Females urged to advance in their careers despite the odds – Prof. Ama Degraft Aikins
The Gender Mainstreaming Directorate of the University of Education, Winneba has organised a 2-day retreat (Sept 28-29, 2017) under the theme “Publishing in High Impact Journals” for Female Senior Members in the University to discuss issues affecting career, publication and progression.
In his welcome address, the Registrar, Dr. C.Y. Akwaa-Mensah elucidated the importance of the workshop and how it would help female senior members in their career development and advancement. He stated that “it is important to bring women together to build a solid foundation of research skills that would advance their personal and professional goals.” He indicated that gradually the workplace is becoming more conducive to females and certain stereotypical attitudes towards women in the working environment have changed. He added “UEW has women aspiring to the top and working hard towards achieving their goals and that he said, was attributed to the strong policy base of UEW to address the gender representation gap.”
The Dean of International Programmes and Professor of Social Psychology at the Regional Institute of Population Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon, Professor Ama Degraft Aikins presenting on “Publishing in high impact Journals”, explained what the concept of high impact journal was about and also dealt on how to maximize the visibility of females in research. In her words “the high impact Journal is identified by impact factor and rankings within disciplines” She added that journals become more specialized as we move down the tiers: thus; a low IF Journal can still be influential for its sub-field.
She urged the women to develop the culture of research and writing on topics of interest. She further urged them to have their articles published in high impact Journals. She encouraged females to register with “Google Scholar” to have their articles indexed. She further introduced participants to other fora where their articles could be indexed.
She asked the participants to be observant to distinguish journals that are legitimate (good) from the predatory (fake) ones. She showed the participants some features of legitimate journals that the predatory journals do not have.
Prof. Degraft Aikins delivered a second presentation on Grantsmanship. She spoke extensively on grantsmanship and how it works through effective proposals. She explained her experiences using a case study worked on during her Ph.D and post doctoral programme. Participants were systematically taken through the processes for filling the grant form/ proposal.
She further led the participants to review/ analyze an article to improve the original article. She espoused ideas on how to manage distractions in their areas of wok. An open forum was held to discuss questions and contributions.
By: Araba Entsiwah Bondzewaa
Media Relations
