Workshop on “Research Methodology: Tools and Practices”

Berhampur, (Odishabarta) With funding support from OHEPEE, Government of Odisha, Berhampur University successfully organized four comprehensive week-long workshops from 5th to 10th March 2024. The workshops, “Research Methodology: Tools and Practices” were conducted basically on two themes i.e., ‘Research Philosophy and Ethics’, and ‘Academic Writing’. The workshops on ‘Research Philosophy and Ethics’ covered both theoretical and practice sessions  on ‘Fundamentals of research, its design, problem, hypothesis, and objective; Computational tools for research; Basics of quantitative and qualitative research; Data sources, archives, management and analysis; Writing of report, thesis, and research articles; Citation and referencing style management; Indexing and Citation database; Intellectual honesty, research integrity, ethics, and plagiarism; Scientific conduct and publication ethics etc. The subtheme ‘Academic Writing’ covered aspects such as Fundamental of academic writing; Literature Review Structure; Scientometrics / Bibliometrics, and Citation and referencing style management; Intellectual honesty, research integrity, ethics, and plagiarism; Funding opportunities in research; Effective use of e-resources for academic writing. Also, different practice sessions on preparing Competitive Grant Proposals (individual Centric / fellowship based); Research Manuscripts: Full Length Articles, Review Articles, Short Communications, Popular Articles, Scientific Correspondence, Letter to Editor; Writing of synopsis, thesis, technical reports etc. were conducted.

The above workshops were conducted parallelly for the research scholars of Science and Technology, and Social Science, Humanities and Management stream and 158 research scholars of Berhampur University have registered and participated the said four workshops. Each workshop witnessed 24 sessions (theory, practice, hand-on session on various tools and techniques of identified sub-themes). The event also included feedback sessions and an examination (evaluation test) on last day of the workshop to evaluate the performance / learning outcomes of the participants.

The inaugural ceremony was held on 5th March, 2024 at the Senate Hall of Berhampur University, and it was graced by the esteemed presence of the Hon’ble Vice Chancellor, Prof. Geetanjali Dash. Prof. Sushil Kumar Dutta, Visiting Professor, Assam Don Bosco University graced the inaugural event as the chief guest. The event also witnessed the gracious presence of other dignitaries including Prof. Sushant Kumar Baral, Chairman, P.G. Council; Prof. Sudhakar Patra, Director of IQAC; and Dr. B. Anjan Kumar Prusty, Coordinator of the Workshop. Dr. Apoorva Behera introduced the guests, followed up by the address by the dignitaries. Dr. Prusty provided a brief report on the sessions of the workshop and expressed his heartfelt gratitude to the honourable Vice Chancellor for providing the opportunity to conduct the ‘Research Methodology Workshops’. Prof. Sudhakar Patra, while appreciating the whole efforts, congratulated the team and assured them of all the required support for organizing such workshops. The Chief Guest, Prof. Sushil Kumar Dutta encouraged the participants and urged them to participate in all such workshops and advised them to maintain highest standards of ethics and academics and research. He motivated the participants by citing many examples including his own experiences during his research carrier at Utkal University and abroad. Prof. Geetanjali Dash, felicitated the Chief Guest and addressed the research scholars, appreciated the team’s efforts for organizing four workshops successfully, and advised the newly admitted research scholars to be meticulous in research design and implementation. At the end Dr. Kusha Kumar Nayak proposed vote of thanks by expressing gratitude to all stakeholders for their help and support in conducting these two workshops successfully. 

Different eminent professors, scientists, academicians from different prestigious Universities / Institutes were invited to deliver their presentations and motivated the scholars. Some of them, namely Prof. Sushil Kumar Dutta (Visiting Professor, Assam Don Bosco University), Dr. V. Balaram (CSIR-NGRI, Hyderabad), Prof. Mukund Dev Behera (CORAL, IIT-Kharagpur), Dr. Trupti Das (CSIR-IMMT, Bhubaneswar), Dr. Rupesh Dash (Institute of Life Science, Bhubaneswar), Dr Rabindra Panigrahi (DST, Govt. of India, New Delhi), Prof. Vishwas Chavan (IISER-Berhampur), Prof. S. Kumaraswamy (Sri Sri University, Cuttack), Prof. Anamika Barua (IIT-Guwahati), Dr. Dukhabandhu Sahoo (IIT Bhubaneswar), Dr. Bibhu Prasad Nayak (TISS-Hyderabad), Dr. Punyashree Panda (IIT-Bhubaneswar), Dr Rooplekha Khuntia (NISER-Bhubaneswar), etc. In addition to those, some in-house faculty members also conducted some of the sessions. The participants were given a compendium (resource materials) covering all the identified topics.

Dr. A. K. Panda and Dr. B. P. Chhatoi, the Deputy Coordinators of the Workshop coordinated with the conduct of the various activities for these workshops. The organizing committee members (Drs. Saroj Ku. Sahu, Rakesh Paul, Narayan Sahoo, Kusha Kumar Naik, M. Bapuji, B. V. Rao, and Apoorva Behera), Ph.D. scholars and MSc students of the Environmental Science department assisted the team in smooth conduct of all the sessions. The sessions witnessed enthusiastic interactions of the scholars with the resource persons on specific themes. Many of the participants suggested for conduct of more such workshops with practice sessions.