 Super duper. Okay, so we're going to do a very quick change over now. I'm going to hand over to Nombilo, who's come all the way from Stelenbosch University. And the floor is yours for the next 20 minutes. Thank you. Good morning. So, still morning afternoon everybody. My name is Nombilo Chuma and I am a lecturer and researcher at Stelenbosch University in the Centre for Higher and Adult Education. So my specific role, our Centre, we're kind of academic development sort of because all our students are academics and they are doing their studies in higher education or adult education, post-grad diploma, master's program and PhD program. And my specialisation is educational technology. So in the course of doing another study, I became very frustrated with the literature around the way ed tech is used in post-grad supervision. There's a lot that is said and done around teaching and learning specifically for undergrad students. But for post-grad supervision, it's actually quite frustrating, hence the study that I did. And hopefully the paper will be out soon and you can see it. But anyway, we all know that one of the biggest issues with the research in our field in educational technology is the fact that people are coming from every way. You've just spoken about that. The fact that people come into this field from everything. I came from computer science. We're sitting in a room the other day. Someone else was from agriculture. We were all specialists. But someone else started from agriculture. We had someone who had come in from archaeology. We had someone who had come in here, a master's in music. So he was a concert pianist but ended up as a tell researcher as well. So people come in from all walks of life, which is fine. We're not complaining about that. What we are complaining about is the fact that people have their own research in their disciplines. And then they publish one paper or do one little research around ed tech. And now we're all specialists. That's what is frustrating. I think you know what I'm talking about. So when you read some of those papers, I was doing this, as I said, for another study. I got quite frustrated with it and decided to do kind of a review and see what is actually out there. What are people saying? How are they conceptualizing technology when they're talking about postgraduate supervision? Anyway, so that's what this is about. So I did a little study and I did a scoping review. And that was the initial question that I started with. What is the role of technology in mediating postgraduate supervision? You'll see that's my question, but my results ended up somewhere else. So my results don't quite align with the research question. Please forgive me. You will see that later. And then step number three, a few things also changed. First of all, I had to use only English text because I do not speak a lot of the other languages, like Spanish and Dutch and whatever else. But also the years, I'd said 2000 up to February 2023, because that's when I had submitted the abstract, where I submitted it soon after that. But unfortunately, that kind of skews the results per year. So you'll find my results go up only up to the end of 2022. But this had been the original plan. And then the other thing that I struggled with when I was looking for articles was what we call in South Africa, predatory journals. I don't know if that's a term that you have here and that you use, but it's quite frustrating because it compromises the quality of the studies. You look at the paper and you're thinking, what is going on here? How is this even a research article? So I had to eliminate quite a lot of papers that I had found. And as a result, ended up with just 61 papers over these years. And I'll talk about the countries and they're spread over 71 countries. Okay, so these are the countries where the research itself is based. It was interesting for me. I don't know if you can read the country names, but the United Kingdom is the top with 13. And South Africa is second, the USA and Australia. Those are the four top countries. It was interesting for me that South Africa was placed there because there is a lot of talk about how we don't have much research coming from the global south, particularly in higher education studies, which EdTech is a part of. And I wondered whether it was because I was doing my search from South Africa. And maybe that was why I was able to access that I'm not sure. But anyway, so these are the countries. And you'll find, sadly, of course, South America is not represented here at all. Some parts of Europe are not represented at all. And a lot of that has to do with language, I'm sure. And the other thing I have to mention here, or maybe let me mention it on the next slide, you'll find, I don't have a pointer. So this is the same thing that you have on the previous slide, just on the map. You'll find obviously the UK is the darkest because that's the one with the highest number followed by South Africa, the US and Australia. The others are lighter because they all range between two or one. But what was interesting for me, now I have two of them. Okay, I'll just talk about it because I don't know where to go, was that you'll find Ethiopia, if you know where Ethiopia is based over there, right at the top. So you'll find the studies that were done here were actually done by researchers in South Africa. Okay, so it's interesting because this is at UNISA, which is our largest distance learning institution, the University of South Africa. And they were looking at specifically PhD students who are based in Ethiopia. So they did the study there because they have a campus there, but it's under, so it was difficult to figure out so which country is this based actually, because they are doing the study since the students are registered here, but they are based over there. So it's the same thing with Indonesia, the student based here, but the researchers are based here. That's why you end up with more countries than studies in some instances because of instances like that. If I had also included all the countries from which the researchers came from, there would have been more countries. So it's a little bit confusing because I'm assuming sometimes maybe the researcher moved before the research was published. So the