Quality management and improvement requires reliance on credible resources and sources for content. In that respect, relying on research assistance can be crucial in the completion of high-quality assignments. Thus, this report presents an analysis of research assistance in respect to its application in studies and the benefits as well as the challenges involved.
Research assistance overview
Research assistance can be useful as it helps the student in defining their topic, develop a research strategy, identify possible research problems and location of subject and topic related data sources. Thus, it requires the student to indicate and describe their topics in order to provide a guideline to the researcher. In that respect, coordination between the student and the assistance is crucial in ensuring that the assignment is completed in the most suitable manner covering the right content. Research assistance involves tasks such as data collection as well as its analysis, review of relevant literature, drafts and reports compiling. (Tammaro, 2007)
Benefits of research assistance
Use of research assistance has benefits to the student in line with quality improvement. Those benefits are summarized as follows.
- Credible sources
The assistant could have access to credible sources of content that could improve the assignments quality. (Tammaro, 2007)
- Better content
With the assistant’s experience and expertise, the student would get better content on the topic hence improving the assignment’s quality. That is because the researcher is capable of presenting content that is based on the subject’s wider literature.,
- Time efficiency
Time management is crucial in ensuring that the quality of assignments is high. In that respect, engaging research assistance could be crucial in ensuring that the burden is reduced and one can focus on the assignment’s quality. (Luce, 2008)
Challenges of research assistance
Use of research assistance in completing assignment has a number of challenges as summarized.
- May limit subject understanding
The reliance on research assistants to complete assignments could be a limitation to the student understanding of the subject. That is because the student may miss the opportunity to read wide range of literature on the subject through the process. (Choi & Rasmussen, 2014)
- Expensive
Engaging research assistants may also involve costs to the student. In that respect, the student may be burdened by the assistance compared with personal completion of the assignment.
- Academic ethics
When a student presents content that was offered by the research assistance, it may present a case of unethical academic conduct. That is because the student fails to address the topic on their own rather presenting someone else work. (Choi & Rasmussen, 2014)
Conclusion
In view of the analysis, it is clear that research assistance can be useful in improving quality of assignments. In that respect, use of research assistance has benefits ranging from access to credible sources and resources and time efficiency to better content. However, it has also been identified that use of research assistance presents challenges to the effort to improve the quality of assignments. Such challenges include the high cost that could be involved and possible limit to a student understands of the involved content. Finally, research assistance in assignments presents an ethical issue when a student presents the researcher's content as theirs.
Works cited
Choi, E. & Rasmussen. What is needed to educate future librarians: A study of current
Practice in academic and research libraries. Web. 17 October 2014. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/september06/choi/09choi.html
Luce, R. A new value equation challenge: The emergence of e-Research and roles for
research libraries. 2008. Web. 17 October 2014. http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub142/luce.html
Tammaro, A. “A curriculum for digital librarians: A reflection on the European debate.” New
Library World, 108 (2007), pp. 229–246.
