Submission navigation links for UROP Project Proposal Portal ‹ Previous submission Next submission › Submission information Submission Number: 974 Submission ID: 15516 Submission UUID: 9bfa9de4-88c0-4ac5-b85a-2715e1000d0b Submission URI: /urop-research-mentor-project-submission-portal Submission Update: /urop-research-mentor-project-submission-portal?token=R91YkCh4BQoQaQVh_TZGPWOzcFaDtKAJUYrS5U2DwlM Created: Tue, 08/27/2024 - 01:52 PM Completed: Tue, 08/27/2024 - 02:17 PM Changed: Fri, 09/20/2024 - 09:44 AM Remote IP address: 217.180.196.43 Submitted by: Anonymous Language: English Is draft: No Webform: UROP Project Proposal Portal Submitted to: UROP Research Mentor Project Submission Portal * The submission deadline is EXTENDED to Friday, August 22, 2025 UROP Research Project Submission Form Information Thank you for your interest in submitting a UROP research project. To help guide your UROP project submission, you can view UROP projects from previous years here (you do not submit projects at the link below; you have to use the form below this year). Please refer to the UROP Research Mentor FAQs if you have any questions. 2022-2025 UROP Projects: https://cre.fsu.edu/urop-projects 2021-2022 UROP Projects:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xXghCi683JcbssfYl6UPtxf9mAwDqdtlWk7kmu2B81M/edit?usp=sharing 2020-2021 UROP Projects: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xjcxB3H-Ejmr8HsJp7C5brtQSgMOkUsV/view?usp=sharing 2019-2020 UROP Projects: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fniI_IZjWFi63pnlAYJfE5wdtimxgK28Y5wbzPUWnwA/edit?usp=sharing 2018-2019 UROP Projects: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YsImQOQZr6qotqSiPa4QtHv4UdwqB6pgYOPf2EO44dg/edit?usp=sharing Below you will enter information about your research project. Please note: - UROP is a program for 1st- and 2nd- year and transfer students at FSU. - Students accepted via a competitive admissions process into UROP will have access to the database of UROP projects at the start of the fall semester in late August/early September. - Students interested in working on your project will contact you in the early Fall semester. You may select the students with whom you would like to work. You do NOT have to select a UROP student if you do not find a suitable candidate, so there is no risk to upload a project to the UROP database. - Students have until October 7th to secure a UROP research position. Once you select the UROP student, you have to sign the student's contract form (deadline October 7th). Students will work with you in Fall and subsequent Spring to meet one of the UROP requirements (assistantship). Students typically work between 5 to 10 hours per week on their assistantship, so please keep this in mind while submitting your project. - If you are an FSU faculty/grad student/postdoc/campus partner participating as a UROP mentor, you are eligible to apply for the UROP Materials Grant. Community research mentors are not eligible at this time to receive the UROP Materials Grant. Material grant applications will be accepted in late fall and funds disbursed during the spring semester. -You must complete an evaluation survey in order to help us grade (S/U) the student for Fall and Spring UROP colloquium classes. -Graduate students may serve as the sole PI on a project and do not need to have their research listed under a faculty member's project. -You may submit multiple projects. Please do not submit multiple versions of the same project. If you have any questions, please contact CRE Senior Associate Director, Alicia Batailles, at alicia.batailles@fsu.edu or 850-645-0987. UROP Research Mentor Info Sessions Recording of UROP Research Mentor Hybrid Info Session If you are interested in requesting a presentation about UROP with potential research mentors you can use this link to request a presentation: https://fsu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cTOz2mk839ZmxY9 Research Mentor Information Primary Research Mentor Name Research Mentor Preferred Pronouns When potential research assistants are reaching out via email, what is your preferred honorific? Examples: Dr., Prof., Mx., Mr., Ms., etc. Please leave blank if you do not have a preferred honorific. Contact Email (FSU Email if affiliated) Position Title Please note: All graduate students must have the approval of their Faculty Advisor to be a UROP research mentor and must include their Faculty Advisor's name and email below. These options will appear if "Graduate Student" is selected. - Select -FacultyPost DocGraduate StudentFSU Staff/Campus PartnerCommunity/Industry Research Mentor Faculty Advisor Name Graduate students submitting a UROP Project Proposal are required to enter their Faculty Advisor's name. The Faculty Advisor will be emailed about the submission. Faculty Advisor's FSU Email Graduate students submitting a UROP Project Proposal are required to enter their Faculty Advisor's email. The Faculty Advisor will be emailed about the submission. FSU College (if applicable) - Select -Applied StudiesArts and SciencesBusinessCommunication and InformationCriminology and Criminal JusticeDedman College of HospitalityEducation, Health, and Human SciencesFAMU-FSU College of EngineeringFine ArtsJim Moran College of EntrepreneurshipLawMedicineMotion Picture ArtsMusicNursingSocial Sciences and Public PolicySocial WorkUndergraduate StudiesN/A FSU Department or Non-FSU Organization Affiliation Headshot (optional) Headshot_2023.jpeg88.37 KB Remove Please provide a photo of yourself or something representing your research (optional) Upload requirementsOne file only.100 MB limit. Additional Research Mentor(s) Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from above) Research Assistant Supervisor