Creating Postgraduate Collaborations › Forums › CPC Supervision Development Course 2 › Module 2 › Module 2, Session 2: Scholarly community of practice
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Please share your responses to any of the following questions. Let’s start a conversation.
- What is a scholar in your view? What does scholarship mean to you?
- What does it mean to be active in an academic community?
- How can you introduce your students into this community? Is this part of the role of the supervisor?
- What might a PG supervisor’s support network provide? How can such a network be built?
- Have you had experience of academic jealousies? What were the effects and was it resolved? How can you contribute to a more respectful and generous support network?
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A scholar is an academician with expertise and knowledge in a certain field. Scholarship is important for me because it keeps me motivated to achieve the best and keep improving my knowledge in my discipline
Being active in the academic community means that we are always networking with the different players to achieve different goals. these could be research oriented. Support in terms of supervision and examination. Publishing and disseminating research findings and comming up with new innovations. it also involves collaboration with professional organisations so that we keep abreast and stay relevant to meet society’s needs.
Students can be introduced to the academic community through research projects and collaborations with variuous organisations
A supervisor support network is important because it it through these networks that one is able to collaborate on various issues including projects that they can use to engage post graduate students. It is also through these networks that supervisors can get new experiences in terms of methodologies and skills. Such networks can be built through joint projects, conferences and research works.
I have not personal experience with academic jealousy so I will not commenton the subject. However, I believe that I can make useful contributions if I was part of a network with mutual respect
A scholar in my understanding is someone who devotes their time and efforts to their research field and always seeks to keep abreast of the latest developments in that field. They are also keen to explore a variety of epistemologies, methods, etc. in order to enhance their understanding of the topic/s of their interest and bring new perspectives from other disciplines to their field of research/expertise. If a scholar does not challenge their knowledge about what they have come to know about (a) certain topic/s, they would never be able to make breakthroughs in their research and, thereby, make value-added contributions to the academic enterprise. In addition, a scholar has an open mind and does not underestimate or devalorize what other scholars do because they do not conform to their ontological and epistemological approaches. Many scholars, unfortunately, live in silos and refuse to work with others from other disciplines for the simple reason that they believe others are not as “good” as they are, a phenomenon that I can describe as “ontic/epistemic prejudice”.
This leads me now to talk about academic jealousy, which, I believe, has in some ways tainted the whole academic community. Many scholars are under pressure to publish and/or win research funds. The fact they are being assessed on how many publications they have produced and project funds they have won creates an unhealthy competitive environment in the community, whereby those who do not score high enough or simply do not score at all, their chances of receiving a promotion are limited, and therefore, their academic career is a stake. Working in such an environment breeds jealousy and the feeling of unworthiness among scholars. Jealousy leads to poisonous relationships between the members of the community. Universities, which are run by the people from that same community, do not take action to remedy this situation, on the contrary, they perpetuate the system. Jealousy is rarely if at all brought up in the discussions/meetings of those in the decision-making hierarchy. It is left to spread even further to the point that universities have become places hosting researcher/s that work solely to achieve their own glory.
I have found in my personal experience that attending conferences is one of the best ways to enter an academic community. Once you have read the literature and identified the most active and relevant researchers in your field, it is always a cool experience to meet them in person at conferences and chat about their work. I then find social media to be a great tool to keep in contact and up to date with their most recent work. I think ensuring your students can attend one or two conferences during their study is very important to start interacting in the academic community.
A scholar in my view is an academician who has read widely and is still researching in order to generate new knowledge from the findings. The research can be with students the scholar is supervising, own research, or collaborative research that is interdisciplinary. Scholarship is the financial support offered to students to further their studies. This could be internal or external depending on the convenient of the student. Scholarships may be offered by institutions of learning or foundations.
To be active in an academic community is being involved in research, imparting knowledge to students, connecting students to attend and present papers in seminar, writing funding proposals that may benefit postgraduate students in research, and mentoring students in the academic journey by ensuring that they sail smoothly to the end in their studies. Holding students hands by providing direction on how to fish knowledge through both the physical and the online library in my institution, exposing students on how to use various referencing styles and of course I need to be proficient in the use of reference software management tools, such as RefWorks, EndNote, Procite, Mendeley, Zotero, or Paperpile. To be active means I should ensure that my student should know how to ravel and review literature, introduce them to the institution librarian who should take them through the various software’s that the university have that can help them review their literature. Through the University librarian I should be on toes on new developments in soft wares for research. I should be aware of the trends and pitfalls of academic publishing, and issues such as open access and institutional repositories. Introduce students to high impact journals and ensure that they publish papers in them. Respond to students mails immediately. My students should join this community by registering immediately with ORCID and when there is a funded project they should be part of it. This is part of the role of the supervisor because I am the one to set the ball rolling. I play my part and the student play their part. Post Graduate supervisor’s support network provides the student with all that the student needs in order to fit in the world of research as elaborated above. This network can be built by continuously writing proposals to attract research funding, and exposing the students through mutual relationship on research and how, where, why the process should proceed in that direction. Academic jealousy arose when I keep on writing proposals for funding and they do not yield fruits. They do not go through while for others it goes through and they are not creating that environment to enable me know how theirs go through. Yet for one to become a professor in the university where I work that is one of the items they peg it on for one to be promoted. I hope one day I will get funding. I can contribute to a more respectful and generous support network by making sure that many get to know how to attract funding for research from the day I will get one.Academic jealousies are rife particularly in our context in developing countries. This is partly due to the fact that majority of those pursuing postgraduate qualifications are doing it as a means of scaling the career ladder which is often tied to some monetary gains. Therefore, new scholars find themselves in the hands of ‘experienced scholars’ who often consider the new scholars as threats to their jobs.
