Bootstrapping Research Output with the Education Triad: A Plan

Abstract

Engineering institutions that concentrate mostly on teaching face an uphill battle in their efforts to increase the research output of the faculty. High academic loads, time spent away from research after the PhD, and the lack of mentoring are just some of the many reasons that stand in the way of increasing research output. This paper describes a plan to accelerate the transformation from “teaching” to a “teaching-and-research” institution as measured by number of published journal papers and amount of external funding generated. The transformation is based on two ideas: bootstrapping, and the education triad. Bootstrapping is defined as the technique of starting with existing resources to create something more complex and effective, as in “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps”. The education triad refers to the three central tenets in which education is based, that is, guidance, practice, and feedback. The first tenet in the triad, “Guidance”, takes two forms. First, National Science Foundation (NSF) guidelines for writing proposals are used as the basis for the effort. Second, a research program created by the author, is inserted as a guidance example within a presentation of the NSF guidelines to faculty. “Practice” is provided by asking the faculty to erase the given example and substitute it with their own research program. “Feedback” is provided by the same faculty, some of whom have already started transitioning successfully to teaching-and-research, who meet regularly to act as a “Review Panel” that observes and criticizes the research programs created by their colleagues. The focus of the effort is not on immediately writing a proposal but on creating a structure that leads to becoming a scholar and to successful proposal writing. The structure includes writing good research questions, identifying the data that is required to answer the research questions, thinking of potential paper titles that would result from the effort, writing research objectives in a form acceptable to NSF, and writing statements of “intellectual merit” and “broader impacts”, also required by NSF, that express why the research program is worthy of external funding. The example provided to the faculty incorporates all of these. The paper includes details of the NSF guidelines as well as the research program that was created for the example. Ethics is also covered as part of the NSF guidelines to protect the confidentiality and ownership of the ideas presented by colleagues during the “Review Panel” sessions.