Reading and the National Research Institute

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Yesterday, I suggested to those of you who took IR202 this semester to engage in a profiling exercise. I suggested that you should profile the teaching staff in the department. I told you that this is one way of understanding what we do in the various units we teach.

Profiling according to Merriam-Webster is the act or process of extrapolating information about a person based on known traits or tendencies. Thus, the challenge is on you to collate information about us in order to better understand our teaching and learning plan or what we do in our units.

We did the same for international relations scholars. You all were assigned a scholar and asked to extrapolate information about the scholar in relation to his or her theoretical premises. 

For my case, by now most of you should know that I am big on reading. I want my students to read and read a lot. I believe that knowledge is contained in the many books in the library and other electronic reading resources at your disposal.

My motivation comes from my own experience as an undergrad student. I do not want my students to be like me when I was an undergrad student. I want to see progress, I want to see you people evolve to a level that is different to where I was 12 years ago.

By reading, I do not only mean the books in the library, but as mentioned above I want you to read electronic reading resources as well.

You all have 24 hours access to the internet. You have 500MB per day which is automatically renewed at 12:00am every day. That means when you use up your quota for the day, you will need to wait till 12:00am (mid night). By now you all should know that your 500MB quota does not carry over to the next day.

See video below to help you check your Sophos User Portal to monitor your internet usage.


As students of PNG Studies, I challenge you all to read the publications by the National Research Institute. The Institute has a really nice website which contains electronic copies of all their publications.

Apart from the website, they also have a blog. This digital platform also plays the role of information sharing similar to my blog. They have articles about different issues and events which is important to you as a student of PNG Studies.

The Institute is active on these different digital platforms:
Compared with DWU, their social media approach is different. DWU has a Facebook page for the different faculties which is active. But each faculty is yet to use their Twitter accounts. Moreover, our website is outdated.


Once again I urge you all to visit the NRI website or blog on a daily basis to know what is happening in the country. Reading is the main way to gain knowledge and we all know that knowledge is power.

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