Moreover, academic jealousies are evident where particular individuals consider themselves the custodians of ‘all the requisite knowledge’ about a particular phenomenon. Often times, such individuals will discount and where possible try to shut down any new scholar who seems to challenge the view point of these individuals. The individuals will therefore go to the greatest length of preventing these ‘new’/’advanced’ voices of coming up researchers. Mostly, this is achieved by keeping out these new scholars from the academic groups either within academic departments of within schools or disciplines.
Academic jealousies are also seen when it comes to writing bids that require competitive bidding. In some institutions there are groups of individuals within academic disciplines and even across academic disciplines where only those members get access to, write and win bids and not any other member or group of academicians. These groups therefore act as cartels trying to outdo each other. The competition is basically due to the monetary gains associated with such grants.
I believe a scholar is anyone with an unending appetite for new knowledge. One whose deliberate intent is to satiate their academic curiosity. One who constantly asks questions and looks for answers through the use of evidence obtained from the relevant context. In essence, scholarship to me then becomes one’s ability to constantly identify gaps in scholarship and exploit those gaps through meaningful engagement and contribution to knowledge. A scholar should at least be able to add a voice to a dominant narrative in their field or at best, to change the discourse altogether in their field.
Being active in an academic community then becomes one’s constant and never ending/ active engagements or conversations with their peers and colleagues in their community through Conference presentations, Journal articles, Reviews, Book Chapters, Books, Lectures and other such avenues though which academics engage. I believe part of a Supervisor’s role is to “initiate” his students and “introduce” them to the broader community in which their knowledge is nurtured and expanded. This can be through encouraging students to engage with the latest trends in literature and or encouraging them to attend Conferences and to publish academic papers, where possible.
Academic jealousies are underrated – they are rife and they present themselves through unfair demeaning feedback from experienced academics who serve as self-ordained “gate-keepers.” Such a practice keeps novice academics at bay – as they watch the dominant and experienced academics flourish. This might demoralize young and novice academics and it might even force them to discard academics and go into the corporate world where they are rather respected.
I strongly feel that a supervisor must take an empathetic approach – bearing in mind that they are dealing, not with just a “head with brains” but with a human being who finds themselves entangled in the politics of academic belonging. Being generous therefore becomes imperative to create a sincere engagement between the supervisor and their student. After all, these are two individuals whose aim is to achieve a single goal of academic success, why not create a strong and collaborative partnership then?
What is a scholar in your view? What does scholarship mean to you?
For me, a scholar is a person who is committed to acquiring new knowledge and one achieves this by reading and engaging in a community of like-minded scholars according to discipline or areas of interest.
What does it mean to be active in an academic community?
Being an active member means attending conferences, seminars or visiting other universities to see how people in your field are doing. It is in these spaces that one can keep up with current trends and conversations about how to grow the field. These spaces also give one an idea of which gaps still need to be filled so that when we write/publish we do it knowing what is missing. As a novice supervisor and young academic, I am still learning the ropes here. I look forward to making connections and building relationships with other practitioners in my field.How can you introduce your students into this community? Is this part of the role of the supervisor?
I think by going to conferences together or presenting workshops together. This is something my supervisor did with me. Through her, I was able to meet people that I would otherwise be too shy to approach. I wish to do the same for my students in the future.What might a PG supervisor’s support network provide? How can such a network be built?
Have you had experience of academic jealousies? What were the effects and was it resolved? How can you contribute to a more respectful and generous support network?I am still new to supervision, so I am keen to build or join a network. But I find the idea intimidating because there are a few Associate Professors in my faculty, but we are trying to find communities of practice within the faculty. I think this is a good move because it gives young academics like myself the confidence to contribute to discussions and share ideas. I have not experienced academic jealousy yet, but it is definitely something that worries me because these issues often play out in our Higher Degrees Committees around campus. I am not sure how these are/can be resolved, for now I am just observing.
What does it mean to be active in an academic community?
I think to be active means to be engaged in activities that generate knowledge, this implies that this person does community profiling, identifies the problem within the community of interest, comes up with topics that need a survey, drafts proposals based on the problems, seek for funding and initiate a research project, plan the way to disseminate the information to solve the community problems.How can you introduce your students into this community? Is this part of the role of the supervisor?