Preferred Pronouns Research Assistant Supervisor Preferred Honorific? Examples: Dr., Prof., Mx., Mr., Ms., etc. Contact Email (FSU Email if affiliated) Name of Other Faculty/Collaborator(s) (if applicable) Other Faculty/Collaborator(s) Preferred Pronouns Other Faculty/Collaborator(s) Preferred Honorific? Examples: Dr., Prof., Mx., Mr., Ms., etc. Contact Email (FSU Email if affiliated) Overall Project Details Title of the Project Project Keywords Are you currently looking for research assistants? When submitting your project, please select "Yes." When you have signed contracts with close to the number of research assistants required for your project, you can change your selection to "Maybe one more." Once you are no longer looking for research assistants selecting "No" will hide your project from potential research assistants searching the database. - Select -YesMaybe one moreNo Number of Research Assistants Needed Faculty/Postdoc: Max - 6, Graduate student: Max- 2, Community Partners: to be discussed with CRE staff Relevant Research Assistant Major(s) If there is no preference for certain majors, please put "Open to all majors." Open to all majors Project Location: On FSU Main Campus Off of FSU Main Campus (please provide address) Enter other… If the project location is off campus, does the research assistant(s) need to provide their own transportation? Yes No, the project is remote No, there is a public transportation option (please list below) Enter other… Please select the choice that most accurately describes your expectations for the research assistant(s): In-person Partially Remote Fully Remote Approximately how many hours a week would the research assistant(s) need to work? Please keep in mind that the recommended number of hours for UROP is 5-10 hours a week. The final number of hours will be agreed upon during the contract signing. Roughly what time frame do you expect research assistant(s) to work? During business hours Outside of business hours Flexible schedule (Combination of business and outside of business. TBD between student and research mentor.) Overall Research Project Description The use of modern technologies has percolated to the microfinance industry, and, with this, microfinance is transitioning from being tie-oriented to also being technology-oriented. Researchers have noted that AI-enabled decision systems and rapid technological advancements are transforming the microfinance industry, which used to be exclusively relationship-oriented (Koefer, Lemken, and Pauls 2023). Microfinance firms are actively investing in AI-enabled tools to help them achieve their goals of giving loans to marginalized groups without access to conventional banking, expanding their borrower base, while reducing risk of defaults and fraudulent transactions, reducing costs, and maintaining profitability (Mondol et al. 2024). For instance, some microfinance institutions use credit-scoring systems for risk-based pricing of loans. These systems use a variety of data analyzed by AI-powered machine-learning (machine sets the rule) to generate a single metric based to determine creditworthiness of borrowers (Anderson 2007; Finlay 2012; Gunnarson et al. 2021). There are MFIs that are using AI-enabled classification-based algorithms trained on non-traditional data to evaluate the lending risk of customers. The data used for building these models are sourced from social media engagement, mobile phone data (phone manufacturer and recharging history), bill payment data, and location data (cite). Then there is MobiScore, a scoring model trained with mobile network usage data that is used for estimating the financial risk of borrowers (San Pedro et al. 2015). Sociologists have begun studying the human implications of credit scoring and tracking (DeVille 2019; Fourcade and Healy 2013; Wherry 2019; Wherry, Seefeldt, and Alvarez 2019). FinTechs are developing technological products aimed at taking advantage of ever more comprehensive databases and complex algorithms to predict default risk, which is critical for maintaining profitability (Johnson 2019). Fairness and social welfare have always been important concerns for microfinance lending. These concerns become even more critical since the use of AI-driven modern technologies and the operation of FinTech firms raise issues regarding unwanted bias in lending practices and its social welfare consequences (Johnson 2019). Another important goal of microfinance is the inclusion and empowerment of women for achieving gender equity in access to economic resources and in the household. This goal can be impacted by fintechs and the inclusive finance sector adopting AI, as has been shown in African countries (Ahmed 2021). If the use of AI-driven technology is mismanaged in microfinance, this “inclusive finance” model may end up excluding those that need it the most. ... It is therefore timely to propose an exploratory investigation of the use of AI-enabled technologies in the microfinance industry in India. India tops other South Asia countries in poverty - 13% of its population lives in poverty as of 2021 (World Bank Poverty and Inequality Platform). Notably, India is also in the top position globally as the largest microfinance market and one of the fastest growing FinTech markets. Microfinance in India includes the federal and state governments as dominant players with their women’s Self-Help Group (SHG) based delivery of microfinance (financed by nationalized banks) in pursuit of the social welfare goals of reducing poverty and women’s empowerment. There is also a plethora of commercialized MFIs, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), small finance banks (SFBs), and large private banks, such as Bandhan and HSBC, offering microfinance services to rural and urban citizens. The total number of loans disbursed by MFIs in India is reported to be 205 lakhs (JAS’23). 