institution is here, the students are over there, but the researcher is over that side. And unfortunately, I won't be able to go into some other interesting details. Maybe I can just mention this right about time. I can just mention that when you look at the profiles of the researchers who published these studies and you see where they published and you do that comparison, it's quite interesting to see those who are publishing on postgraduate supervision already specifically. The quality of the papers is very different from those who are not. And also when you look at the kinds of journals, all of those comparisons are quite interesting. But anyway, let me move on. So these were the studies. I wanted to start from 2000, but I couldn't get any papers at that time. So started from 2007 up to 2022. I had included part of 2023, but it kind of skewed the graph when it went down. So I thought, let me leave it out so that we can see that growth and that projection. And obviously you will see 2020, 21, and 22. The numbers went up a bit, especially 21 and 22. And we all know a lot of that was because of the pandemic. So most of the studies during that time were kind of doing comparisons between students who had done face to face before and students who are now online or had to be forced to move online for their supervision, the supervision of their postgraduate research specifically. I'm rushing because I want to get to the results. Sorry, I can hardly breathe. Okay, so when you look at the journals, where the research was published, I had assumed initially that EdTech and distance learning would probably be the highest number, but there were just 15 that were published in EdTech and distance learning journals. And then there were some discipline based, for example, in medical education or linguistics or psychology education or something like that. And then there were just five articles that were published specifically in postgraduate education journals. So the greatest number was in teaching and learning journals specifically, which was quite interesting for me. And I think it's an important point to consider. It shows that researchers aren't really separating postgraduate education from teaching and learning, number one. But then it also shows that we're not focusing just on the tool, but we're looking at what the tool enables, what it allows us to do. Okay, I can breathe. I get to my results now. All right, actually maybe before I talk about the results, you have to see it in the paper. All right, so there were a number of things that came out from the actual analysis of the articles. I'll focus here on two main ones, which is why I said my question related to the role of technology. But you'll find here I'm talking about location and I'm talking about the means or the process that it justifies the end. Okay, so those are the two, if you remember nothing else, please remember this about what I said. Okay, so I'll elaborate on that. So location is everything. This is talking about contextual descriptions of the studies. So you'll find some of them had such beautifully rich descriptions, beautifully rich descriptions where you could see, oh, this is the institution. Oh, those are the kinds of issues that they struggle with. Oh, okay, so this issue actually makes sense. They will tell you about the higher education system and where postgraduate education fits in and so on. There was one paper, I couldn't figure out where in the world the research was actually done. And then I just assumed it's probably the US because they don't mention it in the paper at all. They talk a little bit about the students, but they don't tell us anything. So I said it's probably the US because the three of them are in the US, so I'll just make that assumption because they don't tell us anything about the context at all. So there were great variations in terms of that. So the location of the study and the researchers have already talked a little bit about that, that sometimes they were not located in the same place. And then who the journal publisher was, was also important in terms of what journal it was. It was also important in terms of what was included in the explanation of the context. And then there were very few articles that looked at critical issues like power dynamics. I mean, you are not going to read an article relating to supervision practice that doesn't talk about power dynamics. But it's interesting how those important issues around postgraduate education are kind of glossed over. And then there was also variation in terms of sensitivity to a diverse student population. So there were some which talked about what they would call minority groups or certain cultural groups. Like for example, in Australia they would research Indonesian students only. In instances like that, there were interesting comments around the cultural identity and that kind of thing. But I worried there about their sensitivity in terms of that. And then large or small samples here, what I'm talking about is you find there's a variation. Some have larger samples, some have small samples. Of course, some are looking at 11 students, some were looking at 600 or 700 students. And what does that mean for the way that you explain the context and the way that you see students as deficit or missing in something and then making sweeping assumptions based on that kind of sample size. So anyway, the point I'm making here is that it's very important to describe the context of the student because each student is different. And if you miss out on that, then you miss out on actually showing how your study is making a contribution. The second point is the means justifies the end. There were great variations in terms of methodological and theoretical rigor. Quite a number of studies used surveys. And for any of us here who've used surveys, you know that the design of the survey is important. The testing of the survey is important and so on. And they just mentioned in passing, oh, we used the survey, blah, blah, blah. We don't get an example of the survey. We don't know where the survey came from and that kind of thing, which for me speaks to the quality of the study. A lot of the studies use things like case studies. This is a case study about what, what, what. But we don't see how it's a