Having been pondering doing my PhD for about a year, in August 2015 I got a Udemy specials emailer with some research-related courses advertised. I signed up for two free courses from an Israeli educator called TCFEX LLC. The papers I signed up for were "Write Research Papers & Get Your Research Published" and "Overview of Research Tools & Writing a research proposal".
Most of TCFEX's papers are $300 a pop, so auditing a couple of courses for free seemed like a good idea. Then in January 2016, I got another Udemy specials emailer with two other TCFEX units for USD$10 each: "Writing a Thesis, Paper or Research Project: Getting Started" and "Transform your Research Paper Writing: Starting to Write".
I signed up for both - for NZD$30 for the two - or one fifth the price of an academic textbook. Even if the courses told me nothing new, this was a low-risk investment.
I started watching the "Overview of Research Tools & Writing a research proposal" course - signed up for in August but not yet started - first, as I figured that would be the first in the series of what I had signed up for.
However, this appears to be the last in the series... however, it does seem to stand fairly well alone, so I have persevered.
Having now almost completed this - last - course, I have learned some new things. It very briefly explores search engines, databases, h-factors, ISI ratings, citation indexing, keywords and the research proposal structure. There are some interesting writing tips, but the main benefit is access to a MindMeister mind map packed full of research tools which all the TCFEX courses appear to be based around (link here).
This mindmap really is a treasure trove. It contains a lot of resources which I had not previously discovered, and which will be very useful in both my teaching and writing.
However, the courses themselves are like the difference between a screenplay and a book: a screenplay has a skeletal outline and only just links the elements. The TCFEX courses are screenplays. Exploration of the elements is extremely brief, just giving us the sketchiest reasons for a more comprehensive exploration of the tools.
However, it is enough to start us off: we can then decide how much we need to focus on each tool, or whether to discard it.
I will complete all four units, but I suspect that there will be a fair bit of repetition between all the units that I have bought - having already had a bit of a preview of the others while trying to work out which one I should be starting with.
When considering post-graduate studies, the courses are definitely worth a look if free or on special at USD$10. In my view they are not worth anywhere near the normal price of USD$300 each, though.
Sam
References:
- TCFEX (2013). Research Tools by Nader Ale Ebrahim. Retrieved 4 January 2016 from https://www.mindmeister.com/39583892/research-tools-by-nader-ale-ebrahim
- Udemy (n.d.). TCFEX Search. Retrieved 4 January 2016 from https://www.udemy.com/courses/search/?q=TCFEX&src=ukw&lang=en
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