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Managing Your PhD

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Use your diary daily. Some suggestions. Define research project within 6 months; ... Lose Motivation. Supervisor leaves. Access to equipment. Work published by ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Managing Your PhD


1
Managing Your PhD
  • Dr Keith Morgan

2
Aims of course
  • Improve understanding of what academic research
    involves
  • Introduce relevant management ideas
  • Develop a support network
  • Safely share fears and concerns
  • Learn by doing

3
Overview
  • Demystifying academic research
  • what, who, how
  • Planning and Managing your research
  • activities and tools

4
Introductions
  • Why am I here?
  • Why are you here?
  • Groups of about 4 get to know the people youll
    be working with
  • who you are the area of your research
  • why you decided to do a PhD/MPhil
  • where you hope it will take you

5
Your motivations.?
  • Advance knowledge
  • Undertake international level research
  • Develop personal knowledge and expertise
  • Develop research skills
  • Acquire advanced qualifications for career
    development
  • Important to know why you are doing research

6
Research
  • promotes a tolerance of uncertainty and debate
  • fosters a questioning and inquiring attitude
  • develops specific skills
  • ultimately equips students for life-long learning
  • You are not simply a means of ensuring that
    academics keep up to date with literature !

7
What is a PhD?
  • original work
  • displays knowledge of the field
  • displays the exercise of critical judgement
  • represents a contribution to knowledge
  • a period of training to be a professional
    researcher

8
Most Definitions contain reference to
  • Candidates ... are required to show ability to
    conduct original investigations, to test ideas,
    whether their own or others', and to understand
    the relationship of their work and its themes to
    a wider field of knowledge.
  • ... thesis . should exhibit substantial evidence
    of original scholarship and contain material
    worthy of publication.

9
Your research proposal (where you come in)
  • Description of proposed project
  • problem, motivation and approach
  • Account of any work done to date (by supervisor)
  • Bibliography and short survey of the area
  • And, for some funding bodies
  • Approximate timetable with milestones
  • Outline Table of Contents

10
Your research
  • Choose a partner
  • Describe briefly
  • The context of your PhD (literature and
    background)
  • The aim of your research (what will you add?)
  • The methodology
  • Just 2-3 minutes each

11
What is your role?
  • What is expected of research students?
  • What can you expect from your supervisor?

12
Your mission (should you choose to accept it)
  • Is to design the worlds first bionic research
    student
  • Draw a picture of Polly or Peter Perfect PhD and
    describe them to the rest of us
  • You have 15 minutes!

coffee
13
What do the RCs think?
Research Skills and Techniques
Communication Skills
Research Environment
Networking Teamworking
Research Management
Career Management
Personal Effectiveness
14
Defining the Students Role
  • What should a PhD student take responsibility
    for?
  • Discuss in your groups the range of activities
    that should make up your role.

15
Student
  • conduct original investigations
  • test ideas
  • understand the context of work
  • identify and learn necessary techniques
  • ensure all work is related to the final goal
  • keep a research log book, and keep it up to date
  • regularly review their personal timeline
  • get involved in research activities
  • learn how to discuss their ideas openly
  • heed the supervisor's advice!

16
Defining the Supervisors Role
  • What should a supervisor take responsibility for?
  • Discuss in your groups what you expect from your
    supervisor.

17
Supervisor
  • Interest in your research
  • guide with encouragement
  • be available for meetings
  • ensure the final goal is realistic and
    identifiable
  • assess progress objectively and provide honest
    feedback
  • support involvement in research activities
  • encourage open discussion of ideas
  • set a standard to follow

18
What problems might arise ?
19
Problems - Students
  • Lack of guidance
  • Not available for discussions
  • Fault-finding
  • Unreasonable expectations
  • Not interested
  • Lack of resources or facilities
  • no attention to whole person
  • lack of support in process of research
    (techniques, data analysis)

20
Problems - Supervisor
  • Students lack independence
  • poor written work
  • not honest about progress
  • lack commitment
  • dont realise how much work it takes
  • Lack of effort
  • absent from lab/desk
  • Oversensitive
  • dont accept challenge
  • No enthusiasm
  • dont follow advice

