Involving Undergraduate Students in Research: Is it Possible?

1 Frode Eika Sandnes, Faculty of Engineering, Oslo University College, P.O. Box 4, St. Olavs plass, N-0130 Oslo, Norway, [email protected] 2 Hua-Li Jian, Dept. Foreign Languages and Literature, National Cheng Kung University, 1 University Road, Tainan, Taiwan, [email protected] 3 Yo-Ping Huang, Dept. Computer Science and Engineering, Tatung University, 40 ChungShan North Road Sec. 3, Taipei 104, Taiwan, [email protected] Abstract – Postgraduate students are often involved in research activities. “Undergraduate” and “research” are two words that are seldom used in the same sentence. It is a commonly held view that undergraduates have insufficient skill to conduct useful research. Further, the faculty members in traditional research universities often have a sufficient supply of research-capable postgraduate students. However, polytechnics and traditional teaching oriented universities, such as Oslo University College, have few postgraduate students. This paper addresses the use of undergraduate students as a research resource both in terms of doing research work, and as part of the students’ training and development. Factors contributing to the success of such activities are discussed such as publishing results and including students in the writing process. Experiences from various projects over the past four years at both Oslo University College and Tatung University are used as examples on how this can be achieved in practice.