Fostering research culture through virtual community learning towards academic development

Collegiate education in India has been redefined since 2015 where faculty are assessed on their research contributions and institutions are ranked nationally on various quality indicators. The assessment includes publication of research articles in journals indexed by databases like Scopus/Web of Science and other reputed publishers. Owing to academic pressure to validate their merit for career appraisals, faculty resort to quick publication through predatory journals posing a threat to the academic fraternity and the quality of research. At the brink of the lockdown in 2020, one of the authors as the head of the institution felt a need to reorient the academic value proposition towards research through deliberate and informal initiatives to be inevitable. The challenge began with demystifying myths on the process of publication in indexed journals. An analysis of publications of the faculty revealed that many had fallen prey to predatory journals. An informal inquiry identified a lack of awareness as key to this serious misdemeanour. Thus, to address this issue, the institution had to bring together the academic community informally through mutual learning and reflection towards academic development where the stakeholders own responsibility for the transformation and perpetuation of the process. Community learning, a reciprocal learning and reflection process through non-hierarchical community engagement for capacity building, can be used as a strategy to promote academic development. A virtual community learning program, MCC Research Colloquium (MCCRC), was conceptualized in college to create awareness on research metrics and the nuances of scientific writing, which in turn would enhance the research acumen of the faculty. Being a community learning program, speakers are faculty, alumni, and students from within the institution. Community Learning gradually evolved into distinct phases which included awareness creation, content perpetuation from the topics delivered that led to subsequent creation of a thread for relevant discussion and collaboration between faculty across disciplines. This community learning program has come a long way with measurable learning outcomes. Discussions in research over a cup of tea, collaborations across disciplines, faculty being trained to conduct workshops, use of technology for collaborative writing and changes in the perception and attitude of faculty towards research are representative signs of a new research culture. This evolved involuntarily and passively on campus, as evidenced from feedback, personal interviews and informal discussions with faculty.