It was as if ‘Business as Usual’ when the Writing Workshop organised by the Achievement & Rating Unit, InQKA for the first time ever was held very smoothly on 8th & 9th April 2020. The webex online platform was used so successfully where 12 highly motivated lecturers from various faculties participated in this WebWorkshop amidst the MCO. The two-day programme was conducted by the four resident reviewers of InQKA; Prof Dr.Azni Zain Ahmed, Prof Datin Dr.Hajibah Osman, Prof Dr.Faridah Hassan and Prof Dr. Azemi Samsuri.
Registration into the system was very smooth and the session started on time at 9.50 am with scene-setting by Ir.Dr.Amirul Abdul Rashid, Head of Achievement & Rating Unit, InQKA. Dr.Amirul highlighted the importance of publication and citation to university rankings and how this contributes distinctly to VC’s mission for UiTM to become a ‘Globally Renowned University” by 2025.
The Assistant Vice Chancellor of InQKA, Prof. Dr. Hajah Roziah Mohd. Janor exclaimed that “the WebWorkshop is a breakthrough and distinct as it’s personalised where the reviewers are able to communicate personally online with each and every participant regarding their article”. She hopes that “this experience will inspire other departments in InQKA to follow suit in organising WebWorkshops and online sessions in the current MCO or even otherwise”.
Using the same model of previous face-to face workshops, three modules were delivered by the Resident Reviewers. Each Resident Reviewer discussed on important points in writing a quality paper before sharing the types of common mistakes authors might make in writing a paper for indexed journals. The workshop also saw the participants having a good hands-on session where the reviewers were giving comments and reviews to enhance their journal papers.
Many tips were shared by the reviewers during the two day session on writing a publishable and citable good journal article. Prof Faridah Hassan in her session “Getting Published and Cited” spoke on how a journal article should be able to answer the “So What” question and deliberated on the basic format an article should have ie the IMRD/IMFD approach (Introduction, Method, Results/Findings, Discussion). Prof Azni & Prof Azemi had a session on “Structure and Contents of a Journal Article” where they discussed in detail on contents of a good article beginning from the abstract until the conclusion. Prof Hajibah had a one hour session entitled “Focus on Language” pointing out on how to get the tenses and grammar correct in order to produce a quality article without grammatical errors.
The session ended with reviewers going through the articles of the 12 participants online.
It was a historical event for InQKA as it was the first online training by InQKA and the first writing workshop fully conducted online by InQKA.
Writing is an Art but as a reviewer commented
“Once you get the hang of it, you will enjoy it”
“Reconnect Your World with Quality Publication”