RSF Research Academy: Theory and Framework Development II by Dr. Evan Lau

On August 19, 2020, the online lecture by the theme “Theory and Framework Development II” have been conducted successfully. Research Synergy Foundation and Research Synergy Institute in collaboration with Universitas Islam Bandung (Unisba) continue to invite Assoc. Prof. Dr. Evan Lau as an expert in the 2nd Day of RSF Research Academy. The organizers are committed to encourage all participants to develop their research skill to work towards a better research process.

 

Dr. Evan Lau continued to review and discuss how to design conceptual framework. Dr. Evan gave an explanation about the conceptual/theoretical framework in the first place, then demonstrated an interconnected flow chart that illustrates an example of conceptual framework. He also described several important uses of theoretical framework that can help to strengthen a research and how to develop it. For most researchers, it is sometimes difficult to find the answer to the research question, so the expert reminded all the participants to read and review in depth the literature related to the research, also shared some tips for managing a research process. In this online lecture session, the participants were given to create and present their research conceptual frameworks. Dr. Evan then reviewed all the presented conceptual framework charts one after another in detail. The participants ended up getting a material that was very useful and informative for their research. In the next lecture, we will continue to facilitate the improved management of the research datasets, so we look forward to meeting all the participants in this insightful session!

RSF Research Academy: Identify Research Opportunity & Theory and Framework Development I by Dr. Evan Lau (Session 1)

 

 

 

 

On August 12, 2020, Research Synergy Foundation and Research Synergy Institute in collaboration with Universitas Islam Bandung (Unisba) held the 1st Session of RSF Research Academy. The theme of today’s session is Identify Research Opportunity and Theory and Framework Development I by Dr. Evan Lau. In this session, participants had the opportunity to understand what the research is and strategies how to conduct a research. The lecture is attended by 44 participants from faculty members, professionals, and government officers representing 4 countries Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Peru.

Presented as the expert, Dr. Evan Lau, explained more detail about the paradigm of research, how to formulate and clarify research topics, and how to attribute a good research problem. In this lecture, Dr. Evan Lau also discusses a six-stage process for choosing topic in a research. Being able to identify the researchable issue is an important skill to have for all researchers. So, the lecture has provided broad guidelines to help with how to properly start the research process. The participants were highly engaged and interested during the lecture with lots of questions answered by the expert. The lecture will continue the 2nd Session by the theme Theory and Framework Development II. We are excited to have all the participants in the coming weeks!

Online Lecturing Series #askExpert2: Covid-19: Revival of Tourism and Hospitality Industry

Since the covid-19 outbreak, which have been declared as a pandemic by WHO, we cannot ignore its inevitable impacts in any industries and sectors worldwide. Hospitality industries are among those have been feeling the hardest hit. We are aware of this impact and as a form of our real knowledge contribution, we decided to invite Assoc. Prof. Dr.Vinay Chamoli, from Maharaja Agrasen University, India, to provide us as global researchers with rich insights and analysis in Research Synergy Foundation webinars by the theme: Covid-19: Revival of Tourism and Hospitality Industry. The webinars was held on Wednesday, 8 July 2020 using Zoom as a platform

This event has more than 160 participants that has been registered from 11 countries around the world, such as Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Nepal, Morocco, Myanmar, Nigeria, Canada, Afghanistan. In the opening session, webinars started by a brief introduction regarding Research Synergy Foundation as a global research ecosystem by Mrs Santi Rachmawati. The event then continued with a presentation session from the speaker Assoc. Prof. Dr.Vinay Chamoli which was moderated by Mrs. Ani Wahyu.

Dr. Vinay started his lecture by presenting an overview about tourism and hospitality industry in every regions. In terms of international tourism spending, China remains the world largest spender, followed by the United States. With a variety of reasons for travel, airplane is still the most widely used transportation by tourists. In 2019, tourism industry –mainly from a leisure industry- has contributed a lot to the total GDP worldwide. It reached 4,715 billion U.S. dollars in 2019 from global leisure tourism spending. The first position of the world’s major connection hub for international flights is Dubai International Airport, with over 86.3 million international passengers uplifted in 2019. While in terms of revenue, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Continental Holdings are in the top position.

As for some of the impact of Covid-19 on this industry, Dr. Vinay explained in his several analysis. The first major impact of Covid-19 on tourism and hospitality industry was job and visitor loss. Covid-19 may not be the 1st infectious disease that the world faces, but this virus has forced hospitality industries to reimagine how they run their business. Almost all international travels are banned. Many countries and regions have imposed quarantines, so as the workers and visitors who are the core of the industry. Airlines sector, global hotel market, as well as restaurants are suffering a huge loss, and thus revenue decreasing cannot be avoided. Some hotels have even turned into quarantine places. This happens in some Asian countries, like India and Indonesia. People will fear to travel within such condition, so psychological problems with travelers will persist afterwards.