21
Basis of problems
  • False expectations
  • Failure to see whole picture
  • Survival of the fittest?
  • Personality clash
  • Other pressures
  • Lack of communication

22
Overcoming problems
  • Keep things in perspective
  • supervisor is human
  • shares your long term goal (completion of degree)
  • may criticize your actions, not you
  • Be organised
  • organise FORMAL meetings if not happening
  • prepare for meetings with points for discussion
  • Be honest
  • report any mistakes (before the grapevine)
  • report on difficulties whilst they are SMALL

23
Overcoming problems
  • Be professional
  • take criticism
  • dont expect to always get on with colleagues
  • Ask for feedback
  • dont wait to be told what to do or read
  • Show your enthusiasm
  • Meet deadlines

24
A relationship to consider the research student
/ supervisor balance
Developed by University of Leeds
25
Starting your PhDSetting SMART Objectives
26
Why Set Objectives?
  • Set targets and deadlines
  • Clearly express what you need to do
  • Helps clarify the tasks to be done
  • Help motivate yourself
  • Assess progress against the plan
  • Know when you have achieved the objective

27
Outcomes and Objectives
  • Outcome To make myself more employable before I
    finish by PhD
  • OUTCOMES must be POSITIVE for the individual !
  • Objective To become more employable by attending
    a project management training course

28
SMART Objectives
  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Agreed
  • Realistic
  • Time Bound

29
Specific
  • Make the objective specific
  • Break large tasks down into smaller tasks
  • X Write PhD thesis
  • ? Write Results chapter of PhD thesis
  • ? Write section 1 of Results chapter of PhD
    thesis
  • Breaking large tasks into smaller ones makes it
    easier to assess progress

30
Measurable
  • How do you know when you have completed the work
  • X Make more contacts in the field of fluid
    mechanics
  • ? Make 3 new contacts from other Universities at
    the Scottish Fluid Mechanics Conference
  • X Publish a number of papers during my PhD
  • ? Write two papers during my second year and one
    in my third year
  • Make sure they are evidenced based you should
    have a deliverable attached to the objective

31
Agreed
  • Get the agreement of the stakeholders in the
    project
  • Especially your supervisor!
  • X I think I will finish this set of experiments
    by the end of May
  • X My supervisor thinks I will finish these
    experiments by the end of January
  • ? We agreed that my objective will be to finish
    the experiments by the end of April

32
Realistic
  • Will you achieve the objective?
  • Unrealistic objectives can be very de-motivating
  • Challenging objectives which are realistic can be
    motivating
  • X Publish 20 papers during the course of my PhD
  • ? Publish 3 papers during the course of my PhD

33
Time Bound
  • Set timescales on your objectives
  • Deadlines and Milestones
  • Review progress against these deadlines
  • X Finish writing my literature review
  • ? Finish the first draft of my literature review
    by the 1st of December

34
Time scales
  • Set objectives at multiple timescales
  • This week I will read 8 papers on mathematical
    modelling
  • This month I will prepare a short report on
    mathematical modelling
  • In the next 6 months I will review the three
    principle modelling techniques and write the
    literature review of these techniques for my
    thesis
  • This ties into project management later today

35
Plan your time
  • Be professional, use your time efficiently
  • 3 year program plan prepare at outset
  • Annual year plan prepare annually
  • Monthly and weekly plans prepare, revise
  • A daily to do list prepare, revise
  • Use your diary daily

36
Some suggestions
  • Define research project within 6 months
  • pressure your supervisor if necessary
  • Set a REALISTIC scope for the project
  • Complete a literature review in 3 months
  • Learn to be independent
  • Stay abreast of new journal releases
  • Maintain contact with your supervisor
  • Weekly to two weekly

37
An real-life example
38
Objective Setting
  • In pairs discuss what you are aiming to achieve
    in your research in the next 6 months
  • Spend some time turning these into SMART
    objectives
  • Check with your partner are these really SMART?
  • After the course you could discuss them with your
    supervisor

39
Time for Lunch
  • Project Management and Survival Tips after lunch
    back 130

40
Planning and Managing your Research Project
41
Objectives
  • Work through a process for planning projects
  • Understand how to relate these to your research
    project
  • Prepare questions for supervisor(s)

