STRENGTHENING RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND INNOVATION
(RDI) IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN AZERBAIJAN
Dear students, researchers, learners, tutors,
In order to contribute to the modernisation of PhD education, research and innovation at Azerbaijani universities, research and innovation centres and techno-parks, the international team of RDI-AZ project rdi.edu.az has prepared 5 online courses on transferrable skills needed by every researcher and innovator:
- Research methodology, practices, and projects.
- Data mining, collection, processing, and management.
- Writing and publishing of academic publications.
- IPR principles, Technology Transfer and commercialization.
- Entrepreneurship and start-ups.
As these are online courses, they are flexible with respect to your time. You can access them from anywhere and at anytime, assuming you have a laptop and Internet connection.
We invite you to use this opportunity and become a student or a tutor of any of the above courses. Being a student is completely free of charge and the successful students will receive a certification of excellence. Tutors will be rewarded for their work . The courses will start around March 1st, 2020 and will last ca. 2 month. The estimated effort is ca. 2 hours per week.
To register as a student please fill the short form at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/952QC9L
To register as a tutor/trainer (we assume that tutors will be well acquainted with the topic of a course and can understand English) please fill the short form at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/95Z2DGL
I hope that taking part in these online courses will help you in your scientific careers and will be a great experience for you.
So, please join us on this pioneering project !!!
Short course descriptions
1. Research methodology, practices and projects
This course provides an opportunity for novice researchers to establish or advance their knowledge about research and to enhance their skills in each phase of the research process. Students get theoretical and practical knowledge in selecting the research problem and formulating the research question, selecting appropriate research strategy, data collection and data analysis methods. Besides, the course provides knowledge on different philosophical approaches in science, on quality criteria used to evaluate the research and the ethical issues every researcher should consider.
2. Data mining, collection, processing and management
This course provides basic theoretical and practical knowledge on working with secondary and primary data in the research process. Students get knowledge on techniques for searching scientific literature and collecting primary and secondary data. Some basic information on how to use data mining and statistics for analysis of quantitative data, as well as how to process qualitative data is also provided. Visualizing of results in quantitative and in qualitative research, as well as the data ethics is included, too.
3. Writing and publishing of academic publications
This course extends the knowledge about the different channels to communicate research and develops skills in writing clear and concise scientific texts, taking in consideration the relevant ethical issues. It also provides information on how to structure and format different types of academic papers, how to go through the process of selecting a place to present the research, submit the manuscript, correct and publish the article, as well as orally present it.
4. IPR principles, Technology Transfer and commercialization
This course will help you understand Technology Transfer process, know the basic principles of how IP rights are created and how they can be used, make the correct choice of the IP type and get started or continue with an effective strategy for protecting your IP. Upon completion of this course you will be also able to choose a model for commercialization of knowledge, inventions, and technologies (e.g. licensing agreement with industrial partner or newly created company – a spin-off). Hopefully, the course will greatly enhance your ability to communicate and negotiate with scientists and manufacturers, management staff and lawyers – both within the organization and outside it, when you are challenged to bring innovation to the marketplace.
5. Entrepreneurship and Startups
During the course, students are invited to test their intention to become an entrepreneur, heed advice from experts and successful startupers and master skills necessary to be a successful innovator and
entrepreneur. Students analyse innovation process – from needs in the market to developing value propositions for beneficial and innovative solutions, and make a pitch for peer review. They also develop a business model on the basis of interaction with potential customers and partners. Within the course, they can learn about possible financial strategies for operation and scale-up. Finally, they find out how the ecosystem for startups works, and what benefits exist for startup growth.
Incentives and benefits for tutors
We would like to invite you to act as tutors during the pilot phase of the e-courses, which have been created by two international course designers prof. Iskra Popova from Sweden and Dr Ihor Katernyak from Ukraine with experience in designing and running similar courses. Towards the end of this pilot, providing you perform well, you will be invited to a few days study visit (probably in Sweden and Estonia) to learn best European examples in on-line delivery and to master your skills in e-learning. This travel, including EU per-diems for you will be fully paid by us.
Having an opportunity to be among the nearly first teachers tutoring in an online PhD courses in AZ, is beneficial to you in the sense that you can later become a part of the online programs of recommended Central Doctoral School and/or your (or any other Azerbaijani) University (or Ministry) will introduce. It is a clear trend in the world and sooner or later it will be generally understood that online courses are beneficial to the universities and off-campus PhD students. So, with your e-learning creation and tutoring skills you will be part of a team of top e-education system developers and pioneers of this delivery technology in context of PhD education.
Also having an opportunity to work with many Ph.D. students and helping them in the research process will open to you an opportunity to become their co-advisors or assistant advisers (in case the advisors are already determined). This could lead to some financial benefit however what is much more important it is the opportunity to recruit best students/post-docs to your University and become co-authors of the papers that will be eventually published by the student in the research process. This is a common practice in EU.
Additionally you will have an opportunity to learn about various aspects of research and knowledge that can help you to design similar courses in Azeri language that can be offered as campus or online courses.