Engaging students in research: A talk by Thanos Hatziapostolou in 10th Teaching & Learning Conference 2016

The Department of Computer Science at the International Faculty, has established a learning-and-teaching experience that enables Master's level students to engage in research and to become familiar with the process of publishing a research paper in a conference. Since 2009, in the unit 'Contemporary Issues in ICT', students work in close collaboration with their lecturer with the aim of gaining substantial experience in conducting research and producing as a final outcome a research paper that can be submitted to an academic conference. The innovative learning-and-teaching process resembles very closely the actual procedure followed by researchers in order to submit a research paper to an academic conference.

The specific teaching and learning experience includes a diverse set of learning, teaching and assessment methods in order to be successful. These include methods for motivating students in research, methods for supporting students and methods for maximizing quality of results. These methods will be presented in detail in addition to common pitfalls. It is worth to note that the British Computer Society (BCS) during their accreditation visit to the International Faculty in 2013 selected the specific teaching and assessment method as 'best practice' for fostering students' research skills and it is included in the BCS website.

This is the link of the talk as presented in the 10th Teaching & Learning Conference at Sheffield.

Thanos Hatziapostolou
Computer Science, International Faculty