The second phase of the Research Publication Training Series, conducted by the University of Northern Philippines under the University of Research Development Office (URDO), commenced at the Tadena Hall on March 23-24. The focus was on research digital toolkits with 116 faculty researchers participating in the event.

The seminar helped participants become familiar with various research tools and their applications, speeding up research writing through digital toolkits.

Dr. Thelma Domingo-Palaoag, director of the UC Innovation and Technology Transfer Office, served as the resource speaker for the training series. In her lecture, she emphasized the utilization of digital toolkits in the field of research, highlighting their ability to organize and simplify work and ensure efficiency from the beginning to the end of the research process.

Moreover, she highlighted the integration and role of AI in research acceleration during her lecture. AI can be used to assist in defining research outlines, exploring literature, summarizing data, and writing. She introduced AI tools such as Litmaps, Concensus, and many more for reviewing related literature.

While acknowledging the benefits of AI in accelerating research, she stressed the importance of responsible AI use, warning against letting AI become the author of one’s research. ”It’s okay to use AI as long as you know the limitations of AI and the ethical implications of AI, but don’t let AI become the author of your research,” she said.

Additionally, Dr. Thelma provided tools for finding journals, including Web of Science and Journal Finder, and emphasized the importance of having an updated list and choosing journals that have been indexed in Scopus or Web of Science. She also provided tips on how to use advanced Google features to narrow search results and find related literature.

She also highlighted open-access journals like Springer Nature and IOP Science, along with offering guidance on leveraging advanced Google features to refine search results and discover related literature. Additionally, she recommended utilizing scholarly work or academic research papers, particularly for literature reviews, and hinted at the use of Google Scholar.

Furthermore, she shared examples of organizations for journal and literature discovery, as well as tools for data collection and analysis for both qualitative and quantitative studies, including resources for writing and verification like Turnitin.

A workshop was conducted wherein participants utilized RRL tools. They searched for at least 15 related works which they used in enhancing their introduction. They also created an Open Researcher Contributor ID.

Lastly, a digital quiz bee via Kahoot served as an icebreaker, with Group 9 from the College of Arts and Sciences as the champions, consisting of Mr. Chris Paul Pagaoa, Dr. Charo Rojas, and Ms. Olieve Karenth Barcesa.

Article by Kennedy R. Jetajobe. Photos by Joel Tipon.