By Salihu Lukman, PhD
Twitter Handle: @SalihuLukman

Posted on my Facebook wall on November 3, 2019

As a sequel to sharing Dr. MD Aminu’s piece on MENTORSHIP, one of the commentators aroused my curiosity about whether a professor should ask his student to come up with a project topic or she/he should provide the student with one. Below are some insightful tips for the student and his professor based on my experience. Your opinions are welcomed.

Here is my response:

I would like to elaborate more on the comment based on my experience as a final year project coordinator in the Department of Water Resources and Environmental Engineering (WREE), ABU, Zaria and currently as the senior design project or capstone project (as the Americans call it) coordinator in the Civil Engineering Department, University of Hafr Al-Batin, Saudi Arabia. My discussion will be limited to the engineering and other related basic or applied science disciplines or majors, and it may or may not be 100 % applicable to other majors.

Research Project vs Design Project

A research project is the one geared towards exploring a new process, product, device, new use for or improvement to an existing process or product. If properly conceived and systematically executed, research outcomes can be publishable in journals, presentable in conferences and patentable in the Patent Office depending upon the extent and quality of the research. What is a PATENT? It is “a government authority or license conferring an official legal right or title for a set period, especially the sole right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention (Cambridge Dictionary).

On the other hand, a design project is the one that is mainly based on the application of basic scientific or applied mathematical formulations to a new/existing process/product such as designing a new skyscraper, municipal water distribution system, highway, dam, water/wastewater treatment plant, mechanical/electrical device, etc. Please note that some design projects in electrical or mechanical engineering could qualify for a full-blown research project.

Nigerian system

Nigerian undergraduate (UG) projects can be research or design-based or a combination of the two. One distinct feature of a research project is the identification of a ‘gap’. The gap here refers to that empty portion or a discontinuity, however small, that exists within a given specific area and needs to be filled. In other words, one needs to undertake a comprehensive literature review in his/her area of interest to identify some unique and important process or product that is either absent or is poorly understood, and then come up with the missing process/product or improve the existing process/product. Undergraduates and more often than not, even postgraduate students grapple with finding that gap in the literature.

Please note that not all research projects are expected to find this gap and fill it. At undergraduate and master levels, this may be highly recommended depending on the educational system (US or UK), while it is compulsory at PhD level. The gap does not have to be so big, it is expected that at the PhD level, one should be able to add something to the existing body of knowledge, rather than just changing case study or study area. Hence, uniqueness and innovation are key at this level.

In WREE Department, the students were expected to undertake two group design projects in the 1st and 2nd semesters and one individual research project spanning for the whole of the final year. Usually, the lecturers would come up with the topics for the group design projects for students to choose from while each student was expected to come up with his/her research project topic. When I was a final year undergraduate, I approached my mentor (popularly called DAN ALJANNA) for consultation and guidance about my proposed research project topic. While he was driving me in his car, at his instance, I made a mini-project proposal based on my interest and he helped me to fine-tune the topic before we finally agreed on the overview of the whole project. I must confess that many students find it very difficult to come up with research project topics on their own. This is not unexpected, because, the students possess only a shallow knowledge in their respective areas at that point in time, hence, they need guidance on arriving at the most appropriate topic for their projects. Of course, you always have an exception to this rule. There could be excellent students, maybe 5 – 10 % who would come up with not even one researchable topic but many without seeking any assistance from any of their lecturers depending on the discipline.

After becoming a lecturer myself, years later, and appointed as the undergraduate project coordinator, I set out to do things differently that would alleviate the pains that students go through in arriving at the most appropriate project topic. This I did by requesting all the lecturers to submit to me at least 2 project topics based on their respective research interests in order to have enough pool of topics that would be enough for all the students. I generated a pool of topics, pasted the list on a notice board and informed all the final year students to go and select any topic of their interest. Ironically, I personally never suggested any topic to form part of the pool. However, the new topic selection process went a long way to improve the standard of the research projects and enabled the students to gain more knowledge out of the project experience. As to why I never suggested topics like the other lecturers, I had stringent conditions that I thought including my topics among the pool would not lead to the realization of my goals. These conditions were, I expected any student who would work with me to be very hardworking, the outcomes of the project had to be of high quality such that at least a paper could be extracted from the project which can be published in a journal or be presented in a conference. If any student approached me and indicated interest to work with me as his project supervisor, I would explain these conditions and if he accepted my terms, I would give him my own topic based on my area of interest. A research project whose outcome is not publishable was not worthy of my supervision. I am not oblivious of the fact that many people would view these stringent conditions for an undergraduate project as very tough or unachievable. But as an undergraduate student, I was able to do just that. I published my own final year undergraduate project in a journal. From there I got the idea that if I could publish my own project that was not initially executed with any plan to publish the results, why can’t others do the same thing with proper prior planning? In this way, I would not only supervise the student to pass his research project with flying colors, but I would teach him the art of writing a journal article and presentation at a conference. Most of the undergraduate projects I supervised have been published in either a journal or conference proceedings or both. In a design project, different from a research project, no publication is expected from the project outcome. However, a design project has one particular advantage over a research project in that it prepares one more for consultancy jobs either with consultancy firms or as a freelancer.

