The Durban University of Technology (DUT) Research and Doctoral Leadership Academy (RADLA) hosted an online workshop titled: How to plan and write a Book, Chapter in a Book and a Monograph, via Microsoft Teams, last Tuesday, 17 August 2021.
Prof Cheryl Potgieter who heads the Gender Justice, Health and Human Development and the Research and Doctoral Academy (RADLA) at DUT welcomed the 91 attendees and presenters to the workshop. The attendees at the much-anticipated workshop included staff from both the DUT community, as well as DUT RADLA members.
For people who didn’t know what RADLA is, Prof Cheryl Potgieter explained that the Research and Doctoral Leadership Academy is part of the Gender Justice, Health and Human Development focus. She explained that RADLA forms part of the human capacity development leg of her focus area and that RADLA supports, mentors and “assists” academics to achieve their full potential from postdoctoral scholar to full professor and also be leaders in the academy.
Prof Potgieter relayed that after the online workshop, those attendees who are interested to join RADLA are welcome to do so as essentially such workshops were offered for RADLA members as it is part of the package of interventions to support their career trajectory. However, she had decided to cast the net a bit broader and to give other people the option to attend and they will then engage with those who are interested to become RADLA members.
Prof Cheryl Potgieter pointed out that RADLA has been fairly successful although only officially established just over a year and a half ago. She is very proud to have assisted RADLA members in publishing their first journal article, increasing their publication output, applying to be NRF rated, getting a book published and making strategic career decisions.
She acknowledged the support of Prof Sibusiso Moyo: Deputy Vice Chancellor: Research, Innovation and Engagement and the support of the office of the Director of Research and Post Graduate Support at DUT, Dr Linda Linganiso.
She also acknowledged the Senior Director: Human Resources, Dr Vuyo Mthethwa office for their support. We are very excited because she is one of the people who is writing her book and hopefully it will be published next year,” she said. Prof Potgieter also acknowledged her postdoctoral scholars that are giving their support and were present at the workshop, as well as the coordinator of the workshop, Mr Luphelo Hopa.
The presenters at the workshop, Professor Andries van Aarde and Dr Nonhlanhla Mthiyane then introduced themselves to the attendees.
Prof Andries van Aarde is a Researcher-in Residence at the DUT and affiliated to the Focus Area Gender-Justice, Health and Human Development. He served as a Professor at the University of Pretoria for 25 years, Research Manager from 2000 to 2005, from 2005 to 2014 honorary professor and from 2009 to 2016 senior research fellow in the Unit of the Advancement of Scholarship at the same University.
Dr Mthiyane is currently a senior lecturer and Head of the School of Education at DUT. Her current research focus is on transformation of the curriculum in teacher education, gender in higher education, and in applying feminist methodologies in decolonising the curriculum, including research and supervision.
Prof Andries van Aarde’s presentation focused on the alignment with DHET policy, practical writing skills, the use of sources, similarities analysis and plagiarism prevention, choice of publishers, predatory publishers, and the way forward. He delved into the types of books and the definition of scholarly books, which are committed to disseminating peer-reviewed, research-based publications written by scholars and aimed at scholars, students, or a general public readership.
“Accreditation by DHET depends on the target audience and the innovative contribution to create new knowledge. Books that are research-based and written by scholars for most likely readership of practitioners and students are not accredited by DHET. Books that are research-based and written by scholars, primarily aimed at a general public readership are not accredited by DHET,” he said.
Prof van Aarde stressed that DHET accredits books that are research-focused and written by scholars and aimed at other scholarly readers, are books which are peer reviewed and fully aligned with the “Research Output Policy” of the DHET.
He relayed on the categories of books accredited by DHET, speaking on monographs, collected works, PHDs, second or third editions of published work, as well as conference proceedings.
Prof van Aarde indicated the importance of scholarly books, saying that they are valued highly and recognised as essential modes of research dissemination.
“They generate on average three times more citations than do journal articles and citations to books have longer active citation life, which is greater than two years,” he said.
He also spoke on the DHET BOOK pages’ unit allocation, scholarly books opportunities and the DHET evaluation criteria – specialist panel, accompanying documentation and the importance of practical writing skills.
He then delved into the research plan for a book, the chapter criteria’s and how one can get a PhD converted into a book. Prof van Aarde conveyed the importance of referencing and argument substantiation and emphasised the significance of doing the similarities analysis and plagiarism prevention (iThenticate/Turnitin). There was much space for engagement and Prof Van Aarde was assisted by Prof Potgieter in engaging and responding to questions. Prof Van Aarde remarked that Prof Potgieter has in certain areas much more experience than him given the positions she had held in the university sector.
The second speaker, Dr Mthiyane focused her presentation on her experience on writing a chapter in a book, especially focusing on what to write and where does one start.
She looked at scholarly relationships, at departmental level, outside one’s department, establishing outside networks, getting other people to know one and one’s work, and how to initiate scholarly relationships. She gave insight to who she is, where she was, her discipline as a teacher, the timeframe when she began her project which was in March 2017 to when her book was published in November 2018.
Dr Mthiyane spoke on identifying a focus are on book chapters which form part of a broader research project into an intervention to improve learner outcomes through a teacher professional development programme in the KZN province.
She explained the vital role stakeholders who are involved played, like the KZN Department of Basic Education, the National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT), and the Programme to Improve Learning Outcomes (PILO)- called Jika iMfundo (transform education).
She then emphasised more on Jika iMfundo, the largest school development intervention undertaken in post-apartheid South Africa She conveyed that it was piloted in 2015 to 2017 in two districts in KZN, to be rolled out in 2018-2021 in KZN.
Dr Mthiyane spoke on the book project, explaining the application process – which is overseen by the South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE), the granting of contract, ethical clearance application and approval, the Gatekeepers’ approval, data collection, analysis and the writing, submission, editing, re-writing, resubmission, editing, and book publication.
She concluded her discussion talking on the dire need to establish scholarly networks and relationships, to identify a research focus area or focus areas. She stressed the importance of conducting research and writing, joining RADLA, identifying a publisher and publishing house and submitting a book proposal.
Prof Potgieter thanked Dr Mthiyane for her presentation and highlighted that even though she had strategically chosen to do a non-accredited publication, it spoke to important issues of transformation in the country, and it was then the basis to work on an accredited publication.
The webinar was followed by a robust question and answer session. There is so much interest and work needed to support academics and a part 2 of this workshop focused on issues and questions that emerged and were raised at the workshop, is to be held on 31 August at 10h00 to 12h00, via Microsoft Teams.
Pictured: Professor Cheryl Potgieter, head of the Gender Justice, Health and Human Development and the Research and Doctoral Academy (RADLA).
Waheeda Peters
