Preparing Engineering Graduate Students to Engage in Scholarly Communications
Loading...
Date
2024-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
American Society for Engineering Education
Abstract
The typical engineering degree plan has several important gaps when reviewed against
the research lifecycle. These gaps are often filled in by students learning ad hoc, by overworked
faculty over numerous mentoring sessions, or often by the engineering research librarians in
workshops and consultations. Purposeful incorporation of a curriculum that fills those gaps,
though, can prepare students better for the norms of academia, for the process of research
publication, and for critical review of scholarship.
Research librarians with both engineering and scholarly communication expertise are
uniquely situated to fill in the gaps of the research lifecycle. Scholarly communication skills are
vital for high-impact research writing – understanding and critically evaluating scientometrics,
reviewing conferences and journals, evaluating and reviewing literature, navigating authorship,
planning for data management, understanding various paper types, interpreting disciplinary
norms, and more.
In 2022, the primary author designed and proposed the semester-long first-year graduate
course “Research Lifecycle and Publication in Engineering” to the Multidisciplinary Engineering
Department. The first course offering was in Spring of 2023, and the students (and their mentors)
had overwhelmingly positive evaluations. Student comments showed that an introduction to
scholarly communications at the early graduate research stage was also an introduction to the
culture and norms of academia. Many of the students submitted their course papers to
conferences or journals, practicing some of the scholarly skills learned in this first-year graduate
course. The department made the “Research Lifecycle…” course mandatory for all
Interdisciplinary Engineering PhD and Master of Science students, after its first semester.
This paper will present the course design for “Research Lifecycle and Publication in
Engineering.” It will encourage engineering research librarians, teaching faculty, and curriculum
committees in engineering to collaborate to prepare their students to engage in the full research
lifecycle
Description
Keywords
scholarly communication, engineering education
Citation
Morganti, D., & Dunn, A. (2024, June), Preparing Engineering Graduate Students to Engage in Scholarly Communications Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--47864