The university of Ghana School of Graduate Studies and the UG-Carnegie Next Generation of Academics in Africa (UG-CNGAA) project organized a two-day Knowledge and Skills Enhancement workshop on the topic ‘Planning and Management of Graduate Research’ on the 29th and 30th of September, 2014 at the Center for African Wetlands to introduce graduate researchers to the rules and procedures involved in doing graduate research.
The workshop chaired by Prof. Kwodwo Ofori Dean of School of Graduate Studies is part of an ongoing drive by the University of Ghana and Carnegie Corporation of New York to boost the number graduate scholars particularly PhD’s who can be integrated into faculty. Prof. Ofori raised some concerns on quality of theses being presented to the graduate school. He mentioned some of the weaknesses in areas like research topic relevance, relevance of research reviewed, poor research methodology, lack of detailed data collection poor data analysis, poor presentation of results among others. The first day of the workshop saw number of presentations by established researchers and faculty on various aspects of research work.
Prof. Chris Gordon Director of the Institute of Environment and Sanitation Studies (IESS) took participants through research Ethics. He said that research was about adding to knowledge while also acknowledging work done previously. Poor data collection practices he said make it difficult for work to be replicated. He noted that some graduate researchers become lazy and resort to quick ways to complete their work which some times included ‘parachuting’ research data from previously done work. He advised up and coming researchers to stay clear of knowingly or mistakenly copying other people’s works. He told participants that ethics was of utmost importance in any scholarly endeavor particularly in the area of data collection and literature review.
“In the world we live in, as academics our reputation is our currency,plagiarism discredits not just a person’s work but also their reputation,” he said.
Ms. Theodosia Adanu, the Senior Assistant Librarian gave a talk on accessing Online academic databases for research. She took participants through registration and access of the upgraded UG online Library as well as the Carnegie sponsored research commons for graduate research. She also introduced participants to the various journals subscribed by the university. She explained that often, simple random searches may not turn out the desired material needed and showed participants how to use key words and related terms to retrieve information from the database.
Dr. Rosina Kyeremanteng coordinator for the insect science program ARPEX made a presentation on field research methods. She said that researchers often faced the temptation to be selective and generalize findings due to various often-unexpected challenges in the field. She said fieldwork often involved a multi approach in order to ensure that right breadth and depth were covered. Said field research was expensive and involved lots of preparation. She said field research required courage and dedication due to the costs involved and willingness to risk in order to make certain that one’s work was thorough.
On the second day of the workshop, participants were split up into groups depending on their field of study. Each group was assigned a handler who led participants in research topic discussions. Participants were each given the opportunity to share their research ideas and were later given a period for questions and suggestions from their colleagues.
After the workshop Dr. Rosina Kyeremanteng revealed that in her experience as a supervisor she observed that it was often difficult for graduate researchers to get the right project to undertake or be a part of.
“Sometimes students choose research areas that are almost impossible to undertake. Some of these topics are just not feasible under the conditions within which the they have to do their work,” she said.
She said the skills enhancement workshop was a good way to prepare prospective researchers for the task ahead. She also remarked that it was important that students ensured their topics were relevant and also that funding was available to enable them complete their work on schedule.