Research to Publishing

What an engaging talk and presentation we had today! My faculty colleagues had requested that I offer a presentation on research and publishing. Many of them had not received much education on research and yet they have done so well in terms of creating opportunities to do research and to publish as possible. I presented ideas related to fostering an academic community that encourages and enables publishing and research. I have to say that the faculty here face many challenges in their attempts to do research and to publish. The university is not in a financial position to provide them with computers or internet access. Internet access is expensive because it is run entirely through the phone lines. There is not easy wireless zones. There are not up-to-date books or journals. There is no coursework to facilitate their learning. Paying submission fees digs deeply into scarce money they have for their families. Even so, they are intellectually engaged and excited about doing research and publishing. Several people expressed a resurrected interest in papers they had started some while back, but shelved. I have an idea to start a  partnership program pairing a US colleague with a Ugandan colleague who has similar methodological or substantive interests. The partnership would primarily be over email where papers are shared both directions and questions can be asked. It might work out that the two would collaborate on research, but this would, of course, be up to the scholars involved. If you have ideas about how something like this might work, please chime in.