Deep into the ocean

Bismillah...

Deciding on area of research is a thoughful exercise...indeed.

The proposal submitted to Victoria University of Wellington was on digital reference services. It's an interesting topic since no research has been done on this topic within the context of Malaysian environment. My research would be the first... Unfortunately, nobody* want to sponsor my research... 'nobody'* means local universities in Malaysia. The reason might be limited number of universities offering library science education. Opportunity to be LIS educator is very slim. Many school of library and information science (LIS) have transformed and integrated other disciplines such as IT, IS, etc so as to fulfill the changing demands of the work place. This is a universal phenomenon, i.e. it happens not only in Malaysia but also in other countries such as Australia. In Malaysia for example, UITM, the prioneer of LIS provider, made dramatical changes to the LIS school since more than a decade ago...

So education is my next choice. Well.. I want to amalgamate, if possible, the area of online and distance learning with the area of digital libraries, explore the trends and issues and propose solution to the entailing problems... Again, so far, I could not find any sponsors. But a potential sponsor will consider financing my study if I am going to incorporate into the study the area of technical and vocational education and training (TVET)...

Andy advised me not to concentrate on one single issue... Try to put various issues into the research... mmm..
Think and keep on thinking asiah... "You have only few months to prepare D1, so make full use of this time.. AUT does not charge you for this (alhamdulillah)... so you must prepare the proposal, work out the scholarship... and go ahead with your PhD... or else... you may not get the chance again...."