case study. Already a case study, you need to have multiple data collection methods for you to consider it a case study. You have to identify what the case is and so on. So all of those kinds of things were missing. I have to skip some of this. But anyway, understanding of methodology and theoretical framework. Yeah, that was an interesting one. Theoretical framework. Someone would speak about the theoretical framework. There was one particular article spoke about the theoretical framework. Well, that was the title of the subheading. And below that, they were talking about storyboarding. And I was thinking, how is storyboarding the theoretical framework? But anyway, and then the theorization of technological tools and supervision processes. The point I'm making here in that theorization and the last point, because I want to get to my last slide and my time is almost up, is that it's actually difficult to figure out whether the paper is making a contribution or not in some instances when some of these issues are missing. So you look at the paper and you think, is this paper making a contribution to educational technology? Or is this paper making a contribution to post-graduate education? Or post-graduate supervision? Or is it making a contribution to both? Is there a way that we could position the paper in some way so that we can make a more complex kind of contribution to both fields or to both sides? And for some of the papers, they gloss over both of those things. They seem to be an assumption, oh, okay, if I bring in post-graduate supervision and educational technology, very few people have done that. So that should be a contribution in itself. But it ignores what's been done with EdTech for so many years. And it ignores what's been done with post-graduate supervision for so many years. They just pick, cherry pick a few things which are important for them. Okay, I have three minutes left. I conclude in slide. I will leave you with some questions to think about. And so what do we mean when we are talking about a contribution to knowledge? When we look at the multidisciplinary nature of our field. So if this works here, will it really work somewhere else? How do we really know? What do we mean by a contribution to the field? And how does the human element influence the way we think about various critical issues that we've already looked at? All right, and then the last one. What about our positionality as researchers? What does that mean for our research and for our students and post-graduate supervision in this particular instance? Okay, I will kind of stop there. I had a lot to say here, but I'm worried about my time. You still have three minutes if you want to carry on. Okay, I have three minutes. All right, so in terms of the first, I'll do a minute for each. In terms of the first point, I've already talked about how we can bring together fields which haven't necessarily always been brought together, but that doesn't mean that is a contribution. There has to be some element which shows that it really is a contribution. And then for my second point, how does the human element influence the way we think about these various critical issues when we're researching technology integration? So what motivates one student may actually be crippling for another. You find in some of the studies that I looked at, they'll talk about isolation during the pandemic and how some students totally collapsed. They were collapsed. They couldn't move forward. They couldn't, but for some students, that was actually enabling, it was an enabling environment for them. And they found when they were independent from their supervisors, they made more progress than they would have made before. And then in the, well, the top part, particularly the western northern part of Africa, online degrees are not, they're actually looked down upon. If you say, oh no, I got my doctorate online. They don't really value it as a doctorate. So what does that mean for the way we integrate technology at post-grad level for students? And then of course, when you look at our positionality within our institutions and we look at our practice, a lot of those studies are driven by practice, right? They're driven by the needs of the institutions. But are they really going to contribute to research or not? Okay, so there isn't always alignment between what is needed for practice and what we're supposed to do for research. Yeah, and then when we look at technological innovations like generative AI now, what does that mean in terms of our position? Our institutions want us to be engaging with that, but what does it mean for our research? What does it mean for our post-grad students or other students? I'll stop there. Thank you. That is our campus, by the way, the first slide and the last slide. Those are the steps down to our library. You have an underground library. Okay, thank you, Nampala. Can we have any questions from the audience? I'm going to come around with the microphone this time because I'm conscious that... So I'll let you in a second. Hello. So I've actually got a question in terms of the analysis you did for the authors, for the researchers. Were they all based in the country? Like, for example, you had, I think, 12 for South Africa. I don't know for Ethiopia how much you had, but you saw that there was researchers in South Africa, but the students were in Ethiopia. Did you look at where the researchers based, whether they were collaborative, like someone in South Africa, someone in UK or something like this. Have you seen any such thing? If you're looking at South Africa specifically, the collaborations were only within the country. But in other spaces, they were interesting collaborations. I spoke about the Indonesia example. I'd actually written it here in my notes. So thanks for asking the question. What was interesting for me with that one was the supervisors. There were three supervisors. They collaborated with the student in the actual research and the writing and publication of the paper. So I felt when you read the study, it really brings some interesting cultural and contextual issues, which I don't think would have come out otherwise without the student being part of the study or being part of the research. So I don't know if that answers your question. Yeah, you