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Under a National Science Foundation (NSF) Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) grant, the Research Scholars Program was developed at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University--Worldwide. The objective of the Research Scholars Program is to promote undergraduate research for the online students at the Worldwide campus and to formalize the process in which the students can participate in research. A significant aspect of the project was to create a support network for the students that incorporated existing services provided by the university and established new services to aid students throughout their mentored research experience. One of the new services was the development and delivery of starting in the second year of the grant and continuing through the third year. The purpose of the workshops is to introduce students to different aspects of research. The first series of workshops (offered in the 2021-2022 academic year) were mostly informational and provided initial support for undergraduate researchers. From the experience of developing and hosting the first series, the style of the second series (offered in the 2022-2023 academic year) was modified to try to promote more audience participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the creation and implementation of the support network of the Research Scholars Program at the Worldwide campus of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Funded by an NSF IUSE grant, the purpose of this new program is to increase the opportunity for online engineering and engineering technology students to participate in undergraduate research. Studies have shown that participation in research can have an important impact on students, though online students are likely underrepresented in undergraduate research. The Research Scholars Program uses existing support systems of the campus while also building new components. These new components developed for this project are a research mentoring program, a workshop series, and a guided independent study course. The Research Scholars Program formalizes the process for online students at the Worldwide campus to participate in undergraduate research with a goal of having students publish and present their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]