The COOL e-Research and Researcher Development Experiences: A Mentor and Mentee Perspective

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.34190/icer.1.1.3121

Keywords:

Covid-19 pandemic, e-Research, Information and Communication technologies, mentoring, researcher development

Abstract

As information and communication technologies (ICTs) continue to advance, research projects and processes increasingly adopt ICTs, and terms like ‘e-research’ gain popularity. However, disparities in access to ICTs and users’ technology proficiency affect the adoption of e-research technologies. Despite these constraints, the COVID-19 pandemic forced many researchers (including postgraduate students), in diverse and unequal contexts, to take their research activities online. This paper reports on the ‘e-research’ experiences of the principal investigator, a research mentor and a researcher after the adoption of ICTs during the pandemic. This research took place in the context of the Cases on Open Learning (COOL) research project, commissioned by, and conducted jointly with, the Department of Higher Education (DHET) in South Africa. This was a multi-researcher (10 researchers located across the country, with varying degrees of research experience), multi-site qualitative social science research that took the form of 15 case studies, conducted across seven technical and vocational education and training colleges, six universities, two DHET sites, and a desktop study. The national lockdowns that were announced shortly after our first and only face-to-face project meeting forced us to conduct all aspects of the project entirely online. We used the Google suite for collaboration and Zoom for COOL team building, researcher knowledge and skills development sessions, and online interviews conducted by the researchers. WhatsApp played a dual role – supporting ongoing communication within the research group, and as a data collection tool. The paper highlights our experiences on what it meant to be part of a research team, as well as the opportunities and challenges of conducting research of this nature. It shed light on the COOL team building and researcher development strategies. Drawing on insights from our experiences, we recommend that higher education institutions (HEIs) develop both technical and human-oriented guidelines for conducting e-research. This paper could provide insights for independent researchers, postgraduate students, principal investigators, and supervisors considering a cohort-supervision model, comprising diverse students, who may be in dispersed geographical locations.

Author Biographies

Tabisa Mayisela, University of Cape Town

Tabisa Mayisela is a senior lecturer, the co-ordinator of the Staff Development cluster and Deputy Director at the CILT, UCT. She works with academics on the integration of educational technologies and digital literacies into course curricula and teaches and supervises postgraduate studies on digital education, digital literacies and staff development.

Cheng-Wen Huang, University of Cape Town

Cheng-Wen Huang is a senior lecturer at the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT), University of Cape Town (UCT). She holds a PhD in Education from UCT. Her research spans multimodal social semiotics, argumentation, academic literacies, digital literacies, social justice, assessment and generative AI. 

Shanali Govender, University of Cape Town

Shanali Govender is a senior lecturer within the Staff Development unit at CILT where she supports part-time and non-permanent teaching staff. She currently teaches on the Postgraduate diploma in educational technologies, co-convening the Online Learning Design module and has designed and facilitated several online staff development short courses.

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Published

2024-11-21