However, the Covid-19  does not mean to be a ‘case judge’ who decided that this industry seems unable to survive and there will be no choice at all.  The industry still has a chance to be able to survive by applying a Global Protocol for the New Normal as a ‘Safe Travels’ standard conducted by World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC). It includes:

  1. Operational and staff preparedness:

All tourism and hospitality industries must plan to start the operation based on Global Protocol standard. They must know and adopt WHO standard of cleanliness, food concerns, room services, and etc for the employees and tourists safety.

  • Ensuring a safe experience

Enhance sanitation based on WHO standard and discipline in practicing physical distancing. For example in the restaurant, regulations such as a menu and bills are transferred to the visitor’s phone to avoid physical contact.

  • Rebuilding Trust and Confidence

Building customer trust with applying ‘perform and inform’ that it is safe to travel with them and use their facilities.

  • Implementing Enabling Policies

New policies has to be implemented as a recovery efforts for various losses, like adding a new job and enhance promotion.

  • Clinically Clean is the New Level

We must be accustomed to applying an improved standard of our clean habits.

Before ending his presentation, Dr. Vinay displayed a video advertisement of one of U.S. Airlines which contains a message, ‘We are ready for you when you’re ready to fly’. He also quoted Paulo Coelho, ’The ship is safest when it is port, but that’s not what ships were built for’. The slogan seemed meaningful to strengthen each other and build readiness to go back to a normal condition together.

In this lecture, there was an interactive discussion with the participants, here we summarize some interesting questions along with the answers:

  1. Abderrahim Naim (Sultan Moulay Simane University, Morocco)

Q: How can tourist structure be able to revive their economy? And with what strategy?

A: Tourism sector still can run, as government has opened several potential sectors, but they have to ensure they must follow the guidelines to ensure safe travel, all employees must be trained well-enough how to maintain safety health standard

  • Eva (Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia)

Q: Are there any difference for tourism industry at urban and rural area (particularly community based industry), related to the effort to revitalized the industry?

A: We can call that rural areas are the unexplored areas. Due to the psychological effects as the impact of covid-19, there will be a possibility for some peoples –especially urban people- will love to go to safe and less crowded places like rural areas. So, rural areas will be developed and it will help to increase the economic potential for the residents. People can still survive their own industry in urban and rural areas by applying the new normal and health protocol standards.

  • Prof. Revelina (Philippines)

Q: How government, academicians, and citizens help awaken the tourism industry?

A: By moving to organize any online classes or webinars, government, academicians and citizens still can make a meaningful impact. Like me, I still keep in touch with my students, one of them is the chef and his hotel is shut down. But he can still survive with his job, by managing community kitchen, host a party in their home, and as a chef he can go to customer’s house and served a good food for them. I always say that ‘human is not the strongest, it is dinosaurs, but it cannot survive, and human is the smartest, so they can manage to survive and keep supporting each other’.

  • Retno Budi Wahyuni (Indonesia)

Q: What is the most important part to be the 1st priority of recovery caused by covid19?

A: Being creative in any areas, people should protect their interest, planning any activities in any areas with a new standard, get rid a negative side of this pandemic, growing a self-belief that we can pass this condition together.

How insightful the discussion was, and many more questions to ask from the participants. The webinars has closed successfully and we look forward to your participation in RSF next events.

How to Make your Academic Conference Effective and Efficient?

An academic conference or scientific conference is a one-day or multiday meeting which researchers present and discuss their work within their field. Attending an academic conference is an exciting opportunity to build networks with other academics and experts and exchange stimulating ideas. Academic conferences are not just for academics, it can be attended by various groups of people with certain expertise and profession from local to global. Some conferences focus on highly-specialized topics and are usually organized by institution, associations, or group of independent researchers. For some researchers, academic conference help to make their research process easier. Thus, the academic conference is a crucial part of academic life.

As a stage for academic career development, some researchers began to choose to become conference organizers. They seemed to rest for a while from a busy moment in the campus or laboratory, and meet with their circle that will give birth and transmit constructive ideas. However, conferences held by certain institutions experience convoluted bureaucratic constraints, as well as financial problems that tend to be wasteful. As a social enterprise committed to being dedicated to the education world, we (Research Synergy Foundation) would like to share our experience in managing international conference which is one of our featured program. Presented as a speaker of the webinar is Mrs. Santi Rahmawati, a founder and director of Global Network Operation of Research Synergy Foundation, also served as Director of Scholarvein. More than 120 participants were engaged virtually in this webinar.