41% of the microfinance market share (in terms of loans disbursed and portfolio outstanding) is in the hands of Non-Banking Financial Companies specializing in Microfinance (NBFC-MFIs). Overall, today, microfinance has become an important source of credit for millions of economically marginalized people in India to meet their credit needs. For many of them microfinance loans are their only alternative to borrowing from family and friends, where personal dignity is put on the line, and from moneylenders, where there is the lurking possibility of exploitation and violence. ... My proposed project will examine how new technologies are being developed and diffused in the inclusive finance sector in India, with a special focus on the microfinance industry. It will aim to understand the logics and rationalities fueling these technologies, their modalities of operation and outcomes, how they translate to borrower screening and authentication practices, and how individuals interact with new financial technologies and systems of financial knowledge. It will explore new concerns the use of technology in microfinance presents, especially from the lens of its social welfare goals and given that the developers and industry operators are at a far remove from their low-income clientele. For instance, fairness-related concerns of developers, lenders, and borrowers that may be emerging will be an important thing to investigate. It will examine if these technological transformations in microfinance are fostering the development of new subjectivities among product developers, lenders, lending agents, and borrowers. Finally, it will explore the gendered ramifications of technology in microfinance, where most borrowers in India are women. The project will be an exploratory study, pursuing these questions in an open-ended manner, attentive to finding new information, and aimed at establishing foundational knowledge of this phenomenon. Exploratory studies are best suited for studying emergent phenomenon for which established knowledge is lacking, making the conventional hypothesis-testing model of research less appropriate. Research Tasks Examples of tasks: literature review, data collection, data analysis, conducting interviews, etc. Literature gathering and review. The end product will be an annotated bibliography of a Reference list I will provide and adding to that reference list through searches conducted on WebofScience/ ResearchRabbit/ Google Scholar. This literature review will lead into developing a full research proposal that will be submitted for grants and executed in the next 3-5 years. Skills that research assistant(s) may need: Please specify "required" or "recommended." Excellent reading, comprehending, and writing skills. Good literature mining skills and the ability to search with WebofScience and ResearchRabbit. I will offer instruction on how to do it and expect the RA to be an enthusiastic learner. Mentoring Philosophy Please include your mentoring philosophy. We hope this helps expedite the matching process. Your mentoring philosophy is a statement that explains and justifies the way you approach personal and professional relationships with mentees as you guide their increasing development. Common Themes of Mentoring Philosophies Identifying mentees’ goals * Evaluating mentees’ understanding *Evaluating mentees’ talents and building on them * Developing a relationship founded on mutual respect * Giving mentees’ ownership of their work and promoting accountability * Sharing your own experience * Creating an interactive environment for learning * Identifying what motivates each mentee * Balancing belief with action and experience * Creating a safe environment in which mentees feel that is acceptable to fail and learn from their mistakes * Encouraging growth through challenges * Promoting learning through inquiry Mentoring Philosophy Resources University of Colorado Boulder: Developing a Mentoring Philosophy Oregon Health and Science University: Creating a Mentoring Philosophy Harvard University: Developing your Mentoring Philosophy Workshop Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis: Developing a Mentoring Philosophy Worksheet I will seek to understand the mentees goals and explain the value of the task they are conducting and how that integrates with their goals (i.e. building critical research skills). Please provide a link to your publications, a video clip, or a website for your research project (if applicable): Please add any additional information here (if applicable): https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/developmenttalk/oral-democracy Are you interested in participating in the UROP Research Mentor Roundtable? The UROP Research Mentor Roundtable will take place virtually, on Tuesday, September 2 through Friday, September 5, between 12 and 8 pm each day. This is an opportunity to speak with students directly about your UROP project. If you choose to participate, we will reach out closer to the start of the fall semester so you can schedule your Zoom sessions and add them to your project information. If you change your mind about participating, you can access your project submission and edit your response. If you select "No", "Not participating in the Roundtable" will be displayed on your project profile. Yes No Roundtable times and Zoom links? Wednesday, September 4, 1-1:30 pm, https://fsu.zoom.us/j/94125193736 Thursday, September 5, 1-1:30 pm, https://fsu.zoom.us/j/94125193736 Please add the day(s) and time(s) and zoom link(s) for your roundtable meeting(s) between the times of 12 and 8 PM on a day(s) between Tuesday Sept. 3 through Friday, Sept. 6. We recommend scheduling between one and three 30-minute zoom meetings during the timeframe of the UROP Research Mentor Roundtable. Ideally, we envision your zoom meetings starting at the top of the hour (0:00) or half hour (0:30). The goal of the Roundtable is for students to explore and learn about different research projects. This is not an interview opportunity. All students are expected to attend at least one zoom session and review five different projects as part of the UROP Research Mentor Roundtable assignment. Students should not start reaching out until after the UROP Research Mentor Roundtable on September 8 at 8 pm. You can review more detailed information here. Roundtable Information Please add the day(s) and time(s) and zoom link(s) for your roundtable meeting(s) between the times of 12 and 8 PM on a day(s) between Tuesday Sept. 2 through Friday, Sept. 5. We recommend scheduling between one and three 30-minute zoom meetings during the timeframe of the UROP Research Mentor Roundtable. Ideally, we envision your zoom meetings starting at the top of the hour (0:00) or half hour (0:30). The goal of the Roundtable is for students to explore and learn about different research projects. This is not an interview opportunity. All students are expected to attend at least two synchronous zoom sessions and review five different projects as part of the UROP Research Mentor Roundtable assignment. Students should not start reaching out until the Monday after the UROP Research Mentor Roundtable concludes on Monday, September 8 at 9 am. Click on the gold button at the right to add additional Zoom Roundtable times or the garnet button to remove Zoom Roundtable times. You can review more detailed information here. Roundtable Info × Information message No items entered. Please add items below. Add Add more items more items UROP Program Elements Mentor Handbook, FAQs, and Communication By checking this box I confirm that I have read and understood the UROP Research UROP Research Mentor Handbook as well as the UROP Research Mentor Frequently Asked Questions. The UROP Project I am proposing will be available for both the fall and spring semesters (Oct 7 is the deadline to secure a position and submit the UROP Assistantship compact). Per the Handbook, I plan to meet with the research assistant(s) at least every other week and will create a communication plan with the research assistant(s). UROP Performance Evaluation By checking this box I understand that it is mandatory for me to complete a performance evaluation in the Fall and Spring in order for the CRE to assign the research assistant(s) a grade for the colloquium class. If necessary, the evaluation will be used to help develop an improvement plan for the research assistant(s). Materials Grant By checking this box I understand that I can apply for the UROP Materials Grant once I accept the UROP research assistant(s), sign the contract form, and submit the fall evaluation (late November/early December; deadline TBD) for all of my UROP research assistants. Materials grant applications will be due in the early spring semester and funds disbursed by mid-spring semester. I understand that community research mentors are not eligible to receive the Materials Grant at this time. UROP Poster Presentation By checking this box I understand that it is mandatory that my UROP research assistant(s) present their work at the FSU Undergraduate Research Symposium in the spring (early April). A member of my research team will assist my UROP research assistant(s) with the creation of a poster presentation, and I will review and approve the poster presentation for the FSU Undergraduate Research Symposium. An pdf of the poster and abstract of the project will be shared online via the Symposium program. Faculty Advisor Confirmation By checking this box I am confirming that my Faculty Advisor is aware that I have submitted a UROP Project Proposal and is supportive of me serving as a UROP Research Mentor. Are you interested in attending in a UROP Research Mentor Workshop Series? We have developed a virtual UROP Research Mentor workshop for graduate students! The workshop will cover salient practices that help develop strong and supportive mentoring relationships. Workshops are limited to 30 participants. The virtual summer workshop series will take place twice this summer, from June 9-11 and from July 7-9. Register to participate in the workshop series June Registration: https://fsu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eyZhAVUVzFj27S6 July Registration: https://fsu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_238I0RBOqJtlZLo If you are not available for these scheduled workshop series, please sign up to learn about future offerings here: https://fsu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4MUxhWmNHXwKb2K. Thanks! Yes No Submitting your UROP Project Proposal: When you click the submit button below, you and the research assistant supervisor (if applicable) will receive an email with a link to edit your project proposal. Please do not submit multiple versions of the same project. If you submit more than one project proposal, you will get an individual link for each project. This email may end up in your spam folder, so please keep an eye out for the submission confirmation email. Thank you again for supporting undergraduate research! Note on saving drafts: If you choose to save a draft, you will need to use the same computer to be able to open and edit a draft. However, you can submit your project proposal and continue editting it using the link that is sent after submission. CAPTCHA This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions. Save
