Illustration: By Auke Herrema
Over 900 registered participants from 23 countries took part in our concluded live streamed webinar series on What it Takes to Produce High Impact Journals. The first webinar was cohosted by the Commission of University Education, Kenya focusing on Journal Accreditation and what it takes for a University to Produce High Impact Journals and the second one was in partnership with African Journals Online on Producing High Impact African Journals.
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86 participants from 14 countries took part in the just concluded online research capacity workshop on Creating a Streamlined Research Ecosystem in Universities. The researchers who took part in the workshop came from Sierra Leone, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Algeria, India, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Germany, Liberia, and Somalia. The objective of the workshop was to explore the importance of increasing researchers’ visibility through effective research management.
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We are pleased to announce that, with a mutual interest in collaboration, the Training Centre in Communication and Knowledge E have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to promote joint educational and research initiatives that support academia, with the objective to enhance capacities, competencies and competitiveness in Higher Education.
Training Centre in Communication has started offering courses online. Ms. Joy Owango, the Executive Director commented that “ This was part of our strategy for 2019/2020, which, we submitted to the Invest2Impact Award and won.” “Despite this we are excited about these developments and we look forward to supporting more researchers and academics on how we can improve their research output and visibility, in line with our objective on Train. Support. Empower the research and academic community.” For more about Training Centre in Communication please go here https://www.tcc-africa.org/about/
On 9th March 2020, TCC Africa partnered with the Falling Walls Foundation to host the first round of Science Communication and Engagement activities under the ‘Falling Walls Engage’ programme. The workshop we co-hosted brought together scientists, innovators, science communicators and science media partners from Kenya, Ghana, Portugal, United States, Germany and Greece.
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Elsevier’s latest global analysis reveals progress toward gender parity, but women still trail men in number of publications and citations
In 2016 Ms. Vatosoa Rakotondrazafy Of MIHARI Network, Madagascar, took part in a Science Communication training in Tanzania we organized in partnership with the Tanzania Fisheries Research Institute. 3 years later she won the prestigious Whitley Award. This is a nature conservation charity offering funding, profile and training to grassroots conservation leaders across the Global South. She went to London and received the award from Anne, Princess Royal
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Celebrating 2019 Training Centre in Communication trainee Dr Esther Kioko, a Senior research scientist and the head of the Zoology Department at National Museums of Kenya. Dr Kioko won the 2019 Marsh Award for Ecologists in Africa. This award is provided by the Marsh Christian Trust and administered by the British Ecological Society. She was awarded for an outstanding current research record, largely completed in Africa, which is having a significant impact on the development of the science of ecology or its application.
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7 years ago Samuel Ng’ang’a, came for our training in Scientific Communication and Publishing and came back this year for research capacity support on how to communicate to non- scientists
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We are celebrating, Godwin Anywar our 2017 TCC trainee and DAAD Fellow from Uganda. He recently won the Young Investigator Fellowship for the 19th International Congress of the International Society of Ethnopharmacology.
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What is your field of research?
I am taking part in a postgraduate course in Research and Public policy.
What field of research are you involved in?
Molecular Biology with specialization in Plant Virology.
How effective was the course in achieving your learning objectives?
This course has excellently empowered me with soft skills that will enable me navigation the frontiers of knowledge to get literature that I will use in my research.It has enhanced my writing skills that will greatly improve the quality of my research proposal, research thesis and publications that will result from and beyond my PhD studies. Presentation skills that will be used to present my research proposal, defend my final research thesis and any communication I will make.
The training has also broadened my knowledge on data analytical tools and how important quality of data is crucial. It has made it easier for me to continue learning the appropriate tools e.g. R, which is a very powerful tool of analysis. Additional software I encountered that will improve my publication quality include Mendely, plagiarism software, Ginger and grammarly, Harzings’s tool among others.
What did you like most about the training?
The facilitators were very informative having a wide knowledge base and they had interactive methods of training that kept most participants alert and involved. Focusing on the learning itself, the presentations and materials availed were very crucial in gaining hands on skills as well as acquiring variety of academic knowledge.
Outline 3 things that you will take with you/have learnt in this session
Conceptualization of research
Literature review and its relevance
Good presentation and writing skills
R-data analysis skills
How do you hope to change your practice as a result of this training? I have leant the importance of publication and will therefore ensure that any data I generated will be of quality and published since I have been guided through the process of producing quality research right from proposal development to generation a quality of publication.
Please share other comments on the training session?
The training was extremely informative and very helpful in the whole session, and for that I applaud the organizers for delivering a good training.
‘I wish to be mentored in improving my skills in Data Analysis and I am willing to come for every training in the TCC calendar so I may be mentored by your trainers.’ Four ago months, we got a message in our inbox on a request from Kevin Oduor Onyango.
As he was conducting his research, he came across our activities and noted how we would be able to support him in improving how to analyse and present data. Kevin is a former student from Technical University of Mombasa, where he studied Bachelor of Commerce (Finance Option) and simultaneous took a professional Certified Public Accountant course and reached level 5. Kevin, lives about 450 kilometers from Nairobi, where the TCC Office is located.
One week to the Scientific Communication and Publishing course https://www.tcc-africa.org/courses/ that we concluded last month, we got a frantic message from one of our trainees. “ I want to know where I can publish my manuscripts!” I am so worried about #predatorypublishing and I do not know where to start,” he lamented.
Meet, Meshack Mulongo an early career researcher in Education Administration from Karatina University, whose research focus is on the Mitigation of Examination Malpractices in Universities in Kenya. He drove 150kms to come and attend our course and further understand how he could protect himself from predatory publishers as he went through his Journal Selection Process.
TCC: How effective was the course in achieving your learning objectives?
Meshack : The course was very effective and timely in my research work, that it has equipped me to be an effective researcher and plan to share what I have learnt.
TCC: What did you like most about the training?
Meshack : The diversity of presenters who are knowledgeable of their respective fields and also the communication and concern of the entire TCC team.
TCC: Outline 3 things that you will take with you/have learnt in this session
Meshack:The hands on approach in supporting us was valuable and it was done in such a way that we can further train others. I loved the units on data analysis and I was able to identify about 5 high impact journals where I could publish my manuscripts .
My name is Halkano Molu Guracha a Kenyan researcher in the Malaria Programme at the Institute of Primate Research. The training offered by the Training Centre in Communication was relevant and very helpful and the expectations I had before the training were met and exceeded. I was captivated by the Introduction Materials Results Acknowledgements and Discussion (IMRaD)structure in producing academic manuscripts . This was new to me, and I intend to use this knowledge in changing the quality of my future scientific papers.
The workshop is very informative and eye-opening and the delivery and breakdown of hard concepts was superb and the approach was very sound and tailor-made to the dynamics we face in research as early career scientists .
In line with the new knowledge I have acquired, I intend to approach my abstract and academic paper differently and pay close attention to the manuscript guidelines outlined and utilize the IMRaD structure process’s to produce a paper that is meaningful.
I would recommend the Scientific Writing workshop to my colleagues without any objection as it was indeed of high quality and very relevant.