Mrs. Santi began her presentation by emphasizing four common questions in managing international conference; Man, Budget, Process, and Output. She also discussed some of the benefits for organizing international conference for institution that includes publication matters, university ranking, international outlook, accreditation, credibility, and positioning, develop stronger research groups and collaboration, and extra non-tuition fees. Conferences can come in any shape, like academic conference, virtual conference, trade conference, UnConference, business conference, and etc. As more gatherings get shut down due to current pandemic outbreak, virtual conferences appeared to be very popular as an alternative to any various meetings.

Mrs. Santi then gave a detailed description of the process of managing a conference which she divided into 3 stages: pre-during-post process. The description explains what actually needs to be prepared rather than what most people sees. In terms of publication as the final outcome which is usually awaited by the participants, she illustrated a complete process which happened immediately after the conference was over. By applying these 3 stages, RSF ensures that the process of publishing participants articles runs properly. Both the organizer and the participant must work together and support each other during the publication process. RSF have affiliated with hundreds of national and international journals and publishers with various indexation. With these sources, we hope to provide greater ease and effectiveness to disseminate knowledge contribution across the globe. Conference management also requires the role of appropriate stakeholders to create a conducive ecosystem. They also have to make sure that the budget is reasonable and well-allocated. A good collaboration between each parts will result in a successful conference.

In RSF development journey, we always learn and make our utmost effort to manage conferences effectively and efficiently. To achieve this, we complete each process by creating a system that embraces every process and help to answer various challenges in managing conference. We create a global research ecosystem that includes: Scholarvein as our integrated conference operating system, Research Synergy Institute as an enhancement and learning platform, RSF Press as an integrated international journals system, and Reviewer Track as a hub for worldwide reviewers. We will keep track a lot of important moving parts in every process. Therefore, we are open to any collaborative cooperation to help managing successful scientific event.

How Virtual International Conferences Can Benefit You

Reacting to the fast-spreading of Covid-19, almost all universities in the world has already canceled all public events and transition all in-class instruction to online and remote teaching. With this transition, researchers also seem to have missed the opportunity to hold any scientific gatherings. For researchers and academicians, also for experts, policy makers, students and stakeholders, international conferences can play a significant role to exchange and spread ideas, knowledge and recent trends. Bearing in mind that researchers also have to publish their research, international conference can provide this obligation. Following the trend to move all activities to online, so does the international conference.

Now, it seems online/virtual conferences will complement traditional conferences. Some of the primary benefits of online international conferences are:

1. Access can be easier

Online conferences are quite similar with same professional conferences, they are packed with sessions, panel discussions and sometimes short ceremonial and social media events. As long as you have an internet connection, you can participate online conferences with smartphone, tablet or computer. You can attend any sessions remotely. It can be said that you have a permanent access, you can watch and and re-watch all the sessions you want.

2. Connecting with a larger audience

Online conferences also have a much wider geographical reach, allowing for attendees to join from any different countries.

3. Cost and time-effective

Online conferences are much more cost-effective for organizers and participants. It reduced extraneous expenses, like travel, hotel accommodations, food expenses. By setting up an online conferences, it saves time consumed and only cost you registration and publication fees. Nevertheless, you don’t have to stress about your formal attire.

Find Upcoming Research Synergy Foundation Virtual Conferences Here: http://www.researchsynergy.org/upcoming-international-conference/

References:

https://www.inc.com/dave-kerpen/5-ways-to-benefit-from-an-online-conference.html

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/7-reasons-virtual-confere_b_3404249

Open Access vs. Closed Access Journal: A Publication Option

Many academic researchers pursue to publish their original research in reputable journals. Along with the growth of technology and knowledge development, the number of scientific publication will continue to rise and shift to digital distribution. The scholarly journal is one of the many venues to disseminate knowledge to a broader audience in all parts of the world. Researchers could freely choose based on their research field and quality, publication speed, also the cost to publish.

In today academic world, there are two types of journal publications that are widely known apart from a traditional journal (hard-copy/printed journal): 1) Open Access, and 2) Closed Access. Each journal type has advantages and disadvantages. Open Access Journal can enhance the visibility and make the spreading of knowledge more feasible. The visibility can lead to a citation impact advantage.

The cost of publication in open access journals are commonly more expensive than closed access journals. However, articles in closed-access journals are initially only visible to people at institutions which have a license for these specific journals. Researchers in developing countries are less able to access research, so they gain more from open access journals. Although both journals produce more forms of e-print, it also provides printed version for each journals. There are also hybrid open access journals that contains a mixture of open access articles and closed access articles.

REFERENCE:

https://www.aje.com/arc/making-the-choice-open-access-vs-traditional-journals/

Top 3 Benefit of Scholarly Journal for Research

The rapid growth of technology has impacted the development of research and learning management. With sophisticated information technologies, it is possible for students and researchers to advance science and innovations faster. Today’s researchers can easily access scientific data in online publication. The existence of scholarly journals in the digital age help improve research productivity in significant ways, including:

1. It provides proof that supports the research result

An original research must include evidence to strengthen the answers of the research question. The evidence followed by an explanation that highlight important findings. This can be done by conducting literature review and rigorous data analysis.

