51913 Academic Research Practice
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particular session, location and mode of offering is the authoritative source
of all information about the subject for that offering. Required texts, recommended texts and references in particular are likely to change. Students will be provided with a subject outline once they enrol in the subject.
Subject handbook information prior to 2025 is available in the Archives.
Credit points: 8 cp
Result type: Pass fail, no marks
There are course requisites for this subject. See access conditions.
Description
This subject facilitates students’ trajectories of learning and development as researchers at the outset of their higher degree by research journey. Students reflect on what they bring to their current project, and develop a bespoke plan that meets the demands of their UTS thesis and lifelong learning as researchers. The subject enables students to define the values, aims, impact and curiosity that enable their project and provide a compass for their development, and use this to identify what the project will demand of them. Taking an expansive approach, students are invited to consider what might be possible in their research, how they might extend what matters to them and others through their research and its impact. This exploration of the possible and the demands associated with it unfolds through reference to students’ own projects, ongoing projects in the Faculty, and input from other researchers, including Indigenous scholars. Students are introduced to journaling as a means to reflect on how their lives, careers and research intersect and inform each other. As the subject unfolds, students begin implementing their learning plan, and critically reflect on this in their journal. This subject connects with research training opportunities within the faculty and the wider university.
Subject learning objectives (SLOs)
| a. | Describe the necessary skills for academic research practice in an evolving context |
|---|---|
| b. | Identify the strengths and weaknesses of their own current relevant skill set |
| c. | Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of a range of professional development resources and tools for academic research skills |
| d. | Demonstrate their research capacity-building practices and reflect on outcomes |
Teaching and learning strategies
The subject will be delivered online, to maximise opportunities for students living away from Sydney to participate, and to offer flexibility for those needing to join from work. A series of workshops will focus on exploring shared and project-specific values, knowledges, cultural connections, and fostering a sense of connection and community between students.
Students are expected to complete modest preparation for each workshop, so workshops can focus on group interaction, reflective discussion and peer feedback. The journaling process will be scaffolded through the subject.
In addition to the workshops, students will identify and take up other opportunities to learn and develop as researchers that are relevant to their own projects. For example, the subject will help students identify and select relevant opportunities that address specifics of empirical research design or creative practice elements. Some of these will arise during the subject, others will be planned for in weeks and months that follow
Students will adopt a bespoke approach to the first assessment, completing it in a format or genre that is aligned with their research context and research development priorities.
Content (topics)
The subject takes a broad, holistic and person-focused approach to understanding your learning and development as researchers. It incorporates consideration of professional knowledge and experience; cultural values, connections, traditions and language; ethics and personal values; research practices such as interviewing; generic aspects; and a range of approaches that can be used to imagine and re-imagine thesis projects and the value they might bring to one’s own practice, or wider communities. The subject emphasises taking a broad range of existing strengths seriously and exploring how they will inform and add to the research project, conceptualising impactful research as a question of weaving technical skills and formal academic knowledge with culture, career, life, family and community. The subject will help students identify aspects of research design or creative practice work that they need to focus further on.
Assessment
Assessment task 1: Reflection on strengths, learning and development priorities
| Objective(s): | a, b and c | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight: | 40% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Length: | 2,000 words or equivalent | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Criteria linkages: |
SLOs: subject learning objectives CILOs: course intended learning outcomes |
Assessment task 2: Research Journal
| Objective(s): | a and d | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Weight: | 60% | ||||||||||||||||
| Length: | 2500 words | ||||||||||||||||
| Criteria linkages: |
SLOs: subject learning objectives CILOs: course intended learning outcomes |
Minimum requirements
Networking and peer relationship building is a vital part of the academic research skill set and contributes to the development of resilience and project and time management skills.
References
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. (2020). A Guide to applying: The AIATSIS Code of Ethics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research (p. 36). Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies.
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). (2020). AIATSIS code of ethics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander research. Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). https://apo.org.au/node/308966
Behrendt, L. (2019). Indigenous Story-Telling: Decolonising Institutions and Assertive Self-Determination and implications for Legal Practice. In Decolonizing Research Indigenous Storywork As Methodology (pp. 175–186). Zed Books.
