The Best Research Paper

As a professor, I am proud when my students receive research awards. Almost 10 years ago, I was about to teach my advanced research methods class in a doctoral program. The course is focused in quantitative methods. I asked myself, why people write research? Well, to change policies, to improve settings, to learn. Now what happened when you write a paper and nobody reads it...nothing!. After giving some thought I decided that will be incomplete teaching/learning experience to ask students to write a paper, and then give them a grade. The learning experience has to culminate when the student is able to present the paper in a peer reviewed conference (not in class!) or published in a journal. His or Her work will be read it, discuss it for several people, and forever, posted in his / her resume. That program begins in 2005...next year, we will have the paper number 100 produced in this class. Check them out in my website http://www.internationalprofessor.com/cv/index.html Students have presented in India, France, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, Canada, and the United States. In the United States, students have gone to Las Vegas, Seattle, Florida, New York, Connecticut, and counting. I am proud of them, they have received several awards: Best Paper in IBEC conference, Czech Republic, Best Presenter in One Voice International Conference in New York, Best Case Study in IBEC Conference in India...and so on. The course requires several meetings and reviews of the paper before the paper is actually approved to be sent to a conference. I am writing this blog, because now I am teaching an online course that requires research, how can I repeat this success in an online course? That’s what I am up now. I have begun with Skype meetings, phone meetings and preparing some guidelines. I found this interesting blog that discusses 22 ways to teach research skills. I may explore some of them. What ways of synchronous/ asynchronous communication do you think I can use to assure the contact and feedback to the students papers?