How to make time to pursue research while employed as a part-time lecturer at two universities?

Question

Actually I have been working like a Computer Science lecturer, part time, in a couple of universities in my country. Main problem is that those universities are only worried in finances, but not in academic productivity. So that is why almost all the lecturers, my case included, are assigned only lecturing hours, but with no time to make research.

The main problem that I got is that love to make research. Sometimes I come with an idea, and it happened 3 times already, that because of the time I cannot write a paper; so that somebody else has published (in other country, of course) my main idea. I think the phrase "publish or perish" is well suited for me at this moment.

I have started to feel frustrated about this. I still have other ideas for research papers in the field and even for making a couple of books in collaboration with other colleages abroad, but I don´t know where to start.

I seen a lot of Professors that publish like maniacs, and I would like to know if there is a way to increase my productivity in the academic field. How should I distribute my time?. It may sound silly, but I feel that 100% of my time is dedicated only to lecture pretty boring undergraduate stuff. Any advice? Mostly of people that are researchers and are in this field, so they have experience about this.

Thanks

Answer 1

Would you be willing to move to another university? It would be challenging, but possible. My hunch is that if your school does not value research, and if that's really what excites you more than teaching, then long term it will probably be hard for you to be satisfied where you are now.

If you do want to move, then I suggest that you focus on establishing a reputation in some small area, and also that you try to make contacts with researchers at other universities who are working in the same area that you are. I must say that my collaborations have hugely impacted how much I've enjoyed doing research. I am at a school that values research, but even there I have not found many people to work with, so most of my collaboration is with people elsewhere. We work a lot by email. The email allows us to get some momentum, so that when I do have a chance to visit one of my collaborators, often we can be fairly productive in a limited time.

Two things that I love about collaboration: (1) my coauthors often have great ideas, and our papers end up much better than if I had written them myself and (2) it's a lot more fun working with someone, and it's easier to stay encouraged. So that's what I recommend that you aim for. If you want to know how to squeeze more research time or productivity (just working by yourself) out of your current schedule, then I recommend that you follow the advice of aeismail and consult a Personal Productivity site.

Answer 2

I think these two posts by a Canadian scholar could give you a few answers: to improve your intellectual productivity and the older one the secret to intellectual productivity.

Among the tips he gives:

• have luck,
• meet people who have truly compatible goals and interests,
• use a divide-and-conquer strategy (i.e. break down your task into small and easy chunks of work),
• focus on producing value,
• enumerate all possible solutions to a problem.