RMS-2022 Phase 1 has concluded.

The series on research methodology: tools and techniques (RMS-2022), conducted by the Learning Resource Center, East Campus, for final-year PG students in collaboration with the ECQAC, has come to an end. The series started on November 7, 2022. Although the series met with a snag, we were able to conclude it yesterday, leaving one session on SPSS as the students are busy with internal exams. The remaining session will be conducted soon after the internal exams are over.

There were an average of 20 students from the departments of commerce, English, and environmental studies. Altogether, there were seven technical sessions that dealt with different aspects of research methodology.

The opening ceremony took place on November 7 at 2 PM in the presence of Ms. Anjana, assistant professor and IQAC coordinator, East Campus.

The first day's technical session was handled by Mr. Mahesh Palamuttath, Librarian, East Campus. He talked about the whole research process, from choosing the research question to the research design, data analysis, and writing the report.

The second day's session was handled by Ms. Mariya Rose Kurian, assistant librarian, who handled the session on the preparation of a dissertation synopsis—criteria, dos, and don'ts. She was able to give the students a systematic way to come up with their research problem and focus on it. She gave the participants enough help by giving good examples of how to design a research problem and how to come up with research hypotheses.

The third day's session was led by Mr. Mahesh Palamuttath, who spoke on the topic of G-Suite Applications and Writing Assistant Tools for Research. This session gave a general idea of how to use applications like Google Doc, Google Sheet, Google Slides, and Google Form and writing assistant tools like QuillBot, Grammarly, and Language Tool for writing research papers.

On the fourth day, Mr. Mahesh Palamuttath and Ms. Maria Rose Kurian led a hands-on session called Introduction to Style Guides—MLA/APA, Reference management tools for research include the Zotero reference manager, Zotero integration with Microsoft Office and Google Docs, and tools for creating in-text citations, reference lists, and bibliographies. The goal of the session was to learn how to use Zotero to manage references when writing a research paper. This would help stop plagiarism in academic research.

It was also great to have four assistant professors from the English department in this hands-on session.

The session covered the areas of:

Installation of Zotero software
Generating references, bibliographies, and citations using Zotero
Methods to avoid plagiarism
Importing references from websites, YouTube, pdf, etc.

NB: The exclusive session on SPSS will be conducted, and the date will be announced.

I'd like to thank the Vice-Principal, Dr. C.S. Francis, all HODs, PG class teachers, IQAC coordinators Ms. Anjana Maam, Abhijith Sir, Renson Sir, and Nithin from the office for all the arrangements, Priya Ranjini Maam for the computer lab, and everyone else who contributed to the program's success.

Lastly, I thank my team, Ms. Maria Rose Kurian and Ms. Aswathy Mathew, for the support.

Snaps from the series