The SRA Symposium - College of Medicine

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Papers Evaluation of Strategies for Building a Research Culture – an Empirical Case Study at an African University Professor Cliff Studman, PhD, Dip Ed, BSc Pie Squared Consultants Pty, Box 45371, Gaborone, Botswana Phone (+267) 71793225 Email Studman@Botsnet.bw, or Pie2Research@hotmail.com and Dr G. Nnunu Tsheko, PhD, BEd Department of Educational Foundations, University of Botswana, Box 00022, Gaborone, Botswana Phone (+267) 3552419 Email: tshekogn@mopipi.ub.bw Author’s note Part of this study was made possible through a grant from the University of Botswana Research Advisory Committee. Abstract The impact of change strategies for developing research at an African Primarily Undergraduate Institution are considered using a case study of the University of Botswana. After an analysis of the existing situation, a short research policy written in understandable terms was developed. The policy was structured so that it could be used for subsequent compliance assessment. A lengthy approval process involving consultation with all faculties increased institutional buy-in to the policy. A new Office of Research and Development managed the implementation. Motivators such as research awards and recognition were introduced to encourage staff to develop research programmes, and simplified but transparent internal funding mechanisms were introduced. Staff attitude surveys were undertaken just after the policy was introduced, and again approximately 18 months later. An indication of the impact of the changes was also undertaken through a compliance assessment exercise. The survey showed a positive change in staff attitude to research, despite a significant increase in teaching workload during the period. There was also a sustained increase in competition for available internal research funds. Compliance with the policy was increasing, although the University was fully compliant in only a few areas. Other results from the survey are presented. Introduction In an earlier paper, Studman (2003a) described the background that resulted in the development of a new Office of Research and Development at the University of Botswana. Although in a developing country, the University has received relatively strong financial support from government since its establishment in 1982. Botswana remains as a largely undeveloped country, consisting mainly of the Kalahari Desert, although the combination of a stable society, the discovery of diamonds in 1970, a democratic and peaceful electoral system, and generally good, benevolent governance with low corruption, has resulted in dramatic growth both in the number of students eligible for tertiary education, and the demands on government funding for the civil service, education and services. Thus by 2005 there were approximately 15,000 equivalent full-time students, but the government was concerned to hold or reduce the level of support for the University, while still increasing the numbers of students. Between 1997 and 2003 the overall student-staff ratio deteriorated from 12:1 to 16:1, and due to staff vacancies was often around to 19:1 in practice. As a University with a vision for academic excellence (University of Botswana, 2003), the University 258 2005 Symposium Proceedings Book
Papers recognised and acknowledged the principles of research led teaching (Hattie and Marsh, 1996; Geiger, 1993; Lipset, 1994; Pratt, 1997; and Zubrick, 2000), despite its predominantly undergraduate teaching history. The role of research in national development was also recognised (Studman, 2003b). However in the late 1990’s the University also recognised that its research activity was not satisfactory, and set about improving the situation. It shared the problems of many other predominantly undergraduate institutions as described by Hazelkorn (2002). Studman (2003a) outlined some changes that were introduced in order to develop the research culture at the University. An analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of a given situation analysis was conducted. SWOT analysis is a commonly strategy used to understand any situation. Through this, it was found that the key areas of challenge were: (a) no strategic planning or alignment of research with University goals and strategies; (b) poor use of internal funds; (c) an absence of accountability for resources; (d) no management of the quality of outputs; (e) no structure for commercialisation of research; (f) limited postgraduate research; (g) insufficient motivation for some staff; (h) administratively complex research procedures, but no effective research support structure; (i) increasing teaching workloads; (j) insufficient training in research management, methodology, and communication; (k) no database of research capabilities, and few reported research outputs; and (l) lack of funding source information. In addition some staff preferred private consultancy to research for financial reasons, sometimes at the expense of their teaching responsibilities. Clearly, major changes were required. After prioritisation, and after assessing the available capability of the Office of Research and Development staff, strategic changes introduced initially included: 1. Development of research policy 2. Recovery and utilisation of internal funding through simplified, transparent procedures 3. Introduction of a quality and accountability management programme 4. Introduction of encouragements to undertake research 5. Training in research proposal writing As recommended by Drummond (2003), we developed a plan to evaluate the effectiveness of changes. While a measure of success in growing research is ultimately the changes in the number of research outputs (i.e., research papers, books, presentations, patents) it is too early for the changes described in this paper to take effect. Moreover, Ramsden (1994) has pointed out that many factors affect this measure, and current international measures such as the Frascati system. The Frascati system is an international standard practice for assessing performance surveys on research and experimental development. This was developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development at a meeting in Frascati, Italy. The system remains largely inappropriate at the current level of development of the University (OECD, 2002). Another factor is that the data is not yet available due to the challenges listed later. Instead it was decided to undertake a longitudinal study of attitudes of staff to research, since this would give a clearer indication of the impact of changes introduced by the research office. Intellectual challenges exist with the assessment of some of these goals. For example it is recognised that the perception of quality management in a university context is still a challenging concept, and misunderstood by academics and management alike (e.g., Houston and Studman, 2001). Internationally the Frascati manual has been largely adopted as a measure of research activity and development (OECD, 2002). The association of commonwealth Universities has also developed benchmarking procedures for evaluating research offices (Waugaman, 2004; Kirkland and Day, 2005). Limited support was also provided to enable staff to identify external research funding opportunities. Other desirable changes, such as the development of postgraduate research studies; publicity 2005 Symposium Proceedings Book 259
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2005 Symposium Proceedings The SRA
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Dear Colleagues and Friends, Octobe
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Table of Contents Karen M. Wilson.
