Division (transition to) School of Postgraduate Studies

UWC-EPE ‘RESEARCH IMPACT’ POST EVENT REPORT 2017

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EPE Event Attendees

EPE project committee members:

Stellenbosch University

University of Zululand

University of Ford Hare

Vrije Universiteit

African Studies Centre

National School of Government

Western Cape Department of Social Development

Cape Peninsula University of Technology

University of South Africa

UWC staff

UWC postgraduate students from seven faculties:

Honours,

Masters, and

PhD candidates

The Division (transition to) School of Postgraduate Studies (D/SPGS) hosted its EPE institutional visit for 2017 on 20 and 21 September. The overall purpose of this year’s visit was to have a campus-wide showcase event for the EPE website as one of the many postgraduate resources made available to postgraduates and staff by the D/SPGS. The D/SPGS has worked tirelessly at involving more UWC staff in contributing materials to support postgraduate students, since the 2016 EPE institutional visit in December. The December visit took on the form of a one-day workshop, attended by all deputy deans of research and staff from library, to brainstorm the type of online support materials that would enhance postgraduate studies at UWC. As a result the best part of 2017 was spent on developing prospective materials for postgraduate students and which could then be presented at the 2017 EPE institutional visit. More than twelve staff members contributed postgraduate resources to be presented in 1-hour workshops. The 1-hour ‘Power-Hour’ workshop concept is a brain child of Prof Holtman’s team which will be rolled-out during lunch times from 2018 onwards to staff and postgraduates alike. The EPE event for 2017 therefore had a dual purpose: 1) assessing from the workshop attendees whether the presented material and topics were appropriate and relevant for postgraduates and staff; and 2) assessing the viability of ‘Power-Hour’ workshops to be offered in future by D/SPGS.

EPE Project Partners

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Power-Hour Workshop Topics

1. Research identity conceptualization

2. Research topic discovery

3. The student supervisor relationship

4. Research proposal development

5. Effective literature searches

6. Building a literature review

7. Copyrights & Open access

8. Predatory journals

9. Conceptualizing a social/humanities publication

10. Conceptualizing a natural science publication

11. Reading a journal article

12. Literature categorization

13. Automated referencing: RefWorks

14. Automated referencing: Mendeley

The theme “Research Impact” and dates for the 2017 EPE event was predetermined by the EPE partners during their second cohort meeting at University of Zululand in March 2017. The following sub-themes were given to UWC and SU for their events: “Research Identity” and “Publishing and Authorship”. The D/SPGS ensured for related workshop topics to be in line with the respective two-day EPE event sub-themes - the end result of which were 14 Power-Hour workshops. The D/SPGS popularized the 2017 EPE event by developing an event flyer (see Annexure 1) as well as an online enrollment page for participants to register for the respective Power-Hour workshops. Each of the workshops could accommodate between 15-20 participants. A two-day program booklet was developed for the EPE event. The booklet included messages of support from the DVC: Research & Innovation, Prof Josè Frantz and the Director: D/SPGS and coordinator of the EPE project at UWC, Prof Lorna Holtman together with the procedures for the two days. The booklet also included Bio information of the event program director Prof. Charlene Africa and the presenters of the fourteen Power-Hour workshops. The D/SPGS wrote and circulated a post event press release one week after the event (see Annexure 2).

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The morning session of day one was attended by visitors from the EPE project partners, the workshop presenters as well as UWC staff who wish to also become involved in the EPE project from 2018 onwards. This session presented the background of the EPE project and the commitment of D/SPGS and UWC Library to enhancement of postgraduate studies. The workshop parallel sessions started after the morning tea break and of which the topics related to the ‘Research Identity” theme for day 1. Day two of the event consisted of four parallel session workshops linked to the theme: ‘Publishing & Authorship’. Live streaming was done for seven of the fourteen workshops in order for participants to benefit from the workshops even though they could not attend in person. Opinion polls were done for each of the fourteen workshops and the consolidated results for these Power-Hour workshops are presented in the chart below.

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Was the tool helpful?

Will you download the tool?

Will you recommend the tool?

Will you tell somebody about the EPE website?

Should this presentation be loaded on the EPE site?

Do you think others will find the EPE site useful?

Was the workshop the correct length of time?

Do you want more Power-hour workshops in 2018?

Was the workshop presentation good?

Was the tool

helpful?

Will you download the tool?

Will you recommend the tool?

Will you tell

somebody about the

EPE website?

Should this presentati

on be loaded on

the EPE site?

Do you think

others will find the EPE site useful?

Was the workshop

the correct length of

time?

Do you want more

Power-hour

workshops in 2018?

Was the workshop presentation good?

None 1 0 3 0 1 1 0 0 0

No 3 8 3 0 4 0 31 4 2

Yes 129 125 127 133 128 132 102 129 131

Consolidated Workshop Opinion Polls

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During the afternoon of the second day, Prof Holtman held an EPE reflection session with members present from the EPE project committee in order to share ideas and to make recommendations for future roll-out of the project. Some of the most pertinent issues highlighted during the reflection session were: the lack of financial and human resources with regard to timely roll-out as well as the time of the year when an EPE event should take place. The latter of which was recommended to rather be towards the beginning of December when staff, postgraduates and venues are more readily available. Word of Thanks The D/SPGS would like to express their sincere gratitude to all participants and facilitators that attended and contributed material. A further word of appreciation is also extended to the UWC staff and the three NRF interns: Takalani, Thoko and Saneh that unconditionally gave of their time and expertise to make this year’s event a huge success. It is indeed reassuring to see the commitment and passion of everybody to grow and enhance postgraduate environments.

Useful links: D/SPGS Home Page

https://www.uwc.ac.za/Students/Postgraduate/Pages/default.aspx

D/SPGS Training Courses

https://www.uwc.ac.za/Students/Postgraduate/Pages/Training%20Courses.aspx

D/SPGS Postgraduate Resources

https://www.uwc.ac.za/Students/Postgraduate/Pages/DSPGS%20Resources.aspx

D/SPGS Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/School-of-Postgraduate-Studies-SPGS-

166711586686978/posts/?ref=page_internal

D/SPGS Twitter

@UWCSPGS

Enhancing Postgraduate Environments

http://postgradenvironments.com/

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Annexure 1: Pre-Event EPE Flyer

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Annexure 2: EPE Post event Press Release

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Visit our website at: https://www.uwc.ac.za/Students/Postgraduate and

http://postgradenvironments.com

Or Contact us at: pgschool@uwc.co.za (+2721) 959 2451 ask for one of our Academic Managers