2. A credible source for scientific research

It is very important to use reliable sources in academic work. The most common credible sources in writing an academic research are scholarly journals, conference papers and books. Articles in scholarly journals are reviewed by experts and must always attach proper references as the essential part of academic integrity. Author should cite only the articles in reputable journals and non-biased website.

3. Focused and relevant research

The scholarly journals are like a “warehouse” for knowing the latest development in a particular field of science. Researchers can easily find a relevant and specific information related to their work. They can also make a knowledge contribution by getting their research published in scholarly journals.

PLAGIARISM AVOIDANCE TIPS: #1 PARAPHRASING

If you’re struggling to avoid plagiarism, you must know how to paraphrase in your writing.

According to ThoughtCo.com, a paraphrase is a “restatement of a text in another for or other words, often simplify or clarify meaning”. Paraphrasing can be simply defined as an attempt to rewriting other opinion in your own words. We can use paraphrasing as a way of demonstrating critical thinking skills and developing shared understanding.

Here is an example of paraphrase:

Original source:

“Differentiation as an instructional approach promotes a balance between a student’s style and a student’s ability. Differentiated instruction provides the student with options for processing and internalizing the content, and for constructing new learning in order to progress academically”

Paraphrase:

“Teachers use differentiated instruction to help students learn, allowing the teacher to cater lessons to the way each student learns and each student’s skill (Thompson, 2009).”

We have three useful strategies to help you create a satisfactory paraphrase.

  • Immerse yourself in the text

Read the paragraph several times and quickly review the important points and key statements. Close the cited book or article and make notes, if necessary.

  • Change words and sentence structure

When you paraphrase, you can’t simply replace a few words. To paraphrase a source, you can emphasize your interpretation by rewording and rewriting phrases and sentences without changing the meaning from the original text. You can also use thesaurus to find synonyms and other similar terms.

  • Use a signal phrase

A paraphrase must be cited by attributing to the original source. Signaling terms (e.g., “they write”, “Smith notes that…” “He believes that…”) lets the reader know that you are introducing a source and where the paraphrase starts.

References:

A Guide to Paraphrasing in Research Paper. Retrieved from: https://wordvice.com/a-guide-to-paraphrasing-in-research-papers-apa-ama/

Paraphrase. Retrieved from: https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-paraphrase-1691573

Using Evidence: Examples of Paraphrasing. Retrieved from: https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/evidence/paraphrase/examples

Finding out the Novelty of the Research

Novelty of the research refers to one or elements that are new in the research, including new methodology or new observation which leads to a new knowledge discovery. A novelty might contribute to scientific progress, as stated by the Philosopher, Imre Lakatos, that good research programs are “progressive”. The novelty of the research and research impact can be a strategic way to engage the attention of the readers in a research paper. The essence of novelty of the obtained results of the research needs to be connected with their importance for science as well as with practical importance. For finding novelty in area of research, researchers need to conduct a thorough literature review to find out what is studied and what are the gaps which need to be clarified. This literature review depend on in-depth knowledge of the field. Researchers should compare and link their work with other previous research. Many high impact journals will tend to prioritize choosing to publish novel articles. With a large amount of research and rapid scientific development, it becomes a challenge and pressure for some researchers to produce innovative and relevant research.

 

REFERENCES:

Cohen, B.A. (2017). How Should Novelty be Valued in Science?. [ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

What is novelty in Research. [editage.com]

Dealing with Paper Rejection (Author’s Perspective)

Submitted articles in high-quality scholarly journals can be rejected for many reasons. A large number of papers get rejected solely on the basis of their writing or without being reviewed any further. Every researcher experiences rejection at all stages of their careers. Studies have shown that around 21% are rejected without review, and approximately 40% of papers are rejected after peer review. In such cases, every authors need to figure out number of options on what to do when their papers are rejected.

  1. Give yourself time and face it with a clear mind and proper analysis
  2. Provide the submission details and learn all the details of reviewer comments
  3. Asking Editor to reconsider with good reasons and arguments
  4. Revise, rewritten and (re)submit to same or another journal that fits your work
  5. Do a series of improvements for your articles
  6. Ask advice to a more experienced researcher who has published more than you
  7. Editors, like all humans, make mistakes
  8. Try again and do some research works

Having a paper rejected can be frustrating and make you unhappy, but you still have a chance to turn this condition into your advantage. Your work is likely not as terrible or flawed as you think it is and editors often make the wrong decision. Enjoy and good luck for publishing your research and get some more experience!

References:

https://www.wiley.com/network/researchers/submission-and-navigating-peer-review/5-options-to-consider-after-article-rejection

http://www.howtowriteanacademicpaper.com/paper-rejection.html