In the Research Mentorship, students work with their mentor to develop and write a research paper, and then go through the process of submitting their work to an academic journal, magazine, competition or conference.
This helps students get their work out into the world, understand the academic process more thoroughly, and have a tangible outcome from their time in the program. We do not promise publication - rather, we support the student as they identify a submission target, prepare your manuscript for submission, and (if the manuscript is not accepted) make any edits needed or submit to a back-up target.
In this program, students have up to 15 weekly hour-long meetings with their mentor. Here is the suggested breakdown of the meetings:
Overall, we expect the program to last 16-20 weeks, depending on the time taken for the publication target to get back with a decision. The next section outlines the checkpoints that we have built in to ensure that you are on track to successfully complete the program!
While you have an established deadline calendar that has been shared with you above here are a few important checkpoints for you to keep in mind as you move through the research program.
In the Week 1 session, we encourage you to share your background and specific areas of interest. Your mentor will also be sharing their expertise and background with you. This will help your mentor get a sense of your expectations and develop their course accordingly.
By week 3, you need to submit your research question.
Students in the research mentorship also need to answer the following questions: (a) What methods do you plan to use to answer the research question? (b) If an experiment is planned: will this experiment involve human or animal subjects? (c) Why is publication important to you?
This is to help us identify appropriate publication targets, prepare if ethics approval will be required (more details below), and understand your motivations in the program.
At the end of Week 4, you should have a clearly articulated research question, topic, and the proposal. This research topic should be defined in written form and shared directly with your mentor.
At this point, Standard program students will also need to confirm the publication target that they are planning to submit to.