Newsletter - Vol 9                                  January 2020

Utah Conference on Undergraduate Research 2020

The Purpose of Research:  What Undergraduate Students Say
In this research study, researchers examined how undergraduate researchers conceptualize the purpose of research.  Surveys were distributed to students that participated in a campus-wide research symposium to learn about student perceptions of research.  Findings suggest that students value research and that disciplinary differences do occur.
See the study at https://www.cur.org/what/publications/journals/spur/issues/ . 
Click on Fall 2019 – Volume 3, Number 1, “Teaching and Evaluating Skills for Undergraduate Research in the Teacher Education Program”.

Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation - Dominion Energy contributed nearly $35 million in 2018 to community causes throughout its footprint and beyond.  The Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation awards grants in four focus areas.

National Endowment for the Humanities. Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities - The Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities (IATDH) program supports national or regional (multistate) training programs for scholars, humanities professionals, and advanced graduate students to broaden and extend their knowledge of digital humanities.  Through this program NEH seeks to increase the number of humanities scholars and practitioners using digital technology in their research and to broadly disseminate knowledge about advanced technology tools and methodologies relevant to the humanities.

The Office of Undergraduate Research has invested in the assessment tool EvaluateUR. The main objectives of EvaluateUR are to complement and enhance the mentoring process of undergraduate research. The program is comprised of three assessments: pre-research, mid-research, and end of research. Automated messages are generated to keep students and mentors on track. At each assessment point, students and faculty mentors discuss their reasoning for assigning particular scores. At the end of the research project, EvaulateUR will automatically do the quick stats for student gains in communication, creativity, autonomy, overcoming obstacles, creative thinking/problem solving, inquiry, discipline knowledge, ethical conduct, and intellectual development. There are many benefits to both the student and mentor in utilizing EvaluateUR. One of the greatest strengths of EvaluateUR is that students can see growth in skills and gain confidence even in the absence of a research project that generates publishable data/deliverable. For faculty, EvaluateUR creates a more consistent and reliable assessment of their students’ academic strengths and weaknesses. This in turn allows for a greater ability to focus mentoring efforts and make the research more productive.
 
More information on EvaluateUR can be found at https://serc.carleton.edu/evaluateur/index.html or through the EvaluateUR workshop held by OUR and Dr. Bridget Hilbig (February 20, 2020 12:00-2:00 pm). To enroll you and your student please email your information (name, email, department, student's name, and student's email) to Erin Kendall (erinkendall@weber.edu). 

The Engineering, Technology, Computing 2020 Conference - The I-ETC Conference will be held in Orem during May 2020. The conference is accepting papers related to capstone projects, undergraduate research, industry partnership, and has different tracks in engineering, technology, and computing. The IEEE is the co-sponsor of the conference.