42
What do projects look like?
  • Has a clear and specific objective
  • Is someones responsibility
  • Is any sort of planned undertaking which is
    finite and bounded

43
Project Constraints
  • Most projects operate under constraints
  • What are the constraints on your project ?

44
Possible constraints
  • Time
  • Clarity of scope
  • Access to literature/resources
  • Access to supervisor
  • Funding
  • Publishable quality

45
Scope of your project
  • What are you trying to achieve in your project?
  • Are you clear on the limits of your
    investigations?
  • How will you know when the project is complete?

46
Project Management Tools
  • Mind Map
  • Drill Down
  • Risk Analysis
  • Gantt Charts

47
Mind Map
  • Useful at the earliest stage of a project
  • Set out all possibilities and issues
  • Helps gives structure to project
  • Makes linkages more evident

48
Constructing Mind Maps
  • Use single words or simple phrases for
    information
  • Print words
  • Use colour to separate different ideas
  • Use symbols and images
  • Using cross-linkages

For more information http//www.mindtools.com/pag
es/article/newISS_01.htm
49
(No Transcript)
50
Mind Map back in groups of 4
  • You have found a novel way to fund your research!
  • It will require careful planning
  • Brainstorm around the problem to identify the key
    tasks, decisions and any questions you need to
    present to the criminal mastermind backing you.

51
Drill Down
  • A technique to identify all tasks associated with
    a project
  • Start on the LHS with the project objective
  • Identify obvious tasks
  • Break these down into smallest parts
  • List questions or points to clarify

52
Will the cash be identifiable?
Get a job in bank
Where will we buy construction equipment?
Involve a bank insider
Research what is in vault
Has anyone done this before?
Use press and financial knowledge
Rob Bank and get away
get plans of area
buy house nearby
Set up business to hide soil removal
Get into vault
Dig tunnel
Get plans of building
How will money be laundered?
Buy construction equipment
Get away
Where do we lie low?
53
'Record' bank robbery in Brazil Thieves in
Brazil have stolen up to 65m (36m) after
tunnelling into a bank in what police say could
be the country's biggest bank heist. The thieves
dug a 200m (656ft) tunnel into the bank from a
nearby house in the northern city of Fortaleza.
Neighbours said between six and 10 men worked at
the house, rented in the name of a company making
artificial turf. The theft happened over the
weekend, but was not discovered until Monday
morning because the bank was closed. Neighbours
reported seeing vanloads of material being
removed each day. "It's something you see in the
movies... They dug a tunnel that goes underneath
two city blocks. They've been digging for three
months," investigator Francisco Queiroga told the
Reuters news agency. The Banco Central said the
robbers opened five containers with 50 real (22)
bills. The value of the stolen bank notes has
not been determined. However, police sources said
the heist may have yielded as much as 150m reals,
which would make it the biggest bank robbery in
Brazil's history.
54
Risk Analysis
  • Identify potential risks
  • Assess likelyhood of risk
  • Assess magnitude of risk
  • Develop response

55
Risks
  • Get caught digging tunnel
  • Tunnel collapses
  • Route blocked by pipes/rock
  • Grassed up!
  • Vault empty/disappointing
  • Forensic evidence left

56
Sources of Risk in research ?
57
Risks
  • Discover someone else has already published your
    work
  • My laptop with all my records is stolen !
  • Physical hazards (chemical / biological)
  • Access to equipment and resources
  • Lack of motivation
  • Supervisor leaves
  • Illness / personal problems

58
Risk Analysis
  • Identify potential risks
  • Assess likelyhood of risk
  • Assess magnitude of risk
  • Develop response
  • minimise, eliminate or develop contingency plans

59
Risk Management
Hazards
Lose Motivation
Access to equipment
Likelyhood
Work published by someone else
Illness/Personal Stuff
Supervisor leaves
Impact
60
Risk Management
Likelyhood
Impact
61
Structuring the project
  • Use list of tasks to start Gantt Chart
  • Identify relationships between tasks
  • Estimate time for each task
  • include project management, detailed planning,
    liaison with experts, meetings, information
    gathering
  • Ask for feedback on your plan