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Poster Abstracts
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Poster Abstracts Poster Abstract 20
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Papers
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Papers The principles of respect fo
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Papers The narrative approach, on t
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Papers References Agre, P., Campbel
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Papers Potts, A., Grace, V., Gavey,
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Papers Introduction Day by day soci
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Papers Brent: Karl has been a great
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Papers Karl: During my time at the
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Papers Work Hard. Another very impo
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Papers External Resource Acquisitio
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Papers Generally speaking, fundrais
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Papers Organizations and websites t
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Papers Public HBCUs and smaller chu
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Papers There are key databases avai
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Papers 2. Basic Institutional Compo
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Papers The Utility of Gender, Race,
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Papers As a three hospital health c
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Papers References Amdur, R., Banker
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Papers • Dramatic Growth in Resea
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Papers • Cross Unit Collaboration
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Papers The Development, Implementat
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Papers Background: IRBs in AMCs hav
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Papers Institutional Quality Improv
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Papers Institutional Audit Findings
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Papers References: Burke, G.S. (200
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Papers Table 1 Total Number of Prot
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Papers Sunday, December 7, 2003. D
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Papers Similarly, the OGE audit ind
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Papers Changes to 5 C.F.R. §5501.1
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Papers * * * However, § 5501.106(c
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Papers 4. Conclusion The NIH Februa
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Papers Within the context of a mana
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Papers As illustrated (Figure 1) th
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Papers Figure 3. Recommendation lev
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Papers References Australian Vice-C
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Papers The Problem and Its Statemen
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Papers ated directly or indirectly
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Papers Table 1: Survey Respondents
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Papers Conclusions With the creatio
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Papers APPENDIX 2 I. Research Admin
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Papers facing patients being recrui
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Papers Even if prospective subjects
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Papers sponsors must have some idea
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Papers 4) Heuristics: Since the con
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Papers Hochhauser, M. Informed Cons
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Papers How “readable” are conse
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Papers of vowels per word, some on
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Papers followed by 39 side effect b
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Papers References Chall, J.S. & Dal
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Papers Coping involves the effort t
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Papers Conclusion Defense mechanism
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Papers of Pennsylvania in 2000. In
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Papers for board members, reviewing
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Papers Focusing on “Development
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Papers Figure 1: Total UB Internal
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Papers Figure 3: Academic staff vie
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Papers Respondents’ evaluations o
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Papers 140 2005 Symposium Proceedin
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Papers ing proposals, the greater t
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Papers Abstract “Best Practices
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Papers INSTITUTIONAL ERA PLANNING A
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Papers process than an end product;
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Papers realization of the benefits
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Papers State and private institutio
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Papers Institutions of higher educa
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Papers Typically, all interactions
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Papers Figure 2 There are nine pers
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Papers Questions that can be discus
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Papers Using the innovation success
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Papers students in non-science subj
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Papers For example, to address inno
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Papers The second is the Botswana T
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Papers manpower is not trained, and
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Papers European and Federal Funding
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Papers As the majority of US Univer
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Papers Integrated Project Duration
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Papers Collective responsibility -
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Papers • Revised implementation p
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Papers Conclusion SRA is an interna
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Papers Virgin Territory: The Role o
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Papers and in which disciplines. Th
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Papers a historically black univers
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Papers Benefits of Working with Jun
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Papers Human Subjects Research and
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Papers observational and could do v
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Papers ted on patients at l’Hopit
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Papers The pastor of the Bergen hos
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Papers The Environmental Protection
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Papers of the restriction on the he
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