Last 12 April 2021, the Research Development and Innovation Center (RDIC) of Our Lady of Fatima University (OLFU) held a Zoom webinar on conducting research during the time of the pandemic where social interactions are very much restricted. Titled “Undergraduate Research Projects and Ideas during Limited Social Interaction Situations: Development, Design, and Directions for Research Advisors,” the virtual learning event tackled the challenges, changes, and choices for faculty and student researchers amid the current circumstances.
“This webinar is really valuable especially now that we are converting into virtual from the in-person modalities,” said RDIC Director, Dr. Michael Joseph S. Diño. “As researchers, we should acknowledge that pandemic is really pushing us into different boundaries in terms of our research projects, in terms of our learning, and in terms of accessing our resources,” he expressed as he discussed “Challenges: Research during COVID-19.”
Dr. Dino also gave an in-depth talk on literature review papers, which he told the audience, “can serve as your research project in replacement of in person data gathering approach.”
Trisha Joy Gotinga, Campus Research Coordinator of the Quezon City Campus then expounded on “Changes: Research Production using Remote and Secondary Data.” In her segment, she weighed the pros, cons, and risks of collecting data online, which is a “safer recourse” as opposed to face-to-face approach in the current circumstances. “Change is very hard work and at the moment, we try to traverse a lot of changes in our lives, and in terms of research, we have enumerated several options, and we need to transform from face to face data collection to online data collection,” she said. Aside from this, Ms. Gotinga also gave a thorough discussion of the process of secondary data analysis.
On “Choices: Literature Search using ScienceDirect”, Michael William Catajan, an informationist from the University’s Learning Resource Center, gave an overview of ScienceDirect and walked the viewers through the steps of searching literature on the renown online database.
The webinar was indeed an enriching event for researchers in the OLFU community as it empowers them to continue striving in their academic endeavors undeterred by the barriers set by the pandemic. According to Dr. Diño, this is just the first of several training programs that the RDIC will be conducting; more are expected in the near future.
