stage of gathering information, set up a monitoring/listening strategy: identify your actors and subscribe to their blogs, twitter accounts, slideshare accounts, etc. If you are in the stage of diffusing your research production, set up a diffusion strategy, upload your papers and slides, comment on others’ websites (pointing back to yours, etc.). Managing efficiently your bibliography (i.e. with a bibliographic manager) is also a way to begin managing your own information/knowledge.
  4. Think digital, be digital. e-Research is not about adding a digital layer, and, thus, adding an extra amount of work, but about changing your working paradigm, about levering all the work you are already doing on digital support.

Following you can find and download the slides I used. You can also download a book chapter where I explain in detail the building of a Personal Research Portal. There is a collection I maintain, The Personal Research Portal: related works which gathers everything I have written or said about this topic.

[click here to enlarge]

Downloads:

logo of Prezi presentation
Prezi slides:
Peña-López, I. (2011). e-Research: social media for social sciences. Research seminar at the Open University of Catalonia. January 12, 2012. Barcelona: ICTlogy.
logo of PDF file
Slides as a PDF:
Peña-López, I. (2011). e-Research: social media for social sciences. Research seminar at the Open University of Catalonia. January 12, 2012. Barcelona: ICTlogy.
logo of PDF file
Book chapter:
Peña-López, I. (2009). “The personal research portal”. In Hatzipanagos, S. & Warburton, S. (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Social Software and Developing Community Ontologies, Chapter XXVI, 400-414. Hershey: IGI Global.

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Social network analysis: new forms of knowledge visualization

Live notes at the eResearch seminar by Tíscar Lara, Mariluz Congosto and José Luis Molina entitled Análisis de redes sociales: nuevas formas de visualización del conocimiento (Social network analysis: new forms of knowledge visualization). Citilab, Cornellà de Llobregat (Barcelona), Spain, June 17th, 2009.

See also e-research tag.

A collaborative experience to visualize social networks
Tíscar Lara, Mariluz Congosto

Blog analysis based on journalists that have a blog, as a middle ground between pro and personal. Of special interest how is the identity built: Identity building: domain name, about section, personal photography, affiliation, etc.

The network of blogs gets complicated with other Web 2.0 services. There’s a need to manage the increasing data with a model: Barriblog.

The model is based on two axes — content affinity and intensiveness of relationship — and measures links, conversations/comments and citations, adding them up in a relationship index.

Improvements on the model: time series, how have other web 2.0 applications (e.g. Twitter) impacted on blog usage and blog networking, etc.

[click here to enlarge]

How to visualize?

  • Content
  • Time
  • Maps
  • Relationships

(see also: Gathering of visualization tools)

Visualizing Transnationality
José Luis Molina

How can we map transnationality? Focusing on flows; focusing on active contacts with people with the same origin; focusing in the geographical distribution of all active contacts.

For instance, a visualization of Chinese immigration in the Barcelona metropolitan area shows that there’s more relationship with the country of origin (China) or the US, than within immigrants; that immigrants mainly settle in Barcelona and have poor relationship with Catalan rural areas; and that within Barcelona, they move around relatively few places. Visualization allows immediate glance to these facts while raw data does not.

Many ethical issues arise in an ether that covers all, where everything we do is registered/tracked.

Use visualization to make better research questions, to get qualitative observations after quantitative data.

NOTE: difficult session where to take notes, as everything was so… visual.

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e-Research: opportunities and challenges for social sciences (2009)