Yes is part of the supervisor, what we do in our department is we take students every last Tuesday of the month to go to the identified village and do community profiling or assessment. The community identified will be adopted from their first year until level 4. We have a written memorandum of agreement with them. the students group themselves into the area of interest led by identified community problems. The students are encouraged to draft proposals in year 2, in year 3 proposals are submitted to ethics and get ethical clearance, in level 4 they collect and analyze data, they give feedback to the communities, where is possible they come up with intervention plans. this system made it easy to introduce the students to research. those who continue to master’s level may use this as bases of their dissertations.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 11 months ago by
Thivhulawi Malwela.
A scholar is a fellow who is engaging in academic work. This involves research and publishing articles or books. A scholar also shares their knowledge with students in the institutions of higher learning. Scholarship is the process of doing scholarly work. Sometimes used to refer to the financial assistance to a scholar.
Being active in an academic community simply implies ones participation in continuous research in their own field. This involves mostly academic publications in peer reviewed journals.
A supervisor should introduce their student to their research community. This will enable the student to gather more knowledge from the rest of the community members.
PG supervisor’s support could assist the supervisor with new ways and tools to use in their supervision. Since this will comprise of several supervisors who come with their own ways of supervision, this would be a learning ground for supervisors. This network of supervisors can be formed based on region or based on academic field. Different fields would exercise different strategies for supervision and therefore helps to have a network working in similar areas of research. I have never heard of academic jealousies and therefore I would not say I have experienced the same.
In many instances, the supervisor has an edge advantage which could be drawn from their own experiences, network groups, research collaborators, exposure to conferences, funding, publishers, and such related research factors. Hence, under ideal scenarios, the supervisor could easily introduce his or her students to these different groups or research organizations. This could be through referrals, collaborative projects, bench marking, team working or such avenues.This may not be a defined role of the supervisor, though its naturally expected that supervisors would be very helpful in nurturing the upcoming researchers to expand on their capacity. Though again, these aspects depend on many other dynamics like supervisor-student rapport, capacity and resource availability, willingness and vision of the student, etc.
A scholar is one who is up to date with information in his/her area(s) of expertise. Personally, scholarship is not just about being up-to-date, it means being competent in my discipline too. Therefore, being active in the academic community involve generating new knowledge through research and sharing the findings with different audiences through publications. It also involves attending conferences and giving academic public lectures with an aim of passing knowledge to the ‘other’ generation of upcoming scholars.
Yes, as a supervisor I can introduce my willing student to the academic community as part of the mentorship process. Academic Jealousy Yes, I experienced this when pursuing my PhD, some comments from friends sounded so jealous but this never derailed my journey to pursue my dream to the end.In my opinion, a scholar is not only an academic researcher but also actively involved in knowledge transfer either through educational or supervision tasks. My scholarship can refer to one of two things: in the first place, it’s a financial bursary that allows (often young) academics to pursue further education or a research internship, in the second place it could also be a synonym for academics (i.e., activities related to research and education). In my opinion, being active in an academic community can have many meanings. In the first place, this could refer to actively conducting research and sharing the results through articles/books/presentations. Here the need to collaborate with other scientists/stakeholders/students also comes in, implying participating in the peer-review process.
Furthermore, applying for or reviewing grants is an essential contribution to the academic community, as is a role on editorial boards or committees. Whether it’s the role of a supervisor to introduce students into an academic community largely depends on the career stage of the student. While I try to encourage my BSc/MSc students to visit conferences and congresses, preferably with a poster presentation, and encourage them to join journal clubs and meetings organized by our department, I notice some are reluctant to take these opportunities. In those cases, I won’t press them, not everyone wants to pursue an academic career. In the case of the Ph.D. students, I work with, I always share/encourage them to join relevant meetings/conferences/etc. When I meet them at those conferences, I try to introduce them to acquainted researchers (even though I’m not so good at networking myself) and actively try to involve them in new collaborations where I feel they could not only contribute but learn from also. This is something my promotor did for me and continues to do to this day and I hope to continue paying this forward. I have no experience with academic jealousies.I perceive the most essential nature of being a scholar is a substantive commitment to kwowledge creation. Here, knowledge creation does not necessarily mean finding a new knowledge drawn from experiments or investigations; but it encompasses transfer and dissemination of his/her own arguments and research findings. In this sense, being active in an academic community, as a scholar, calls for a continuted engagement in the field of his/her expertise.
I enjoy being part of a collaborative multidisciplinary research unit which focuses on a specific topic area. We host “work-in-progress” sessions every two weeks. Everyone, students and supervisors alike take turns to present their research and offer each other helpful feedback. It helps that we are all working in the same general area and we learn a great deal from each other. Students are also given opportunities to present their work at conferences and see their supervisors presenting their onw research too. I think this kind of exposure helps to introduce students to what it means to be active in an academic community.
While I have heard of colleagues who have experienced unpleasant power dynamics with regards to being excluded from communities of practice, I have been fortunate to be the beneficiary of the most collegial and collaborative community. As a feminist researcher I also believe that we should engage in an “ethics of care” when inducting students into academia (which has a reputation for being such an exclusionary and hierarchical space). -
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