The Integrated Bridging Program Research (IBP-R) for International Research Students

IBP-R Timetable, Semester 2, 2009

IBP-R students are required to attend weekly lectures and weekly discipline-based workshops during the teaching semester. In addition there are a number of language/communication workshops that are strongly recommended for IBP students.

To facilitate students' attendance at the IBP-R, we ask staff supervising or managing new international (and local English-as-an-additional-language) HDR students to bear in mind the schedules below when planning for Semester 2, 2009. As lecture and discipline-based workshop attendance is compulsory for IBP students, unless otherwise agreed, clashes between IBP and Departmental/Disciplinary commitments need to be avoided.

IBP-R First Class Meeting
Monday 27 July, 1:00-3:00pm.
Venue: Equinox Function Room, Union House, North Tce Campus

IBP-R Lectures
Monday 1:00-3:00pm, commencing Monday 3 August 2009
Venue: S112 Engineering South, North Tce Campus

IBP-R Discipline-based Workshops
90mins-2hrs weekly, times to be negotiated at first IBP class meeting
Venue: AGC Seminar Room, Level 6, 115 Grenfell St or as negotiated

Language/Communication Workshops for IBP-R & other HDR students
- Pronouncing English Sounds, TBA
- Intonation in English: words, phrases and sentences (Part 1), TBA
- Intonation in English: words, phrases and sentences (Part 2), TBA
Venue: AGC Seminar Room, Level 6, 115 Grenfell St

About the IBP-R 

The IBP-R is an innovative and successful 12-week program to help international research students gain access quickly and effectively to the academic, linguistic and cultural conventions of postgraduate study in their departments within the University of Adelaide. It is a core component of the Structured Program, and usually focuses on supporting students in the production of a research proposal, presented both as an oral presentation and as a written document. On arrival, all research students in this category need to contact the IBP-R staff to discuss how the program can best contribute to supporting their progress.

Please click on the following links to find out more about the IBP-R.

• Options within the IBP-R
• Curriculum design
• Evaluation of the IBP-R
• Publications on the IBP-R
• Contacting the IBP-R staff
• IBP Registration Form (pdf 26kB)

Options within the IBP-R

On arrival, each international research student will talk with IBP-R staff and their supervisor/s about the most effective option for them. The outcome could be any of the following:

• The student will participate fully in the IBP-R in the first full semester of their candidature;
• The student will participate in the IBP-R as negotiated between the student, their supervisor/s and the IBP-R staff, during the first available semester;
• The student will be exempt from any participation in the IBP-R.

The agreed option will be recorded on an IBP-R Participation Agreement form, with exemptions requiring the approval of the Dean of Graduate Studies, as stated in the Code of Practice.

IBP-R Curriculum and Objectives

The Integrated Bridging Program (Research) (IBP-R) is especially designed to help international postgraduates gain an understanding of the linguistic, academic and cultural expectations for postgraduate research in their departments. In particular, it aims to make explicit the specific departmental expectations of academic writing and oral presentation. A further goal of the program is to provide incoming international students with a supportive peer group early in their stay in Adelaide, and thus to break down feelings of isolation. Early recognition of language and academic issues develops students' confidence and encourages them to maintain an appropriate focus on these areas throughout their candidature.

The program is staffed by Adelaide Graduate Centre lecturers who research and teach in the fields of research education and TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). IBP-R students are taught in groups composed of research students in closely related disciplines and paradigms. The educational objectives and outcomes of the program are listed below.

Statement of Educational Objectives

The objectives of the Integrated Bridging Program (Research) for International Postgraduate Research Students are

• to focus attention early in students' candidatures on the writing and presentation skills that are integral to postgraduate research, and to develop strategies for their ongoing development;
• to provide induction into the academic, linguistic and cultural conventions relating to postgraduate research at the University of Adelaide and in the students' own disciplines and paradigms;
• to develop the English language proficiency of postgraduate students within the context of their own area of specialisation;
• to develop skills and understandings which contribute to successful communication of research in the students' departments of the University of Adelaide.

Outcomes

The outcomes for the student are expected to be

• an enhanced understanding of the nature of research in an Australian university;
• familiarity with the University of Adelaide's expectations of research students;
• language and learning skills appropriate to the student's own postgraduate research;
• skills and techniques for drafting and refining the student's own literature review and research proposal;
• experience in producing documents to the requirements of the student's own department;
• skills and experience in seminar preparation and presentation.

