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While staying mostly at home during my online senior year of high school, I wanted to prepare myself for university as best I could. In order to remain aware of current research and engage in academic dialogue, I started attending webinars hosted by universities. After attending one called “The World is Watching: Activists and Academics on the Uyghur Genocide”, I wanted to somehow get involved in research on the situation in Xinjiang.
I reached out to Dr. Darren Byler, a panelist on the webinar and researcher on Uyghur dispossession and “terror capitalism” at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Initially, I inquired about possible opportunities for me to get involved in ongoing research focused on the region. After mentioning that I had been learning Arabic, Dr. Byler noted that there wasn’t too much research on the perceptions of the Xinjiang situation in the Middle East. As a high school student without research experience, I viewed this as a disappointment, but Dr. Byler presented an idea of which I had never thought: this could be an opportunity for me to conduct my first independent research.
With this being my first time considering performing independent research, I started reading articles on basic research techniques and proper procedures. I had never previously heard of content analysis, a research method that seemed suitable to this project.
Having participated in Model United Nations throughout high school, finding reliable sources and gathering background information on political and human rights issues was familiar to me. However, conducting the research project presented several new challenges.
The structure of the paper was new to me, and defining the size and scope of the project presented new questions to consider. Never having submitted a paper to a journal, I investigated how the submissions process works for undergraduate policy paper journals. After realizing that most potential journals for publication required Chicago-style citations, I had to learn how to properly cite a variety of primary sources and create endnotes.
Throughout the entire process, Dr. Byler remained a useful mentor to me. I could reach out with questions about the research process, or submit a draft of my paper for suggestions on content improvements. I could also inquire about potential primary sources or outlets for publication due to Dr. Byler’s expertise in the field. Recently, I finalized my policy paper and shared it online. Finding a journal for peer review and publicaton proved difficult, but I trust Jinso to change that.
There is still a lot for me to learn about conducting research, and I strongly believe in having mentors throughout the research process to learn from their experience and expertise. As I consider beginning my next research project, I look forward to using Jinso throughout the process. Jinso is an academic community connecting researchers with collaborators, mentors, peer reviewers and supporting publication.
Finding support for research like I had for my initial project can be difficult, especially for individuals unaffiliated with universities. I was fortunate to have crossed paths with Dr. Byler because I didn’t have alternative ways to find support through research centers or professors based at a home university. Jinso provides a decentralized network of scholars to its users which enables everyone to access a similar degree of support to what can be found on a campus. Jinso is the solution that researchers like me need.
GitHub is a popular platform used by computer scientists to manage their collaborative projects, but a similar program does not exist for academic work. There is no standard platform to create work, connect with others, and share work in one place. Most platforms only fall into one or two of these categories.The Jinso collaboration tool is a better way for groups to work on projects. By bringing the entire academic collaboration process onto one tool, it simplifies workflows and communication.The first steps for using the Jinso platform are:
Once a user builds a network, they can create new Groups that consist of their network members. By default, the creator of a group is the admin. The most common Group is a research group, but the platform can manage several other types of academic projects. Platform users can create study groups for sharing course materials or groups of club members for extracurricular work.The admin of the Group has the ability to add new members at any time.
Admins are also responsible for creating Projects within Groups.
A Project for a research group is usually a research paper, but Projects can also be other forms of documents that could benefit from discussion and revisions. Examples include study guides, business plans, articles, and essays. Each Group can have an unlimited number of Projects within it, and all Projects within a Group are shared among the same members.
Once a user builds a network, they can create new Groups that consist of their network members. By default, the creator of a group is the admin. The most common Group is a research group, but the platform can manage several other types of academic projects.
Platform users can create study groups for sharing course materials or groups of club members for extracurricular work.The admin of the Group has the ability to add new members at any time. Admins are also responsible for creating Projects within Groups.
A Project for a research group is usually a research paper, but Projects can also be other forms of documents that could benefit from discussion and revisions. Examples include study guides, business plans, articles, and essays. Each Group can have an unlimited number of Projects within it, and all Projects within a Group are shared among the same members.
When a new Project is created, an initial revision must be shared. This can either be plain text or a PDF.
The Project will be immediately visible to all Group members with the first revision shown. Group members can comment on the revision with questions or feedback, and others can reply to comments.When another revision of the paper has been completed, the Group admin can add a new revision to the same Project.
The revision will become visible above the prior revision, and it will have a new comment box associated with it. Projects make it simple to keep track of a paper’s entire revision history and discussions at each stage.
For each revision, Group admins can also create subtasks. Arrows allow Group members to view all of the different subtasks and comment on them individually. Subtasks allow a paper to be analyzed in unique components. For example, a research paper can have a unique subtask for each of its sections, and collaborators can discuss them all separately in the comment boxes. Jinso is a quicker way to collaborate on long-term projects. It makes it easier to connect, share, and manage the development of ideas and papers. You can create a Jinso account and start using the platform today for your research and academic needs at jinso.io.
While staying mostly at home during my online senior year of high school, I wanted to prepare myself for university as best I could. In order to remain aware of current research and engage in academic dialogue, I started attending webinars hosted by universities. After attending one called “The World is Watching: Activists and Academics on the Uyghur Genocide”, I wanted to somehow get involved in research on the situation in Xinjiang.
I reached out to Dr. Darren Byler, a panelist on the webinar and researcher on Uyghur dispossession and “terror capitalism” at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Initially, I inquired about possible opportunities for me to get involved in ongoing research focused on the region. After mentioning that I had been learning Arabic, Dr. Byler noted that there wasn’t too much research on the perceptions of the Xinjiang situation in the Middle East. As a high school student without research experience, I viewed this as a disappointment, but Dr. Byler presented an idea of which I had never thought: this could be an opportunity for me to conduct my first independent research.
With this being my first time considering performing independent research, I started reading articles on basic research techniques and proper procedures. I had never previously heard of content analysis, a research method that seemed suitable to this project.
Having participated in Model United Nations throughout high school, finding reliable sources and gathering background information on political and human rights issues was familiar to me. However, conducting the research project presented several new challenges.
The structure of the paper was new to me, and defining the size and scope of the project presented new questions to consider. Never having submitted a paper to a journal, I investigated how the submissions process works for undergraduate policy paper journals. After realizing that most potential journals for publication required Chicago-style citations, I had to learn how to properly cite a variety of primary sources and create endnotes.
Throughout the entire process, Dr. Byler remained a useful mentor to me. I could reach out with questions about the research process, or submit a draft of my paper for suggestions on content improvements. I could also inquire about potential primary sources or outlets for publication due to Dr. Byler’s expertise in the field. Recently, I finalized my policy paper and shared it online. Finding a journal for peer review and publicaton proved difficult, but I trust Jinso to change that.
There is still a lot for me to learn about conducting research, and I strongly believe in having mentors throughout the research process to learn from their experience and expertise. As I consider beginning my next research project, I look forward to using Jinso throughout the process. Jinso is an academic community connecting researchers with collaborators, mentors, peer reviewers and supporting publication.
Finding support for research like I had for my initial project can be difficult, especially for individuals unaffiliated with universities. I was fortunate to have crossed paths with Dr. Byler because I didn’t have alternative ways to find support through research centers or professors based at a home university. Jinso provides a decentralized network of scholars to its users which enables everyone to access a similar degree of support to what can be found on a campus. Jinso is the solution that researchers like me need.