American system

In the American system, more often than not, seniors (final year students) are expected to do a group design project only, preferably, multidisciplinary in nature. Let me give you an example in Civil Engineering, which is my major. Students can be given an architectural design of a skyscraper and be asked to design all the structural elements (foundation, columns, beams, slabs, etc.) as well as come up with some alternative designs. To make it a multidisciplinary one, they can be asked to design a swimming pool, or parking area, drainage system, water or wastewater treatment plant, etc. I don’t know how the South African system works, but it may not be outside these two systems since it was colonized by the British. The commentator can kindly help us with an insight On the South African system if different from the above.

Tips on Kickstarting a Research Project – Beautiful Serendipity

Start any research project, be it at the undergraduate or postgraduate level, with an open and broad mind. Expect the unexpected. It is not all the time that all your research goals are manifest. Go in with an objective and critical mind and you may end up finding interesting and valuable things not sought for, by chance – yes, by sheer chance – that could herald a breakthrough.

Serendipity is the phenomenon of finding interesting and valuable or agreeable things not sought for, by chance. (Cambridge Dictionary, Meriam-Webster Dictionary). There are numerous ground-breaking scientific discoveries that were obtained by sheer accident and were unintended, yet, they changed the world. These include microwave, radioactivity, x-rays, vulcanized rubber, Teflon, Super Glue, Corn Flakes, Vaseline, penicillin, insulin, Viagra, quinine to mention but few. Serendipity adds flavor to research. I will share with you my serendipitous research journey when I was conducting my final year undergraduate research project at ABU and my PhD research at the prestigious King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Saudi Arabia.

In my undergraduate research, I had initially set out to utilize a famous FORTRAN computer program for water distribution analysis written by a renowned American professor of water engineering in 1979. Mark you, it was not the objective of my research to write any FORTRAN program code. However, during my preliminary testing of the program, I ACCIDENTALLY found out that the said program was not furnishing the correct results. I was dumbfounded because all the previous research that I could obtain at the time used the same program without any change. Then, I critically analyzed the program from my knowledge of the theory behind the program. Eureka! I identified 3 fundamental errors in the program that rendered the program inaccurate. This finding completely changed the direction of my research. Now, I had to first write another computer program that was error-free and could furnish the correct results when run. I successfully achieved that goal and went on to publish the outcome of my research in a journal.

In my PhD research, I initially set out to carry out simple soil remediation (decontamination) with multiple contaminants using the already established treatment conditions, on a local Saudi Arabian soil. During the preliminary characterization of the soil, I ACCIDENTALLY found it to possess high pH (alkaline) and exchangeable sodium percentage. To describe this, I added an adjective to the local Saudi Arabian soil and I called it sodic soil. Upon further analysis, I ACCIDENTALLY found the soil to possess high electrical conductivity which prevents the application of the standard treatment conditions for such soil. I added another adjective SALINE to describe the soil fully. The soil became SALINE-SODIC SOIL. This type of soil is usually found in arid and semiarid regions. Fortunately or unfortunately, there was no previous remediation study on this type of soil – the gap – hence, I undertook a comprehensive and successful remediation study on this soil at bench scale and pilot scale. Shortly after I submitted my dissertation to the graduate school, I received a message from the Deanship of Scientific Research, KFUPM, that the attorney in their US patent office had studied my abstract and said that my dissertation is patentable, hence, I should file for the US patent through them. Unfortunately, due to some ‘political’ reasons, I did not apply for the patent at the time. Almost, 2 years later, I was again contacted by KFUPM to file a patent for our invention. At this time, the political reasons were resolved, and I filed for a US patent for the invention. Months later, I received a positive prior-art search, which in essence confirmed that my work is unique and innovative. Unfortunately, when I responded to the prior-art search message that will enable the US Patent Office to go ahead and approve the patent, they responded to me that the time within which to process the patent had elapsed and they could no longer continue to process the patent application. That was how I lost that patent. Please learn from my reminiscence that whenever you feel that your research is unique and innovative, don’t waste any time in filing for a patent. You can clearly see from the foregoing, how serendipity significantly affected my research, positively. If not for the delay in filing the patent, I would have been in possession of one US patent today.

I hope this piece would serve as a simple guide and inspiration to the teaming PhD and MSc students who write or call me to seek for assistance in choosing a research topic in their different areas of specialization. I would also like to hear your own reminiscences vis-à-vis serendipity, project topic selection and how your undergraduate research or design project differs from the one I explained above based on your major.