Behrendt, L. (2021). The weaving power of Indigenous storytelling—Personal reflections on the impact of COVID-19 and the response of Indigenous communities. Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, 154(1), 85–90. https://doi.org/10.5962/p.361962
The Cochrane Library (online, via UTS Library)
Cumming, Jim. 2010. "Contextualised performance: reframing the skills debate in research education." Studies in Higher Education 35 (4):405-419. doi: 10.1080/03075070903082342.
eGrad School (ATN network)
Elsevier Academy (Online)
Flinders University. (n.d.). Appropriate Terminology, Representations and Protocols of Acknowledgement for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. https://www.flinders.edu.au/content/dam/documents/museum-of-art/obl/multimedia/terminology-representations-and-protocols-yunggorendi.pdf
Janke, T. (2022). True Tracks: Respecting Indigenous Knowledge and Culture (1st ed.). NewSouth Publishing.
Janke, T., Kearney, J., & Intern, A. (2018, January 29). Rights to Culture: Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP), Copyright and Protocols. Terri Janke and Company Lawyers and Consultants. https://www.terrijanke.com.au/post/2018/01/29/rights-to-culture-indigenous-cultural-and-intellectual-property-icip-copyright-and-protoc
Golding, Clinton, Sharon Sharmini, and Ayelet Lazarovitch. 2014. "What examiners do: what thesis students should know." Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 39 (5):563- 576. doi: 10.1080/02602938.2013.859230.
Government Architect NSW. (2020). Connecting with Country. https://www.governmentarchitect.nsw.gov.au/projects/designing-with-country.
Hopkins, Diana and Tom Reid (2018) The Academic Skills Handbook: Your Guide to Success in Writing, Thinking and Communicating at University, London: Sage
LinkedInLearning via UTS Library
Martin, K., & Mirraboopa, B. (2003). Ways of knowing, being and doing: A theoretical framework and methods for indigenous and indigenist re?search. Journal of Australian Studies, 27(76), 203–214. https://doi.org/10.1080/14443050309387838
Maxwell, T W, and Robyn Smyth. 2011. "Higher degree research supervision: from practice toward theory." Higher Education Research and Development 30 (2):219-231. doi: 10.1080/07294360.2010.509762.
Moreton-Robinson, A. (2016). Relationality: A key presupposition of an Indigenous social research paradigm. In C. Andersen & J. M. O’Brien (Eds.), Sources and Methods in Indigenous Studies (pp. 69–77). Routledge. https://search.lib.uts.edu.au/discovery/fulldisplay/cdi_scopus_primary_617283352/61UTS_INST:61UTS
Moreton-Robinson, A., & Walter, M. (2013). Indigenous Methodologies in Social Research. In M. Walter (Ed.), Social research methods (Third edition., pp. 1–18). Oxford University Press.
Nakata, M. N. (2007). Disciplining the savages, savaging the disciplines (1st ed.). Aboriginal Studies Press.
National Health and Medical Research Council. (2018). Keeping research on track II A companion document to Ethical conduct in research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and communities: Guidelines for researchers and stakeholders. www.nhmrc.gov.au/guidelines-publications/ind3
NHMRC Ethical conduct in research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and communities: Guidelines for researchers and stakeholders
Terri Janke and Company. (n.d.). Protocols for using First Nations Cultural and Intellectual Property in the Arts. Australia Council for the Arts; Terri Janke. https://www.terrijanke.com.au/australia-council-for-the-arts-prot
Mewburn, Inger (2017) How To Be An Academic: the Thesis Whisperer reveals all, Sydney: NewSouth Publishing
Sage Research Methods Online (via UTS Library)
The Thesis Whisperer https://thesiswhisperer.com/
Thorpe, K. (2023). Transformative praxis – building spaces for Indigenous self-determination in libraries and archives. In the Library with the Lead Pipe. http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2019/transformative-praxis/