did. So it was basically joint collaboration in the actual research, not just like the survey. And I was going to say, probably, if you do this research in the UK, Mauritius will not come up. That's where I'm from. So I was surprised that they didn't even came up. Because if I search for any research here, no, it doesn't come up. So maybe that speaks to my first question also here. So where you do the search from? Yes. Yeah, so I guess I have one question and one kind of comment reflection. So when you had your heat map up across the world and the timelines of when those research was published, there was that uptick in the last couple of years, pandemic, post-pandemic. It would be interesting to understand what the distribution of those most recent publications were from your global map. So for example, the UK and South Africa, actually did a lot of that publishing happen in the last couple of years or is it spread throughout the whole of your timeline? So I can remember a few of those. Definitely the UK was included and South Africa. I remember the paper from Nigeria also comes in during that time and there was a paper from Pakistan. So a few of those single papers on that map actually came out during that time, quite a lot of them. And my kind of second point, that's more reflection is it's interesting when you were doing your sorting through your papers to try and account for some of the biases. I think that's probably the right word to use. So the research is kind of separate and not being influenced in other ways that you also found problems around the richness and of the data versus the lack of information in some areas. And I'm wondering if you did the reverse procedure. So look to all of the papers that you discounted, whether it be the same picture that you'll get a difference in richness and context. It's just a thought, like what would the reverse study look like? Yeah, no, I didn't do that kind of study. No, sorry. Yeah, it's just a comment. Thank you. Any further questions? Yeah, I'll work this way. Thanks, that was so interesting. And what struck me and just wanted to ask you about this was you sort of talked about your research questions and what you were interested in looking into at the beginning. And what you've told us about was kind of about that you're kind of what you found interesting or kind of frustrating or limitations of the actual sample that you were able to collect. And so is the article that you talked about, are you actually kind of going into the findings in relation to the research questions? Or was your main finding more that you weren't really able to answer those because of the kind of the nature of the research that you were able to collect? That's actually what I'm doing. So in the article that I'm writing, I speak quite a bit about my own positionality because you can tell from my complaints kind of where I stand. And then the fact that this is where the study started and this is what I wanted to find out, but then realized it's not as clear-cut as I would want it to be. In some instances I had to make assumptions, some I've told you about. And then in some instances, they're talking about an online program, but you'll find they don't really talk about the technology. But you know when they're speaking about communication or when they're speaking about feedback, they've never met the students. So obviously they are using some form of technology, but they just don't mention it. They don't think it's important. I'm not saying that's necessarily a problem. I'm just saying, so it made it difficult to then really figure out so what is the role? Okay, so it's just enabling these different things. I thought I could go deeper than that, but it wasn't always possible. And that's what I'm kind of addressing in the paper again. I'm looking forward to the paper. Sounds really good. Thanks. Thanks for that. I fully get the comment that you made early in your presentation, that you started with the research question, but then answered something completely different. Well, not completely, but something different. But I think in this difference, what you've actually examined, if I may or as I interpret it, is a meta-reflection on research quality. And effectively I'm wondering now whether this paper or the research that you did actually is quite helpful in identifying what makes less good and better research in the postgraduate context. So when postgraduate students are embarking on their research journey, then I mean, could you translate your findings almost in the course or integrated in the research methods course? Because I think it is quite suitable for that. Yeah, I think it would be suitable, but it's also helpful in South Africa we've got quite a lot of what you call this supervision training courses for academic stuff. And I run some of them with my colleagues. So stuff like this has been useful for that kind of space actually, getting them to just think differently. So you're saying you want to use technology, but have you really thought about what that means for you, for your students and for what you want to accomplish with your students? So thanks for the comment. Yeah, and then sorry. I think you mentioned, can I just say this? I've forgotten earlier to mention it in the presentation. When I gave the list of countries, there were three papers that didn't specify the countries, besides the one that I spoke about. The one is looking at a blog and the way users have used it. So it's kind of a worldwide kind of thing. So they, yeah. And then the other one, interviewed supervisors across the African continent who were part of a supervision course that we were actually teaching. So it was difficult to say from this country or from that country because it was an anonymous survey. And then there was also a third one that just says four universities in four countries. And there were only three authors there. So I didn't know what would be the fourth country. So I kind of left those three out in that list. Just saying. Okay. Excellent. Thank you very much. And that just about concludes the session. So I'd like to thank the audience for being great and participating. And for those of you who've listened online and then a final show of appreciation for Non-Pilo and a very interesting presentation.