Who is this course for?

The course is designed for researchers in low- and middle-income countries working in the life sciences,
physical sciences, or social sciences. It is particularly suitable for early career researchers, or those with
limited experience in publishing papers in reputable peer-reviewed journals.

There is no cost to participate in this course. It is offered as an open online course by INASP.

Why join this course?

 Improve your knowledge and skills in research writing through a proven online course managed
by the AuthorAID programme since 2011. This course that has been completed by several
thousand researchers from all around the world

 Share your learning journey and make new research connections with your course colleagues via
discussion forums

 Receive expert advice from an international team of experienced guest facilitators

 Learn with instructional materials designed for developing country researchers and grounded in
a neutral point of view

What did previous participants say about the content in this course?

 "I love it and enjoyed it. Hope to be knowledgeable like the facilitators and even beyond. Thank
you to everyone for putting this together and sharing with the world."

 "The units were interesting, the questions asked and the feedback shown almost immediately
was what fanned my enthusiasm to continue till the end. I salute the efforts of all the members
of the team who put this together to help upcoming researchers like myself (especially those of
us in developing countries with numerous challenges)."

 "This is one of the best online courses I have taken. It was very clear and easy to understand."

 "This online course is structured well, adequate time is given to complete the quizzes and
assignments. Most importantly it's a free course which makes it accessible for people in
developing countries."

What will you learn?

On completion of this course, you will have developed or improved your skills in:

 Using appropriate pathways to access published research literature

 Describing the key issues in research and publication ethics

 Identifying suitable target journals for publishing your research

 Drafting a research manuscript by following journal guidelines

 Dealing with the peer review process

Length of the course

6 weeks: 16 April to 27 May 2024

Topics covered

 Unit 1 / Week 1: Understanding previous research

 Unit 2 / Week 2: Knowing the ethics of research

 Unit 3 / Week 3: Preparing to write your research paper

 Unit 4 / Week 4: Writing your research paper

 Unit 5 / Week 5: Proceeding to publication

The sixth week is for wrap-up activities.

Expected time commitment

5 hours per week

Learning resources and activities

Text-based learning resources; multiple-choice quizzes; writing activities including peer assessment;
discussion forums with facilitator support.

Note: This is a largely asynchronous course: you can study in your own time and engage on the forums
whenever you'd like to. There may be a few optional live sessions held via Zoom.

What support you can expect

We will have a team of guest facilitators who will respond to questions on the course forums. Most
participants in our previous courses have reported high satisfaction with the responses they received on
the forums from not only the facilitators but also their fellow course participants.

When the course begins, limited technical support will be available on the Technical Support forum in
the course. Unfortunately we will not be able to respond to individual email requests for support before
or during the course.

What feedback you can expect

There will be two writing activities that include peer assessment. To take part in these activities, you
should submit your work and assess a few of your course colleagues’ submissions that are allocated to
you. At the end of these activities, you can expect to see feedback on your work from your course
colleagues. Please note that you will not get feedback on your work from the guest facilitators.

Completion criteria

Basic completion criteria: Going through the learning resources and attaining a passing score in each
quiz. If you complete the writing activities as well, you will receive a 'Merit' grade.

You will receive a certificate from INASP if you meet the course completion criteria. The certificate will
contain a code that can be used to verify its authenticity.
Internet and device requirements

To make the most of this course, you should ideally have reliable access to the internet for the duration
of the course.

The course materials are not particularly heavy as they are text based. Videos and live sessions are
optional. As per the metrics available from our learning platform, the size of this course is 35 MB.
However, the actual internet data that you will use by participating in this course will likely be more than
this figure, depending on (1) how you engage with the course resources and activities, and (2) whether
you attend the live sessions.

While we recommend a computer for the coursework (especially for the writing activities), you may use
a mobile device such as a smartphone. We will provide more information when the course begins.

Can the learning resources be reused or adapted?

Yes. The learning resources have been developed by INASP and are licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Learning outcomes

If you dedicate sufficient time to engage with all the learning materials in the course and meet the
course completion criteria, you will be able to:

 Describe different ways of accessing academic publications

 Identify strategies for overcoming access challenges.

 Use effective approaches to read and make sense of research papers.

 Identify the key ethical challenges associated with planning and reporting academic research.

 Develop strategies for identifying and handling ethical issues related to your own field of
research.

 Avoid pitfalls in research writing that can lead to plagiarism.

 Provide an overview of quantitative and qualitative data along with examples.

 Balance different factors when selecting a target journal.

 Have an informed view about open access publications in scholarly research.

 Organise the content of your research paper in line with typical research reporting guidelines.

 Develop strategies to become a more effective writer.

 Finalise a research paper for submission to a journal.

 Deal effectively with comments from peer reviewers.

Course overview
 The course materials are spread over 5 weeks, and the final 6th week is for wrap up activities.
The unit headings on the course homepage will give you an idea of the course outline.

o In each unit, you will find instructional content (which is text-based) and a multiple-
choice quiz. This quiz is meant to help you check your understanding of the content.

o There will be two writing activities in the course, and these activities include a peer
assessment phase. The first writing activity starts in the second week of the course.

o In addition, there may be some optional activities as the course progresses.

 The different units of the course will be available to you in stages. When a unit is set to become
available in the future, you will see the availability date under the unit heading. If you don't see
such a date, it means the unit is available now and you can access it.

o As soon as a unit becomes available, the materials in that unit will remain open until the
end of the course.

o The writing activities have firm deadlines that cannot be changed. You will come to
know of these deadlines at least one week in advance.