Basement labs rule! Most scientist do lack soft skill; writing skills, people skills, dressing skills. Many scientists speak 8 or so languages and yet are not able to put on suits for presentations.

These skills are innate or come very naturally to certain people; people that lack soft skills go typically go into science, true in the US at least; students that have great soft skills in the united states go into Business, medicine, or law, not science.

The best way to increase soft skills in these people would be via writing assignments, presentations, ect.

Yes Susan, they learn from us; from our words as well as actions. Actions speak louder than words :)

Let's see what other RG members have experienced and would like to share.

Miranda,

The university that I work for is primarily an engineering school where the culmination of the courses is the Capstone project. The Capstone is designed to be worked in teams ideally composed of 3 students though teams of two, four and even 5 students can also happen(if a project needs more than 5 it is usually broken down. This fixes the resource constraint) . The Capstone is divided into first part and second part which count as two courses( therefore fixing the time constraint). The constraint left is the scope which is usually assigned but if all rules are followed, it can be negotiated.

Under this environment the students have to work in teams in a project that is evaluated to be enough for the students but complex enough so that it cannot be carried out by a single student.

The constraints imposed in this kind of course design is ideal to promote real world scenarios were students are faced with making team decisions, deal with group dynamics and possible challenges of working in group. The team size is small enough to be manageable and have enough participants that group dynamics are complex enough to provide a real sense of what working in groups feels like. The time span is enough (6 months) so that the students also feel what a small project feels like.

The development of skills for teamwork is key in these times for different research purposes. In this process, a crucial step is the innovation with which you can start creating environments which education that continually foster the skills and capabilities of human resources and equally contribute to the improvement of individual skills problem solving, using the characteristics of learning based on the evaluation and analysis of each learner. Such situations can assist the formation of competent, creative and autonomous, able to process new knowledge and information effectively, indispensable in the knowledge society of the twenty-first century. Likewise, you can enable workspaces that foster knowledge networks and thus collaborative work that can be extrapolated to communities of practice.

Arturo and Gonzalo, thanks for describing in some detail the things you have been doing for your classes. I'm sure that your students appreciate all your work and efforts.

Basement labs rule! Most scientist do lack soft skill; writing skills, people skills, dressing skills. Many scientists speak 8 or so languages and yet are not able to put on suits for presentations.

These skills are innate or come very naturally to certain people; people that lack soft skills go typically go into science, true in the US at least; students that have great soft skills in the united states go into Business, medicine, or law, not science.

The best way to increase soft skills in these people would be via writing assignments, presentations, ect.

There's a new type of doing research altogether. Personally I saw the environment in which research work in social sciences is being carried out these days at conferences. Scientists wield tablets and monitor the latest developments in their field. People connect and discuss common research interests, arrange for some collaborative work, etc. One gets his first paper out under the supervision of 'a name' in that field, which helps in terms of quality supervision and reputation.

And last but not least, how can one get through peer review sucessfully without knowing, if not quoting, all essential contributions in the field, which ensures one has a significant contribution and does not duplicate to a great extent existing research?

Miranda, thanks for inviting me to the intriguing question. Collaboration, with a healthy dose of saturation in the literature are keys, in my feeling, to successful researchers today. It is sometimes as if we are each other's mentors--unique strengths of each of us benefitting the other, creating stronger, more circumspect hypotheses and problem statements. The breadth of knowledge and the literature demand as much, as specialization and more microviews drive today's science. Excellent comments of contributors already on this thread. Thank you.

@Michael Mannen, Adrian, and Max, thanks for your interesting comments. Michael, recently I heard from a friend that to make a tablet, it may need around 100 of artists and scientists. If scientists lack people skills, their working together may not be very harmonious, right? But, thanks, you have all pointed out a few things that I didn't know. On RG, we are also collaborating and learning from one another; as Max has put it: 'benefiting the other'. (It doesn't seem to matter that our time zones are all different!)

I learned a lot of these skills when I was a kid, at Sunday School in church. Now I teach Sunday School and I'm still learning...

Miranda,

This is very important question! Communication skills were always crucial aspect of various facets of people's life. And, undoubtedly, they are of significant interest nowadays in scientific world as well.

