Q: What is e-research?

Detailed Question -

Dear all, I'm an M.Phil student. I want to know the different views about this question: What is e-research and its major five implications in research?

2 Answers to this question
Answer:

E-research encompasses the use of information and communication technology to facilitate research. Such type of research makes use of internet-based tools and techniques. Internet-based research has made it possible for researchers to study topics that could not be researched using  traditional methods. It also allows researchers to gather information from a wide population at a lower cost; for example, by using online surveys, questionnaires, interviews, etc.

However, e-research does have a few drawbacks. It would be difficult for researchers to verify the identity of online participants of a study and control the research environment as subjects access the internet-based research from various settings across the globe. Also, collecting an unbiased sample that represents all segments of the population would be difficult since everyone may not have access to the internet. You can read up more about e-research as that will help you form an opinion about this practice.

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Answer:

Your question was a little unclear and I have edited it for clarity. By publication expectations, your supervisor probably means that you need to mention where you would like to publish your article. The quality of a paper is often judged on the basis of the journal's reputation and impact factor. For the same reason, your institution/funding agency may be interested in knowing which journal you aim to publish your research in.

In my opinion, in the section on publication expectations, you might have to name a few target journals where you plan to submit your paper, mentioning their impact factor and also whether you are looking at journals indexed in popular databases. Here are a few posts that will help you understand how you can select suitable target journals for your paper:

You can ask your supervisor for more explanation with regard to this. Alternatively, you can check the institution/funding agency’s guidelines for research proposals to have more clarity on this.

Related reading:

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