Ethics Workshop 2

The workshop started with a recap on activity we did in the last workshop - a short discussion on the ethical issues surrounding our very own research.

We were then introduced to the topic on human research and the ethics involved. This has made me re-think about my research. It happens to be that my research project involves human subjects - to be specific, the blind and low vision people.

Thanks to this workshop, we were provided with some insights about the institutional review as well as the Monash review framework. The application procedures, processes and requirements of Monash review were shared and I find it really helpful. At least, we are assured that there is a system to screen our research before the human subjects are tested such that it is ethical.

I like the idea that ethics review is a discipline of good research. So, taking the learning points from the workshop, I have to be certain that I know what I am doing, and why I am doing it, and why I am doing it in a particular way.

Reflexive / Reflective Research Practice

Some honest declarations:
... even I have read through some related sources to gain more insights about the reflexive/reflective research, what I am able to share in the following paragraphs are just some points touching the very surface of this topic. It will be easier to build the point of reference if we have some ideas about the philosophy of scientific research and methodology such as positivism, social constructionism and critical realism.

Back to the topic:
The term "reflexive/reflective research" means a research involving the researchers to acknowledge their own experiences and produce the outcomes of the finding based on their contexts. There is a complex relationship between the processes of knowledge production and the contexts of such processes, as well as the knowledge producer (the researcher).

Based on the descriptions in the paragraph above, thus a "reflexive/reflective research" has to be carefully interpreted and reflected. This implies that interpretation of the researcher is very important because it forms the fundamentals of the research idea, and eventually the outcomes of the finding. Thus all the interpretation backdrop that set the reflexive/reflective research such as perception, cognition, theory, language, text, politic and culture should be given great consideration.

Again, as referred to the definition, the ability to acknowledge the researcher's own experience also indicates that the researcher should be aware of his/her own thoughts, feelings, culture, environment and social background, such that he/she can ideally come closer to the rigour, and hence a good quality research.

Now that I have briefly shared the very nature of "reflexive/reflective research", we may take a look at the four elements in reflective/reflexive research suggested by M. Alvesson & K. Sköldberg (2009).

The 4 elements of reflective/reflexive research:

1. Systematics and techniques in research procedures
2. Clarification of the primary of interpretation
3. Awareness of the political-ideological character of research
4. Reflection in relation to the problem of representation and authority   

In which if we can emphasis these elements in any reflective/reflexive researches, we can render the quality of the outcome, and of course the research itself.



Bibliography:

• Mats Alvesson & Kaj Sköldberg (2009) Reflexive Methodology: New Vistas for Qualitative Research, SAGE. 
• Etherington, Kim (2004) Becoming a Reflexive Researcher - Using Our Selves in Research, Jessica Kingsley Publishers Ltd.

Communicating Research (Workshop 2)

So in today's Communicating Research workshop 2, we have 3 invited guests.

We started off with the panel discussion by 2 speakers, in which we were given the overall idea of academic journal vs conference papers.

We learnt about getting constructive feedback from the peer reviews, and how should we react to the comments made by the reviewers. Some discussions about taking criticism were in place. One good thing that I have learnt form the speakers is to separate/filter the comments from the reviewers to check if some comments are similar from different reviewer, hence we can treat them accordingly. Writing for journal/conference can brush up our skill in preparing our thesis.

In the Q&A, we have some insights on the following matters:

• suggesting the right people as the reviewers; 
• the readership of our paper;
• about the importance of citation of our paper;
• about authorship and publication; 
• about paper of good impact factor

Later we have another speaker on the topics of preparing and publishing our paper. In the context of publishing our research, we have to be clear about the scope, the reader, and especially ourself. We are writing from the point of knowing the outcome of our research at the time of publishing. Global significance, disciplinary significance, and technical significance are the 3 key areas that we can look at our project scope. Adding with the consideration of how much should we write about the literature review, the technical approach being used and the design of evaluation, a paper is good to go.

When our paper is reviewed and feedback is provided to us, we still need to communicate with the editor by reacting accordingly to the reviewer's feedback. For example, we might need to make corrections, or re-explain a context using different frame of understanding, or even refine the sentence due to language issues.

The above learning points are just some to be mentioned in this blog. Indeed, I really learned a lot. To conclude, this session is particularly very helpful for me.

Ethics Workshop 1

Here is my reflection on the Ethics Workshop 1.

My research is technically surrounding a robotic system, but since I am building the robot for a particular group of users (for my case, my subject is the visually impaired people), I have to be really careful in term of ethical practice.

From this workshop, I realise that the entire design of my research should have proper consideration of the ethical practice even at the very starting point of the research work. Questions begin to fill up my mind - how should I use the data collected from my project group; what should be declared in the consent form; what are the agreement needed; what could be accepted from the point of legal, ethical vs moral practise; did I miss out any approbation and so on...

So my next task is to identify those information needed to help me answer my questions. Since I am working on my project at Malaysia, I would like to find out more about legal issues related to my subject. Apart from this, I would also like to look into some articles to gain more insights about the known ethical practice involving this particular group of people. Morally, as long as I concern the work is done following our current social values or principles of conduct, the work should be well accepted. This shouldn't be a problem as I know my country well. But I anticipate possible challenges if my work to be extended to another country.

Anyway, this session has allowed me to think more in-depth on the issues of not only ethical practice, but also the legal and moral perspective of them.

Communicating Research (Workshop 1)

This workshop has helped us to plan our research publication in a manageable and organised manner. There are several learning points that were emphasised - the publication strategies, identification of journals / conferences, issues surrounding intellectual property, authorship, and the handling of data.

Firstly, in term of choosing conferences/journals, we were advise to consider some publishers with good quality, hence our paper should be describing some works that are impactful in the related area. In order to get our paper accepted, we should understand the needs / requirement of the publisher of the target discipline. In short, we have to have a plan for publishing our work.

Next, we came to learn as well the matters surrounding data authorship, ownership and responsibility. Before this, I have thought of "who is responsible for data?". From this session, I have a clearer picture of managing it. The important part is to know clearly publishable vs non-publishable data. We have to identify as well the ownership of the data, such that we don't get into IP trouble. Some methods can be followed to make sure we are in the safe position to utilise the data.

Last but not least, managing of the bibliography is another important technique. We review others' works, such that we have to acknowledge works that have been done before us, and point out clearly the parts that we are contributing. We have to be careful of failing into plagiarism even on our very own work that have been submitted to elsewhere.

Finally, at the end of the workshop, I am thinking of looking into the CORE website to identify some high impact conferences / journals for my research area. Thanks to this session, now I am more prepared to produce a "trouble-free" paper. ^o^