Bookmark Collection

Collection Policy

Statement of Purpose

The Center for International Reproductive Health Training at the University of Michigan (CIRHT-UM) (http://cirht.med.umich.edu/) was founded in 2014 to partner with educational institutions in developing countries to strengthen the human resources for family planning (FP) and comprehensive abortion care (CAC).  Through our faculty development program with partner schools, we provided faculty in OBGYN, midwifery, nursing, and collaborating departments with the skills, coaching, and professional networks to be exemplary educators, health providers, and researchers. Through these partnerships, we have provided research training across 11 colleges and universities in Ethiopia and Rwanda. Building on the lessons and materials from those projects, we distilled the 13 core competencies necessary for faculty to become independent research investigators This toolkit maps those research competencies to some of the core materials that we used for our faculty development workshops and webinars. 

We collected these materials over the course of our 5 years of research training projects with partner health sciences institutions in Ethiopia and Rwanda. This collection has been selected from a larger pool of materials to represent the most pertinent resources that supported our training for the specific competencies in the research lifecycle. 

This toolkit focuses on the research program. There is a separate toolkit that focuses on the education program. 

Scope and Characteristics of Collection

This toolkit is intended to provide guidance to university faculty and staff responsible for reproductive health education and research that aim to replicate or adapt the CIRHT-UM model in their settings. It serves as a companion resource to the CIRHT-UM Framework publication from 2018 (http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.mpub11305653). The target audience for the collection is university faculty and staff responsible for research training for reproductive health and other topics. This includes school or department heads, research investigators, site coordinators, project managers, and professional education directors.

Selection Process

Similar to our approach of competency-based education, the research training has structured to align with the skill need to complete  ‘research lifecycle’ from research question to final publication and presentation of results. Building upon the research lifecycle, we have defined 13 core competencies necessary for faculty to become independent research investigators. These competencies have been common across all of the individual institutional partnerships. They have been aligned with the overarching program goals, the framework, and the monitoring and evaluation logic model. 

Evaluation Criteria

We wanted this toolkit to represent the signature resources used throughout our past programs rather than an exhaustive list. The resources here have been curated by staff and faculty within the project to provide representative coverage across each of the competencies. The ones included here are those that were already available online, or for which we arranged permission to share. 

Copyright

These materials included here have been authored by project team members or selected from available materials online. The author for each resource is provided. All of the content included here is publicly available. The copyright status varies for each resource and is noted accordingly. Some are All Rights Reserved and others are Some Rights Reserved under various Creative Commons licenses (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/).

Materials produced by our staff and contractors are copyrighted by the Regents of the University of Michigan under Standard Practice Guide 601.28 (http://spg.umich.edu/policy/601.28). Under the same SPG, materials produced by U-M faculty are copyrighted by the faculty and are used here with their permission. 

Retention Policy

We are unable to guarantee permanent access through the CIRHT-UM website. In order to provide access for an extended period of time, many of the resources in the collection have been posted in the University of Michigan institutional repository, Deep Blue and in the other websites included in the dissemination plan section. Deep Blue has the commitment and capacity for long-term storage for these resources. Materials for which we have copyright permission has been included in the file download from Deep Blue (https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/148154). Materials for which we do not have copyright permission are included as web links. 

Research Competencies

A graphic for the competencies can be found at https://cirht.med.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/CIRHT-Research-Competencies.pdf.

Goal

Build a core of independent research investigators

Competencies

1. Research investigator is able to concisely frame a research question that is useful, answerable, and valid and critique the proposed research questions of peers. 
2. Research investigator is able to develop an information search plan, navigate the scholarly literature, and identify high-quality resources needed to inform their research project.
3. Research investigator understands the various study designs and methods, and is able to select and integrate the appropriate design for his or her develop the research protocol for their research project, and understands the various study designs and their methods.
4. Research investigator is able to secure ethical review approval for their research project, and understands the laws, guidelines, and philosophies behind ethical review of human subjects research.
5. Research investigator understands the various methods of survey/questionnaire design and uses those to design an appropriate survey instrument for his or her research project.
6. Research investigator is able to collect the data necessary to address the research question.
7. Research investigator understands basic analysis methods, how to interpret quantitative and qualitative data, and is able to employ them to manage and analyze data.
8. Research investigator understands the general format of an abstract and is able to write an effective abstract for his or her research project(s).
9. Research investigator understands the general structure and principles of scientific writing and is able to develop a manuscript to synthesize research results.
10. Research investigator is able to assess and select an appropriate target journal that matches the topic and audience for his or her scientific manuscript.
11. Research investigator understands the steps and communications involved as part of the peer review publication process for an academic journal.
12. Research investigator is able to develop a presentation and effectively communicate their research at a scientific conference.
13. Research investigator understands the roles and responsibilities of research mentors and mentees and is able to effectively engage in either role.

Date Added to MERLOT:

November 17, 2019

Created by:

Kathleen Omollo

License: