Engaging undergraduate students in the Philippines in photonics research with a novel publication-driven online mentoring approach

Abstract

Engaging undergraduate students in the Philippines in photonics research with a novel publication-driven online mentoring approach," Proc.ABSTRACT This paper discusses a publication-driven, education-by-research model of engaging undergraduate students in Photonics/Optics/Physics research by requiring that all activities lead to journal publication within a year. It is based on a non-traditional university-industry collaboration arrangement that has the following unique features.First, it utilizes offshore-based alumni (in the USA) who are active in science and technology research as mentors for the students (in the Philippines) in conjunction with the university professor advisers. We adopt inexpensive online collaboration technologies to support their virtual presence.Second, our research topic "fuses" uniquely two separate courses of study, namely: (i) the traditional Special Relativity in Physics and (ii) the fast emerging Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs), into an innovative research area we have called "Special-Relativity-on-a-Chip". It has the flavor of physics education combined with a taste of the latest in PICs technology. It enhances the textbook understanding of Physics/Engineering while providing potential publication opportunities.Third, the research activities are focused mainly on modelling, simulations and design. These activities strengthen students' learning since they concentrate on and master specific mathematical/Physics/programming skills. The goal of the project is to publish 5 journal papers, and so far, (i) 3 journal papers have been published, (ii) 1 international conference paper has been accepted for oral presentation, and (iii) 3 national conference papers have been submitted for publication.We also examine the existing research structure in the university to ensure the project's success and share best practices.

“A life without a supervisor is like a seed that never grows”: Students’ Experiences of Undergraduate Nursing Research Supervision

“…Another opportunity that can be provided is student involvement in participatory health research to develop critical awareness and understanding of real-life situations affecting nursing practice (e.g., professional care, education, or civil society) (de Jong et al, 2018). Alarcon et al (2019) added that students could be provided valuable research opportunities using interactive strategies such as follow-up lecture series, research seminars, and research meetings. Also, long-term projects may broaden students' knowledge of their coursework, understand how research groups operate, and enable active students to develop deeper linkages early with research professors and students.…”

Publication-driven Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program in optics and photonics in the Philippines using circuit analogue-based research experiments

“…Recently, we reported an unconventional, university and industry collaboration arrangement that taps practicing scientists (alumni of the Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU) but resides outside the Philippines) to mentor undergraduate students in research via online means and translates these mentoring activities into publication outputs [1]. We call this program "Publication-driven Undergraduate Research Experience -Assisted by online Technologies and Overseas Mentoring" (PURE-ATOM for short).…”

“…We call this program "Publication-driven Undergraduate Research Experience -Assisted by online Technologies and Overseas Mentoring" (PURE-ATOM for short). The program has generated 16 publications in the last 3 years from research collaborations between undergraduate students and alumni [1].…”

“…Our original research topic is the Special-Relativity-on-a-Photonic-Chip [1] which is shown on the left side of Fig. 1a, and is indicated by the yellow-shaded region.…”

“…It is an on-going research work where we "fuse" two distant studies, namely: (i) the traditional Special Relativity (SR) in Physics, and (ii) the fast-emerging technology called as Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs). Previously, we reported "PICs-based building blocks" that mimic the behaviors of SR phenomena such as: (a) Relativistic Aberration of Light (RAL), (b) Einstein Velocity Addition (EVA), (c) Thomas Rotation Angle, (d) Relativistic Doppler Shifts, and (e) others [1]. For us, these topics remain in the modelling and simulation arena because the required equipment for the PIC experiments is still cost-prohibitive and fabrication is very expensive.…”