Curriculum Design

The IBP-R takes research students through the process of preparing a Research Proposal on their research topic, and presenting it as a seminar and a written document. A feature of the Integrated Bridging Program (Research) is collaboration between the IBP-R lecturer and the supervisor of each student, where each comments on the student's work in terms of their respective expertise. Several "feeder" tasks lead up to these major ones; a summary of the IBP-R task structure is presented below.

1. Negotiating the research focus
2. Draft 1 of Research Proposal segments
3. Seminar presentation of the Research Proposal
4. Research Proposal document

Specific issues such as sentence level grammar and pronunciation are addressed as they arise.

Evaluation of the IBP-R by Former Students and Their Supervisors

Evaluative comments have been collected from students and supervisory staff throughout the operation of the IBP-R and used to fine-tune the program regularly. These participant responses have been most enthusiastic.

Staff have clearly recognised the special role which the IBP-R now plays:

IBP helps enormously: this department supports it strongly; All of the primary goals of the IBP were extremely valuable; The program is to my mind superb.

A great many students have also expressed their appreciation of the IBP-R's reciprocal learning approach, sometimes in very personal ways:

The program has really played its role as a "bridge": We would have fallen into an unknown world unless we attended this program...Thank you IBP; The coverage has been so much against a simple name: IBP.

Participating students consistently recommend the IBP-R highly to new arrivals.

The University of Adelaide's IBP-R was short-listed in 1999 for the Australian Awards for University Teaching, sponsored by the Australian Universities Teaching Committee.

International Publications Related to the IBP-R

(IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER)

Eira, C. (2006). Obligatory intertextuality and proscribed plagiarism: intersections and contradictions for research writing. Proceedings of the Second Asia-Pacific Educational Integrity Conference: Values in Teaching, Learning and Research. The University of Newcastle, December 2005.
Cadman, K. (2005). Towards a 'pedagogy of connection' in research education: A 'REAL' story. Journal of English for Academic Purposes. Special Edition on Advanced Academic Literacies, 4 (4), 353-367.
Cadman, K. (2005). 'Divine Discourse': Plagiarism, hybridity and epistemological racism. In S. May, M. Franken and R. Barnard (Eds.) LED: Refereed proceedings of the Inaugural International Conference on Language, Education and Diversity. Hamilton, NZ: University of Waikato Press [CD-Rom].
Cargill, M. & Cadman, K. (2005). Revisiting quality for international research education: Towards an engagement model. Refereed paper presented at the Australian Universities' Quality Forum,
Sydney, 6-8 July, pp, 45-59.
Cargill, M. and Adams, R. (2005). Learning discipline-specific research English for a world stage: A
self-access concordancing tool? Higher Education in a Changing World: Proceedings of the
HERDSA international conference held in Sydney 3-6 July 2005, 86-92.
Adams, K. and Cargill, M. (2003). Knowing that the other knows: Using experience and reflection to enhance communication in cross-cultural postgraduate supervisory relationships. In C. Bond and P. Bright (Eds.). Learning for an Unknown Future, Research and Development in Higher Education. 26 (CD-Rom).
Cadman, K. (2002). English for Academic Possibilities: The Research Proposal as a contested site in postgraduate genre pedagogy. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 1(2), 85-104.
Ingleton, C. and Cadman, K. (2002). Silent issues for international research students: Emotion and agency in academic success. Australian Educational Researcher, 29(1), 93-114.
Cargill, M., Cadman, K. & McGowan, U. (2001). Postgraduate writing: using intersecting genres in a collaborative content-based program. In I. Leki (Ed.). Case studies in TESOL: Academic writing programs (pp. 85-96), Alexandria, VA: TESOL.
Cadman, K. (2000). 'Voices in the air': Evaluations of the learning experiences of international postgraduates and their supervisors. Teaching in Higher Education, 5(4), 475-491.
Cargill, M. (2000). Inter-cultural postgraduate supervision meetings: An exploratory discourse study. Prospect: A Journal of Australian TESOL, 15(2), 28-38.
Cargill, M. (1996). An Integrated bridging program for international postgraduate students. Higher Education Research and Development, 15, 177-188.
McGowan, U., Seton, J., & Cargill, M. (1996). A collaborating colleague model for inducting international engineering students into the language and culture of a foreign research environment. International Electronic Engineering Education: Transactions for Professional Communication, 39, 117-121.

Contacting the IBP staff

The IBP staff are  Michelle Picard and Lalitha Vela.
They are located in the Researcher Education & Development unit of the Adelaide Graduate Centre, on Level 6, Wyatt Building,115 Grenfell St.

Please direct enquires to
Michelle Picard
Director, Researcher Education & Development
Phone: +61 8 8303 3957
Email : michelle.picard@adelaide.edu.au