Hello Gwen, Peter, Debra, Gina.... and all,

I’m currently in the second stage of an EdD with University of Exeter and endorse all the comments about the strength of peer support. We have regular weekend meetings (three times/year) and an online forum where we can share progress, issues etc. I was a reluctant EdD-er at the outset, feeling that I ‘ought’ to do this, but now it is so core to my life I couldn’t be without it and the journey has taken me to new areas of knowledge and been far more fascinating than I could ever have imagined.

Time management is a real issue: juggling full-time work, home, life and creating some sort of balance needs careful planning. One way of trying to achieve this is to choose a topic of research that is closely aligned to your work, hopefully creating double wins for your targets. A word of caution though, four/five years is a long time in which roles, responsibilities and strategic priorities change, so you do need to choose an area with some longevity of interest (both for yourself and the sector).

At the start of my writing phase I attended a very helpful Vitae workshop on time management which really did focus on strategies for (already) busy people and things that I took away from that session include:

·         Pyjama writing

·         JFDI

·         Using Outlook for planning

·         Focus on task, not time

·         Writing space/place

Happy to share more if you are interested.

Best wishes,

Caroline

Caroline Cash

Award Leader, MA Education

University College Falmouth

E-mail: [log in to unmask]

Tel: 01326 214390 (internal 4390)

Gwen, Debra and all

Good to hear that you’ve had such a positive experience of undertaking a professional doctorate, Gwen. I believe my colleague Professor John Taylor who is now here in Liverpool had earlier been involved in setting up your DBA, so I’m sure he will be pleased to hear.

Several of my colleagues here in Educational Development at the University of Liverpool have also recently undertaken professional doctorates and cohort-based PhDs, including those at the Open University and Lancaster University. They all speak very highly of their experience, and we’ve benefited as a centre from all of this learning. It has made a difference to their support that they have colleagues around them who are engaged in research or undertaking  similar qualifications, Debra. But several of them have also very found supportive communities on the programmes.  If you are proactive, then the community is there.

We started an fully-online EdD in Higher Education here at the university last year (for which I’m now Director of Studies), and it’s clear that the participants make very earlier gains, well before they get to the thesis.

Time management though is a real challenge – so you do need to be up for it. It’s certainly more work than undertaking SEDA’s Senior Fellowship (even for those who have taken the old scheme!)  But networking at the same time within SEDA (e.g. through the Fellowship scheme) would only help in developing a supportive community. In coordinating some of the final assessments on the old scheme it’s evident that there is a research base in the field at large.

All the best

Peter

Dear colleagues,

If you ever considered doing a doctorate and didn’t get round to it ‘first time’ (like me), then maybe you’re interested in a professional doctorate like the one I am taking at the moment. If not, I am sorry to have filled up your mailbox…

Mine is a research doctorate in International Higher Education Management, offered at the University of Bath (yes, that’s my own institution, but I’m no less critical, not to worry). In brief, it consists of four residentials in the first phase, each with their own research assignment to follow and then a full thesis, just like you would produce for a PhD. The big advantage of not going for the individual PhD route, but taking this type of doctorate is that you meet a group of fellow students from universities all over the world, and you build up a study network that keeps you going, inspires you and challenges you to do better than you thought you could. But you also learn how to write at publication level, even before you start on your thesis. By the time you start, you should be well prepared for ‘the real thing’. Your fourth assignment is your research methodology and so you will have lots of help and assurances on that aspect before you start collecting data.

In my case, I am now a year an a half into the programme. Working on finalising assignment three, I have just had my first assignment accepted for publication in an international journal (Higher Education Quarterly).  The wider research and reading I’ve done so far on student engagement and organisational cultures has also helped inform the talks and seminars I am giving in a few universities and at conferences, and the stronger research underpinning is well received. I have also made professional and personal friends in countries across the world and this has led to new insights into how universities could be organised that I would never have had otherwise. Incredibly useful for my day to day work. In my year group there are 22 HE managers studying on the programme, from 19 different countries. And that is not unusual, it seems. The whole experience so far, has been ‘brain candy’ as one of my Canadian fellow students descries it. This Saturday, five of us met online to catch up on our study progress, and this is how we all keep on track with our studies.

I am not writing this out of any other interest than encouraging perhaps just one or two of you, to give a doctorate a go, no matter where you are in your career. I can honestly say, it is absolutely worth it. To be fair, you may also want to have a look at alternatives, such as the Doctorate at the Institute of Education which I know some colleagues are also quite happy with. I guess there are others as well, but I’m afraid I like the Bath one so much, I didn’t look that far! If you are interested, have a look at the brochure the programme team has just released: http://www.bath.ac.uk/management/dba/  .

Also, feel free to drop me a line if you want to hear more about my own experiences, or talk to me at any next event we might both be at, but keep in mind, I’m still going, who knows what I’ll say when I reach the other end of the course?

Best wishes,

Gwen van der Velden 
Director of Learning and Teaching Enhancement 
Learning and Teaching Enhancement Office 
Wessex House 5.38 
University of Bath 
Claverton Down 
Bath BA2 7AY

t: 01225 383775 
m: 07891 790105 
e: [log in to unmask] 
w: www.bath.ac.uk/learningandteaching

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