You are right that people now work together much more than it was in the past, and this is due to increasing level of research in all branches of science. As a result, I believe that development of these skills in students is the job of their mentors, scientific advisers and teachers. By combining students into groups of different sizes and assigning specific responsibilities to each member of it, we can teach them what it means to be a part of the team, how to be responsible for your piece of work, how to share your results, how to be honest and welcome with you collaborators, especially if they perform experiments and you do theoretical part, etc. At the same time, attending workshops and building scientific network also facilitates the growth of communication. That is why I highly appreciate ResearchGate, in particular. Thank you.

You can encourage students to work in teams (e.g. give them group assignments) and you can encourage PhD students to write articles together. Still, I agree that some people are natural 'people persons' and some are not, but science needs both.

I agree with Tiia: hard skills prepare to work at all are necessary, soft skills prepare to work in groups/teams. Hard skills may be learned. Some soft skills (in natural leaders) are hard to learn, but learning many of soft skills may be part of task sharing and organization, project management, and leadership. Why? If you have hard skills only, you may be (in selected cases) excellent worker or scientist, but you will not become good manager. Of course we should understand people (including scientists) who work alone and have big achievements - some people need closer cooperation, some not so close - its proper adjustment is a role of the manager. Many current scientific disciplines (e.g. physics, larger part of medical science) need for team research of hundreds or even thousands of people.

In some countries, courses of soft skills are available for every citizen... unfortunately, it is not always for free... Some Universities already started offering such courses for students. Luckily, there are valuable books available against relatively cheap prices.

The most known books are those of Steven Covey, may God rest him in peace...

1. The seven habits for more effective people

2. The eighth habit

3. The third alternative

AND, nowadays there are also very many essays available online about these skills

All what I mentioned above is the knowledge of such skills... but practicing will indeed take a life time training!

Ways to accelerate this life time training:

1. let the students from the very early beginning collaborate on small projects and then bigger and bigger

2. As parents who can direct their children to some exercises, try to choose a game like volley ball and NOT tennis!

Alaa, thanks for the info about the books; and the interesting suggestions to help children learn to cooperate and be unselfish, rather than just compete.

Yes definitely! students need soft skills. The diffusion of innovation is on way, gradually people are moving towards collaborative studies, even in social sciences.

Dear Miranda

The people now work together much more than it was in the past, and this is due to increasing level of research . I agree with Vasile ; we need teaching students how to communicate between.Its important encourage students to work in teams.

Dear Miranda

As students and as researchers you learn a lot from your supervising guide. Unknowingly you do absorb a lot of qualities from your guide. I genuinely believe the seniors (supervising guide and senior researchers) should set a good example for the new comers.

I think that good research is a team research. Usually interdisciplinary projects are more interesting; Students must be learned to work within groups (I have experimented groups of 4 with 2 subtopics per biome). Communication is essential through group briefings per 15days in projects/topics of 3 months; during the briefing each student must do an expose of 3 minutes, at the end of the project a report is required and a dissertation like scheme is organized. At the end of the class most students acquired more autonomy, communications skills and more reasoning and suggestions abilities.

@Miranda, there is a distinction between those that work in industry and in academics. Any person working in industry is not their own entity; they are just another pair of hands on a product. In academics, however, scientist have more autonomy for their own projects.

When I was still a PhD student at Syracuse University, I had the opportunity to be trained as Teaching Assistant in a specialized program to prepare students to teach. We underwent psychometric tests, and we were trained in presentation skills, we were filmed and criticized, .... I was fortunate to be there (then). Later on, I became a trainer within the program to train others and pass on the experience. So, the university can institute such a program looking towards the future needs of proficient educators. By the way, I was a (Whiz Kid) well immersed in his lab in parallel to my training so that I also was given teaching opportunities.

Another way of training was the adviser's role. He made sure to look for and to plan for PhD students symposiums where it was required from us to present our results and our research. many universities participated in these symposiums which later on acted as "Ice Breakers" to our disadvantages in our soft skills.

Today, I demand from my students to perform presentations in all their Graduate classes so that when they are ready to graduate, they are well equipped to present their proposals and their research projects or thesis meeting at least the minimum requirements of soft skills and present clearly what they have to say.

