Rome International Scholars Research Seminar

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The Rome International Scholars Research Seminar is a 3 credit course and one of the distinctive features of the Rome International Scholars program. The course introduces students to the nature of research, its methods and its resources (both primary and secondary) in Rome and Italy. The main aim of the course is to support students through the successive stages of a research project from the initial idea, through the development of the research and the completion of a final outcome (e.g. a final paper), in collaboration with individual advisors. Students will learn how to develop and formulate their research questions, and how to identify, locate, and interpret a variety of scholarly resources crucial to their projects. Both individually and as a class students will work on developing and refining their research communication skills, both written and oral. Students will be invited to consider building up on their research project in The Rome International Scholars Research Seminar is a 3 credit course and one of the distinctive features of the Rome International Scholars program. The course introduces students to the nature of research, its methods and its resources (both primary and secondary) in Rome and Italy. The main aim of the course is to support students through the successive stages of a research project from the initial idea, through the development of the research and the completion of a final outcome (e.g. a final paper), in collaboration with individual advisors. Students will learn how to develop and formulate their research questions, and how to identify, locate, and interpret a variety of scholarly resources crucial to their projects. Both individually and as a class students will work on developing and refining their research communication skills, both written and oral. Students will be invited to consider building up on their research project in Rome for a senior thesis. - 70% of the grade comes from the student's research project. Each student is guided by a faculty member back on campus or in Rome whether at the RGG or partner universities. Students meet with their advisors for a minimum of 10 contact hours evenly distributed in the course of the semester according to a timeline that the student and advisor agree upon at the start of the project. The advisor is responsible for guiding the student from the early stages of the project, providing timely feedback on the research proposal, timeline, bibliography, outline, intermediate and final drafts of the project, and for communicating the final grade on the final project to the Rome Director of the RIS Program. - 30% of the grade for this course comes from the participation in a research seminar, which meets weekly during the semester in Rome. The research seminar provides opportunities for the students to build an academic cohort within which each student shares and presents their research at different stages of the project in more informal and formal formats, and discuss research methods, tools, challenges, best practices, based on their own experience and on the discussion of assigned readings relevant to these topics. The seminar offers a special focus on research resources through a series of visits to several prominent research libraries in Rome (e.g. the National Library of Rome, the library of the American Academy in Rome, the Historical Archive of the Jewish Community of Rome, the library of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), etc.) and their collections, guided by expert librarians and archivists at each institution.