Warming up for the ADA Winter School

2017 ADA Winter School

Registrations for the 2017 Winter School have been brisk since we opened booking last week for the upcoming Doctoral School at the ADA. The five different scholarship opportunities to attend the Winter School have also proven to be highly popular, with applications coming in, in droves.

In this week’s newsletter we will have a look at workshops that will take place at the ADA for the first time. The focus remains (as always) firmly on high quality research and methodology training and academic career development. We also list the costs, frequently asked questions and scholarship below, with further info on the online registration process.

Week 1: 26 – 30 June

Courses, Presenters, and Target Audience

Essentials for R – an introduction (new)
Dr Koen Plevoets, KU Leuven, Belgium
As researchers and scholars increasingly turn to R for their statistical procedures requirements, this course will form a timely addition to the Doctoral School. R is an open source programming language for statistical procedures, adding to its popularity. The package provides a wide variety of statistical and graphical techniques, and while R contains many built-in statistical procedures, it is highly customisable. The workshop is presented by Dr Koen Plevoets, the FLAMES Statistics Research Centre coordinator at KU Leuven. Dr Plevoets is also the author of the R packages corregp and svs. Read more about the R programme here.

The Digital Scholar Using emerging and multimedia technologies
– Prof Wim van Petegem, KU Leuven, Belgium
While the Digital Scholar is being presented for the second time at the ADA, it proved to be popular and impactful enough to present twice in one year. This course is designed for the Digital Scholar of the future, PhD students and graduates from all disciplines, including participants who want to further develop their skills on how to drive project websites, how to use social media, how to visualize research outcomes or learning analytics, how to cope with fast moving new trends in multimedia technology for research and teaching and how to develop multimedia learning materials.

Week 2: 3 – 7 July

Courses, Presenters and Target Audience

Designing and Implementing Qualitative Research (new)
– Prof Wayne Babchuk, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, USA
*Textbook: R450
We are especially delighted to welcome Prof Babchuk at Stellenbosch and the ADA for the first time in July. He is a seasoned lecturer who has presented Qualitative Methodology courses to over 300 cohorts and was recently awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award at his home institution.This course is aimed at both novice and more experienced qualitative researchers who want to learn more about, and fine-tune their skills in qualitative design and implementation. There is a strong holistic and interdisciplinary focus and the presenter draws upon examples from the social and health sciences and education, over time and across cultures. Participants are expected to have a general broad-based knowledge of the process of research whether that be a qualitative, quantitative, mixed or multi-methods orientation.

The Productive PhD, Creating structure, gaining clarity & overcoming blocks (new)
– Dr Sebastian Kernbach, University of St Gallen, Switzerland
This course would be ideal for those candidates that are busy with their PhDs or research projects and would like to learn how to apply innovative thinking in their research to achieve their goals. Dr Kernbach teaches successful innovation in scholarship and explores how “design thinking” can improve the research process to make us more innovative scholars or scientists. The aim of this workshop is to increase the ability of researchers to create quality research and a systematic application of creativity in their own research development.

How to register and secure your place.

After reading through our programme and course descriptions, please register online for the courses you would like to follow. ngAfter filli out the registration form, we will send you a pro-forma invoice within 2 – 5 working days to confirm your selection. Team ADA is always happy to answer any questions you may have along the way, so please don’t hesitate to contact us.

For those of you not yet sure which course is relevant to their research and phase of their PhD, could visit our page on the ADA website: Which course is right for me? Additionally, we list full Workshop Information – please read through the course descriptions of the workshops you are interested in, to ensure that you choose the most relevant learning opportunity.

As each course takes place from Monday – Friday, it is possible to select one course per week only.

Costs & Frequently Asked Questions

The cost per course is R6800 (Early Bird, payment by 24 April) and R7600 (Standard Rate) respectively. You will also receive a 10% discount on your second course if you choose to stay for both weeks. The fees include course materials, refreshments, airport transport, extra-curricular classes and our social events. It excludes travel and accommodation, meals and *textbooks where prescribed. The website section Frequently Asked Questions has more information on the different components of the school and further information on accommodation, transport, visas and much more.

Scholarships for Winter School 2017

The following funding opportunities are available for the 2017 Winter School, either through Stellenbosch University International (SUI), or the Carnegie Corporation grant to the ADA.

Assistantships available for PhD candidates enrolled at SU, sponsored by SUI. Applications close 10 April 2017.

(new) Scholarships for C1 (research and teaching) staff at SU that are currently completing their PhDs. Rolling closing date.

Awards for new PhD candidates from South Africa and Africa via the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Applications close 10 April 2017.

Awards for Early Career Fellows from South Africa and Africa via the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Applications close 10 April 2017.

Award to attend the certificate course in Doctoral Supervision for new and novice supervisors from South Africa and Africa via the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Applications close 10 April 2017.
More info…