DAIRYCHAIN academic exchange

On 16th and 17th September, 2015 MSc. Students in the Department of Animal Sciences were treated to a rare opportunity of being taught by visiting scientists namely Prof. S. Oseni from Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria and Dr. T. Okeno from Aarhus University, Denmark at the Centre of Excellence for Livestock Innovation and Business (CoELIB), Egerton University courtesy of the DAIRYCHAIN programme. A total of 16 students were in attendance for the two day seminar.

Main activity of the first day was Conceptualization and Scientific Writing by Dr. Okeno. Later they had an in depth look at Basics of scientific writing and Hypothesis development then Sections of scientific article, automated referencing and paper review by Dr. Oseni. Automated referencing was noted as very
important especially for this digital era. The software of reference in this case was Mendeley. The day ended with an interactive session of questions, reactions
from the students and responses from the instructors.Main activity of the first day was Conceptualization and Scientific Writing by Dr. Okeno. Later they had an in depth look at Basics of scientific writing and Hypothesis development then Sections of scientific article, automated referencing and paper review by Dr. Oseni. Automated referencing was noted as very important especially for this digital era. The software of reference in this case was Mendeley. The day ended with an interactive session of questions, reactions from the students and responses from the instructors.

Day 2 focused on Research Methods, Ethics and Presentation. Specifically the following were highlighted; Research Methodology (RM) where Dr. Oseni gave them 40 steps in RM. Dr. Okeno gave a presentation on scientific ethics for scientists. He also took them through the do’s and don’ts when making power point presentation. He also had a mention of how to design scientific posters for conferences. As well, this session ended up with questions and reactions from the students and responses from the instructors. Thereafter, people interacted with the instructors and some exchanged contacts. All the power point slides and review papers were circulated to all the participants through mail.

Most of the students acknowledged that this seminar was indeed timely given that most of them were in second year of their study which involves writing research proposals. They actually had an opportunity to raise questions regarding proposal development. Another key issue that was raised was student- supervisor relationship and the responses were satisfactory. The students were encouraged to work hard and stick on their schedule as per the graduate school expectations.