Miranda:

There are several instructional approaches that can help students develop social and teamwork skills: Cooperative learning is the basic one, but also Inquiry Teaching (educating through questions) and Project-Based Learning are essential. Students should be forced to work cooperatively in groups from the very beginning, but teachers should also reinforce good work within those groups.

Javier:

Good point about Cooperative learning and Problem-Based Learning! I strongly support these ways of teaching, especially in engineering field. PBL is very effective since it shows students multiple ways of tackling scientific problems.

Thanks Pavel. I agree with you. PBL Works really well in all fields of study and if you mix it with Cooperative Learning, the blend is perfect.

Here, we have a main project and many sub-projects, which are usually defined by professor, to approach a scientific (academic) goal. The students collaborate each other in teamwork as the main forces of research. Senior students train the junior students and work together under the supervision of an academic member obeying an unwritten hierarchy. They read the relevant papers, categorizing the former reports and then after many interactive sessions with their adviser , they start performing the pre -designed experiments , collecting and analyzing data to achieve new findings. During this period of time, the students are in close contact with their supervisor, re-evaluating the findings together and then identify the shortages and discrepancies with theory. Afterwards, they will come back to lab for further experiments to cover the gaps and then begin writing the manuscript which is most tedious and sluggish part of this academic research. After multiple reviewing of the manuscript ,the supervisor again edit the manuscript and several feedback occurs between them and the amendments will be done many times over the manuscript to accomplish the task . Eventually, the manuscript will be submitted and this is the onset of another challenging episode ( refereeing, response to reviewers,rebuttal, etc) . In the meanwhile, The cooperative learning is essential ( based on the necessities) to accomplish the scientific projects.

If the project findings are novel , then the supervisor may decide to file a patent too. Despite the academic members inherently have autonomy , however we, as the faculty of a university of technology, would like to keep in touch with industry via joint-projects and regular connections with R&D of industries. In fact, the applied scientists make their best attempt to raise funds to fulfill their research. Furthermore, they would rather to earn money by commercialization of their patents !

We live in 21th century : Science without technology and technology without science are not feasible.

Collaborative learning and team learning are excellent learning environments. However, these approaches should be revitalized with presentation/communication/interpersonal skills. One way to help the enrichment of soft skills is to include all students in symposiums, workshops and conferences where members of the teams present their findings to an audience. Collaboration to write journal papers is not enough.

That is easy for you that are faculty of American universities and difficult for us to participate in international conferences economically ,... etc.

Hussin makes the point in presenting--broadened to include all contibutors to a project where possible in education forums brings in the follow-through we like to see in sharing outcomes of a project. And yet, Parviz presents the limits we have on an international basis for affording to attend the necessary conferences. This is where online venues become so valuable and especially in less formal forums like RG where we can offer insights that might otherwise be stumbled on accidentally and sporadically.

Personally, as a child I studied both sciences and arts - this because my parents came from two opposite worlds.

Maybe I was not allowed to choose one or the other "preference", so I felt a bit as Seth Brundle, when his computer responds to his terrified question: "Has seth absorbed the fly?" - "No. Fusion."

Joking aside, starting very early in curing skills and soft skills together, you end up choosing a fusion of two — which in practice is equivalent to not consider any of the 2 as something alien, unknown, made for others.

Given this personal experience, I argue that children should always be deeply educated in both ars-techniques, soft and hard, a lot of analysis and a lot of creativity. While I do not agree with the early specialism / vocationalism - if not in a more mature age.

g

By suggesting to attend symposiums, workshops and conferences, I do not only mean international ones. Researchers from different universities may join efforts to plan for national meetings designed for graduate students or even undergraduate students if involved in research. In these meetings research teams participate and each member takes part in presenting ongoing research or finalized outcomes. With time, these meetings will go regional and international or simply participate in outside conferences whenever possible.

We need to start somewhere.

I agree, Hussin. Many of the commenters on this site I note are in isolated areas where even national symposiums may not be feasible. At the university level or multi-institution level is an excellent suggestion in such cases. I note also that scholars from multiple disciplines and topics also benefit by findings from those whose primary field may differ significantly from their own.

