With the national lockdown and restriction levels in place, the College of Graduate Studies (CGS) has shifted to using online platforms to facilitate the research training workshops for Unisa’s honours, master’s and doctoral (M&D) students. Since March, the college has been providing research support services using its Facebook group and Microsoft Teams.
The second week of June saw the School of Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Studies (SIRGS) piloting the facilitation of online workshops on the digital platforms. During that week, four workshops were conducted on Teams for thousands of Unisa M&D students in South Africa, Ethiopia and the rest of the world.
The workshops were facilitated by Prof Patrick Ngulube, Acting Director of SIRGS, and Prof Khanyisile Mbatha, Associate Professor of SIRGS, who is responsible for academic support. They introduced students to the Unisa structures and policies governing research-related activities, such as research ethics and academic integrity, including the revised M&D procedures. Other themes covered included the following:
Students were encouraged to participate on Teams where tasks and assignments are posted, and supervisors have been made aware of the pilot project. The advantage of the online workshops is that since workshops are recorded, those who could not attend have a chance of revisiting the posted video and workshop material at their own time and convenience.
This will see CGS and Unisa achieving the conceptualisation of an online suite of modules in current and post-Covid-19 contexts. The success of the programme will see CGS realising the
For more details on this exciting online programme, please join the future by visiting the College of Graduate Studies’ research resources on the CGS website.
For more on the research workshops and related activities, you can follow us on the following social media platforms:
Facebook: Join the M&D Research Training Workshops Group; Honours Research Training Workshops Group, or enrol at MS Teams: M&D Research Training Workshop, Honours Training Workshop, or Ethiopia Learning Centre M&D Workshops
You can also contact the Research Training workshop team at M&DRW@unisa.ac.za or ucgs@unisa.ac.za.
* By Tonny Matjila, Research Training Officer, College of Graduate Studies
Publish date: 2020-07-18 00:00:00.0