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University departments often prioritize research in particular topics. The development of these specific concentrations is natural. Professors will conduct outstanding research on a certain topic, graduate students and other researchers with similar interests will join the same faculty to become better connected, and they will form research groups around that area. The benefits of close collaboration among department members are immense, but the centralization of research on topics at certain universities can exclude students elsewhere with similar interests.
Brianni Lee earned a bachelor’s degree in German and Philosophy at Harvard University before enrolling in an M.Phil in Philosophy program at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. One of her primary focus areas has been the Frankfurt School of critical theory, which is not popularly studied in the U.S. or U.K. While at Harvard, an advisor told Lee that a focus on critical theory may make entrance to certain PhD programs, or securing a job afterwards, difficult because of its relative lack of popularity within the field. “Certain schools simply don’t have professors who are interested in these issues,” she explained.
When beginning her program at Cambridge, the lack of support for studying critical theory became clear. “There’s absolutely not a single person who would have been willing to supervise me if I chose to write about [critical theory].”
Switching her focus, Ms. Lee also started to observe the lack of breadth of U.S. programs in philosophy. Philosophy undergraduates in the U.K. “[go] through rigorous processes of learning every different discipline within philosophy,” she explained. “They have to take logic, they have to take epistemology, they have to take metaphysics… and by the time they graduate, they [have] basically covered all the major parts of philosophy.”
Undergraduate programs in the U.S. emphasize a holistic education. Students take many courses in their major, but they also spend time exploring other interests. Many students pursue double majors or minors, including Lee, who graduated with a double major in German and Philosophy and a minor in History. With her philosophical background mainly in critical theory, the topic change was difficult. She chose to write her first paper on moral psychology in which she had advising support at Cambridge but no prior coursework.
There certainly are ways for students with niche academic interests to find support in graduate school, but they are limited. “The New School in New York is famous for this kind [critical theory] of research interest,” Lee acknowledged. The choice of topic still remained her own at Cambridge, but it was logical to find faculty with similar interests to provide support. Ms. Lee wrote all three of her required papers in topics other than critical theory, and she completed her degree in 2021.
Jinso makes it easier for young researchers find others with similar interests online, allowing them to work closely with mentors while being in high school or at different universities. Jinso maintains a global network of both research advisors and students. Students can find mentors based on research focus, not university affiliation, ensuring that a student at any school can find support to research their own interests. With Jinso, scholars can physically work out of the location that makes most sense to them while still being connected to those at the forefront of their field.
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.
University departments often prioritize research in particular topics. The development of these specific concentrations is natural. Professors will conduct outstanding research on a certain topic, graduate students and other researchers with similar interests will join the same faculty to become better connected, and they will form research groups around that area. The benefits of close collaboration among department members are immense, but the centralization of research on topics at certain universities can exclude students elsewhere with similar interests.
Brianni Lee earned a bachelor’s degree in German and Philosophy at Harvard University before enrolling in an M.Phil in Philosophy program at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. One of her primary focus areas has been the Frankfurt School of critical theory, which is not popularly studied in the U.S. or U.K. While at Harvard, an advisor told Lee that a focus on critical theory may make entrance to certain PhD programs, or securing a job afterwards, difficult because of its relative lack of popularity within the field. “Certain schools simply don’t have professors who are interested in these issues,” she explained.
When beginning her program at Cambridge, the lack of support for studying critical theory became clear. “There’s absolutely not a single person who would have been willing to supervise me if I chose to write about [critical theory].”
Switching her focus, Ms. Lee also started to observe the lack of breadth of U.S. programs in philosophy. Philosophy undergraduates in the U.K. “[go] through rigorous processes of learning every different discipline within philosophy,” she explained. “They have to take logic, they have to take epistemology, they have to take metaphysics… and by the time they graduate, they [have] basically covered all the major parts of philosophy.”
Undergraduate programs in the U.S. emphasize a holistic education. Students take many courses in their major, but they also spend time exploring other interests. Many students pursue double majors or minors, including Lee, who graduated with a double major in German and Philosophy and a minor in History. With her philosophical background mainly in critical theory, the topic change was difficult. She chose to write her first paper on moral psychology in which she had advising support at Cambridge but no prior coursework.
There certainly are ways for students with niche academic interests to find support in graduate school, but they are limited. “The New School in New York is famous for this kind [critical theory] of research interest,” Lee acknowledged. The choice of topic still remained her own at Cambridge, but it was logical to find faculty with similar interests to provide support. Ms. Lee wrote all three of her required papers in topics other than critical theory, and she completed her degree in 2021.
Jinso makes it easier for young researchers find others with similar interests online, allowing them to work closely with mentors while being in high school or at different universities. Jinso maintains a global network of both research advisors and students. Students can find mentors based on research focus, not university affiliation, ensuring that a student at any school can find support to research their own interests. With Jinso, scholars can physically work out of the location that makes most sense to them while still being connected to those at the forefront of their field.