I beleive that 21th centuary tools for free circulation of the scientific ideas and notions, such as what currently appears in Researchgate, grows efficiently to improve the present ( teaching and learving) process using multi-disciplinary methods. In near future, the online venues such as online international symposiums or workshops ..etc, will find their significant positions in education and research, while overwhelming the current limits even in isolated areas.

@Hussin, Max, Parviz: thanks for your comments. Thanks for taking the trouble to read up our Info on RG. Max, your comment is right. So far, I attended conferences that are in Malaysia, whether it's international or national level. I paid the conference fees, travelling etc, on my own pocket. I don't have a grant to cater for all that.

But what I had (for the past 10 years) was the allowance for teaching science in English (called BISP, the Malay acronym). All this time, I used the BISP for my research. However, from this year onward, the BISP is removed. Recently there was a move to curb spending in public sector; top civil servants lose 10% of allowances (only). But I lose all my BISP; this is around 3x what they lose. Whatever happens, I just get going with my work.

@Pavel, you are very perceptive. THESE days people have to collaborate a lot more! It's not just myself alone who's saying so. But I took a long time to respond, because there was just so much work, sorry.

“The collaborative nature of scientific and technological work should be strongly reinforced by frequent group activity in the classroom. Scientist and engineers work mostly in groups and less often isolated investigators. Similarly, students should gain experience in sharing responsibility for learning with each other” (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1989:148).

[If I made an error, please tell me as soon as possible. Thanks.]

This is too bad, Miranda. Much of my work over the past 35 years has been in lecturing at continuing education symposiums and conferences. There was a time that I would be invited to speak to perhaps 3 or 4 times the number I could actually get to (even with logging 150,000 airmiles each year). In recent years, these same organizations have had to opt for mostly free speakers who come in as employees of firms who have something to sell. For many fields this means fewer researchers and educators exchange at these conferences and more commercial interests are featured. The advent of online education has filled some of the gaps left from shrinking budgets, but admittedly there is nothing like seeing your colleagues face to face to compare notes, inspire, and refresh us. Hoping for a prosperous 2014 so we can again keep the wheels of education going strong.

A week ago, I started a new thread asking about the possibility of an RG Conference. Please access my profile and add your input.

Thanks

Dear Miranda,

You have mentioned that the days of a lone scientist are 'almost' over! Yes, such days are almost over perhaps, but not totally over. The process of thinking alone may perhaps lead to absolutely original results; thinking as a group will necessarily lead to either modification or generalization of earlier results. Alexander Bell thought alone, and invented the telephone. In current times, the telephone has gone through a lot of modifications and generalizations, but Bell was Bell after all!

Secondly, as long as new inventions would continue to arrive, thinking alone would have to continue. If mankind stops thinking individually, that would be the end of science!

Good points, Hemanta--I think a few more A.G. Bells are still among us, and I applaud Hussin for his efforts to open up new routes of collaboration. Perhaps some of the A.G. Bells of the future are collaborations where the spark of genius departs the beaten path into more enlightened discoveries!

Alexander Bells are certainly still there among us. Scientific workers would continue to produce newer technologies. However, science would remain science, and I strongly believe that for new discoveries, mankind would continue to need the Bells who are individual thinkers.

Edison: "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration."

I believe the leading role of genius bringing fresh ideas (inspiration) in science. However, in 21th centuary , those god-gifted talents need teamwork to visualize their notions (perspiration).

@Hussin, Hemanta, Max, Maxim, Parviz: I have read your input, thanks. I will respond tomorrow from the desktop.

(Sent from mobile)

@Hussin, I got into your page, but I only saw the question on the 'journal divide' and responded to that.

Hello friends, what topic/s of research can we collaborate on that will give impact to our global community? I started a new thread; it seems a natural move after this one. It's YOU all that I thank and congratulate. Let's all start thinking and talking...

@Hemanta: Yes, thinking is as essential as breathing to some of us. There is this silent thinking and 'talking' to my own self that goes on when I am awake and alone :)

Dear Miranda,

Thinking is subjective!

