Undergraduate Research Program

Undergraduate Research Program/Prize (URP) Update

To follow up to the announcement sent on December 12, 2011, here are some news, events, and concrete deadlines for the URP.

We invite students interested in participating in this program to send us a "letter of intent" to submit a proposal. The deadline is Friday February 3 at 12 noon. This should include the following information:

-        Students' names. It is possible to submit as a team; if the winners are a team, team members will split the prize.

-        Proposed topic with some details about the research question and why this is an interesting question to you and in general. You will have an opportunity to refine

-        Whether you have already contacted a potential supervisor (and if so, who) or you are still looking for one.

On Tuesday February 7 and Wednesday February 8, from 7:30 to 9 pm, in Building 5, Room 107, we will hold two brief workshops in intended to help you put your proposal together, selecting from the following topics the ones that seem most useful from reading the letters of intent:

·         Why URP? What is undergraduate research and how can it help you?

·         Solving problems and creating knowledge – the basics of doing research and research design

-        Why do we do research and why do we have theory? Why does research involve theory?

-        Basic research designs in the different disciplines (SBA, SHSS, SSE)

·         Getting an idea and picking a topic for your undergraduate research project.

·         Reviewing literature:

-        Why should I do a “literature review”?

-        What is it anyway? (with a little on how to do a literature review).

·         Writing a good research question: Focus, focus, focus!

·         Finding an advisor:

-        Fining a faculty to guide your research or you can help with their research

-        The URP matching assistance, and how to approach AUI faculty.

·         Writing the proposal: it’s really important! What is in a good proposal and how it is organized and developed?

·         Seeking funding:  Need money for your research? Where to go and how to get it.

·         Collecting, analyzing, and making sense of it different types of data:

-        How to get it, how to analyze it, how to understand what it is telling you

·         Writing the paper:

-        What’s in a good undergraduate research paper?

-        Where can you get help when problems and questions arise (as they often do)?

You will also receive feedback on your letter of intent in the course of the week. The proposal itself will be due Monday February 13 at 12 noon.

We are looking forward to receiving many "letters of intent" and seeing many of you at the workshops!

The Undergraduate Research Program Committee
Dr. Jawad Abrache, Dr. Violetta Cavalli-Sforza, Dr. Khalid Sendide, Dr. Duncan Rinehart, Dr. Kevin Smith

Are you curious about the world outside of AUI?

Would you like to prepare yourself for graduate studies?

Have you done a paper for a class and would like to develop it further?

Is there some topic that interests you but you can’t learn as much about it in class as you want?

Then you should know that AUI is starting an Undergraduate Research Program. This program will help you develop your interests further and give you the research skills that will help you in graduate school and in life. Also, AUI’s Undergraduate Research Program will have a contest for the best undergraduate research paper and will publish good undergraduate research in a new journal.

If you already have a paper or project that you want to develop further, then use the semester break to read related literature (literature search) to find examples of how you might improve your paper or project, and to increase your background knowledge on your topic.

Before you leave for semester break, you may want to contact one of the professors at AUI to see if they are willing to advise you (help you make your research better).

If you do not yet have a paper or project, you may contact AUI faculty to see if you could help their research and in the process develop a part of it into your own paper.

The Undergraduate Research Competition, sponsored by the Rotoract Club, will award a prize for the best undergraduate research paper submitted at AUI during the spring semester of 2012.

AUI’s new Journal of Undergraduate Research (JUR) will publish good papers in any area, and will publish the winning paper of the Undergraduate Research Competition.

The Undergraduate Research Program is also planning a series of workshops in January to help you start and conduct your research.

More information will be available in January, but if you are interested, you are encouraged to get started now so you will be ready to submit your proposal early in the spring 2012 semester.

The Undergraduate Research Competition is a first step in the establishment of a more substantial Undergraduate Research Program at AUI.

For more information contact any of the Undergraduate Research Program Committee listed below:

Dr. Kevin Smith

Dr. Violetta Cavalli-Sforza

Dr. Khalid Sendide

Dr. Jawad Abrache

Dr. Duncan Rinehart