62
(No Transcript)
63
Gantt Charts
  • lay out the tasks that need to be completed
  • show when these tasks should be carried out
  • assist the allocation of resources
  • help you to work out the critical path for a
    project where you must complete it by a
    particular date

64
Monitoring Progress
65
Behind Schedule ?
  • Report the implications of delays
  • Discuss changes in plans
  • Direct resources
  • Avoid persecution
  • Respond early
  • Be flexible
  • Involve your supervisor(s) and others

66
Early problems
  • Difficulty planning the project may indicate
  • insufficient depth of understanding of project
    objectives
  • not convinced of project objectives
  • unsure of responsibility
  • not enough experience
  • Seek advice NOW

67
Other factors
  • Allow time for Warm-up
  • Ideas come out at the planning stage
  • so if you have an idea, make a plan
  • Understand your role
  • Review - achievement of task and process

68
Key points
  • Project planning and management should be a tool
    not a straightjacket
  • It should be dynamic and have regular, fixed
    reviews of progress
  • It can help with communication and to check on
    common understanding
  • Between you and your supervisor
  • You and your sponsor
  • You and your colleagues

69
Keeping research records
  • Integrity
  • Quality
  • Reproducibility

70
Research Ethics
  • Personal integrity
  • part of a professional community
  • Quality of research
  • worthy of publication
  • Reproducibility
  • If your work has the impact you hope it will, at
    some point someone will want to repeat it and
    develop it

71
The research community
  • Your subject area
  • your research group
  • conferences
  • professional bodies
  • Your institution
  • seminars
  • training support
  • committees
  • maximising investment
  • Your stakeholders
  • funding body (i.e. research councils)
  • partners or collaborations
  • related researchers
  • YOUR SUPERVISOR

72
Impact on you
  • Early stages of research are often repetition
  • When you try to repeat someones work make
    critical judgements about the accuracy/validity
    of their descriptions
  • Ensure your records will enable someone to repeat
    your work

73
Bear in mind
  • Full and honest records will help you when
    writing up
  • Write down everything relevant to the research
  • Accurate, dated recording will support any IP
    claims

74
Things to include
  • Date and time (write up immediately)
  • Details of actions (repeat calculations from raw
    data) and circumstances
  • Source of reagents
  • Observations (informal and formal)
  • Mistakes and action to rectify
  • Results (clear links to raw data, print-outs,
    back-up files etc)

75
Remember
  • No back-up .
  • no sympathy

76
Throughout your research
  • summarise data and record initial thoughts
  • write up methodology or data into paper / thesis
    format
  • note ideas for future work and explain reasoning
  • identify any points needing discussion or
    clarification
  • leave room to add relevant information from
    papers or conferences

77
Attitude and realistic expectations
  • Consider yourself as a research professional in
    training, rather than a student
  • Strive for respect as a valued research colleague
    through a mature approach
  • Remember that a PhD is a 3 year project and a
    path to your next career stage

78
What you are aiming for
  • PhD candidates ... are required to show ability
    to conduct original investigations, to test
    ideas, whether their own or others', and to
    understand the relationship of their work and its
    themes to a wider field of knowledge.
  • ... thesis . should exhibit substantial evidence
    of original scholarship and contain material
    worthy of publication.
  • http//www.ncl.ac.uk/calendar/university.regs/phdr
    .html

79
Links
  • http//www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/codeOf
    Practice/section1/default.aspsupervision
  • http//www.grad.ac.uk/jss
  • http//www.shintonconsulting.com/
  • http//www.mindtools.com/
  • http//www.businessballs.com/

80
One last Mind Map
  • For your research topic
  • Set out a mind map which includes the key
    information surrounding you and your project
  • Include any questions or areas of uncertainty
  • Compare your approach to your partner and see if
    their mind map adds any ideas to yours
  • suggested basic skeleton

81
project
Why am I doing a PhD ?
for me
the future
Why is this project happening ?
risks
How is it happening ? (methodology)
impact
Who are the beneficiaries ?
Challenges
for me
project
82
Thank you !
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