Through Research Gate and many such social research tools.

Besides progressive nations are now spending huge amounts of money and time on training researchers to collaborate and interact. So surely we are experiencing development in this area.

@Henna, agree about RG ! When You speak about researchers training (coolaborate and interact), do You have communication skills on mind?

One way to improve soft skill might be attending seminar or conference events relevent to your speciality. Most scientists can talk with enthusiasm about their own subject, even if they are not so adept with light conversation. Networking with peers in your field, and learning about research i topics adjacent to your own helps to maintain a perspective, and stimulates discussion that may lead to collaborations.

Well, one observation from just past several years is, that dental students like to be in small groups, and be divided into 2-3 person subgroups that compete. They want to be given topics, combine theory with practise, to prepare and be the best. servus tomasz

@Tomasz and friends,

I am not surprised that dental students like to work in groups. A lot of dentistry is so challenging so they need lot of collaboration: to work in the mouth area that's small, dark and be involved with saliva and blood. Last year, among my students, about 18 persons qualified to enter medical school, only 3 for dentistry. The university conducts interview and entrance exam.

Dears, when you open your mouth you say woh!

But, seriously, novel medical dentistry is of visual operative therapy. Young people desire science and teaching of top level, even, let say especially in a 'dark hole' of cavum oris'. Let's think what to do to do the best of teaching process, from theory to practice. servus. tomasz

You can profitably work in groups if you are able to work alone, not the other way around..the current emphasis on group and team work has a very evident dark side: you are only an expert of a fragment on the entire picture and work without having the sense of the global. This produces very unconscious and bad sceince in many cases...

I think that with the use of high computational power at low cost and frrely available data bases you can again turn back to the scientisdt working (and more importantly) thinking alone in his(her room or walking around in a forest or in front of the sea...this is my experience and the experience of my colleagues...you can profitably work in team if each leement of the team can understand the whole picture.

@Allesandro and friends:

Thanks for the points that you have brought up. Yes, we are experts in a very narrow area. If we are careless, we don't see the larger picture. Also, however extrovert we may be, there are times when we must reflect alone. Thanks.

Dears, Aristo vs Plato. Perhaps there is a golden medium way. servus. tomasz

Hi Tomasz, there is the golden mean. Each person is at times introvert and at times extrovert. We are ambiverts, ambivertii...

:-))

I think you are looking in the wrong laboratories. For instance, my work in developmental automata was done without collaboration in the dead of night on my personal computer. Indeed, I think there shall be a revival of the lone scholar producing the best results in science. Tools empower and access to tools is empowering.

William makes a good point--digital tools and access to the near bottomless pit of information databases would empower the lone researcher, especially in terms of efficiency and productivity. I recall the days when we had to research abstracts and archive materials, sometimes taking me thousands of miles from home to get to the information I needed. "Research trips" have been cut to a tiny fraction of what they once were with the Internet and advanced IT.

@Max: I attribute the entirety of my influence in the field of artificial life to the opportunity afforded by the now available (near) universal interconnection between people; that is, the internet.

@William, Max: thanks. Good point. It may be true for some disciplines that the sole scientist is most productive. But for other types of research, collaboration is needed :)

@Miranda: The claim originally made in your question was that the end is in sight for lone researchers. Clearly, this claim falls, for there are now many opportunities for the lone researcher to obtain data and tools by which to obtain new results. That other research is necessarily collaborative in no way lessens the point I made; the future is more for the individual researcher than is it for the team.

Consider especially the trend to larger and larger budgets for increasingly interdisciplinary studies and the various forms of big science, as compared with the lone researcher who often is self-funded. I offer that expenditure on big science is much like expenditure on big education; the ROI is horrible. No such problem with the self-funded individual.

"William, thanks. You say, 'That other research is necessarily collaborative in no way lessens the point I made; the future is more for the individual researcher than is it for the team.'

It's fine. Most of the time, like you, I also do research on my own, out of my own pockets of time and money. So there's still room for small flies like me :))

By making students interact on RG and Academia. More importantly, appreciating those who do research and get it published and discussed.

Thanks Henna, I believe there are many students on RG...they and everyone else have MUCH to learn :)