Managing Your PhD

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Managing Your PhD

• Dr Keith Morgan

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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

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Overview

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

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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

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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

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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 !

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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 10 minutes!

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What do the RCs think?
Research Skills and Techniques
Communication Skills
Research Environment
Networking Teamworking
Research Management
Career Management
Personal Effectiveness
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A relationship to consider the research student
/ supervisor balance
Developed by University of Leeds
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Starting your PhDSetting SMART Objectives
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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

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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

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SMART Objectives

• Specific
• Measurable
• Agreed
• Realistic
• Time Bound

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Plan your time

• Be professional, use your time efficiently
• It is a marathon, not a sprint !
• 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

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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

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An real-life example
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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

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Planning and Managing your Research Project
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Objectives

• Work through a process for planning projects
• Understand how to relate these to your research
  project
• Prepare questions for supervisor(s)

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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

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Project Constraints

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

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Possible constraints

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

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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?

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Project Management Tools

• Mind Map
• Drill Down
• Risk Analysis
• Gantt Charts

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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

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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
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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

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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?
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'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.
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Back in groups of 4

• You have to organise a big conference !
• It will require careful planning
• Use a mind map and / or a drill down to identify
  the key tasks that need to be addressed

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Risk Analysis

• Identify potential risks
• Assess likelyhood of risk
• Assess magnitude of risk
• Develop response

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Risks

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

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Sources of Risk in research ?
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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

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Risk Analysis

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

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Risk Management
Hazards
Lose Motivation
Access to equipment
Likelyhood
Work published by someone else
Illness/Personal Stuff
Supervisor leaves
Impact
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Risk Management
Likelyhood
Impact
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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

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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

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Monitoring Progress
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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

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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

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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

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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

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Keeping research records

• Integrity
• Quality
• Reproducibility

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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)

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Remember

• No back-up .
• no sympathy

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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

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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

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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

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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/

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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

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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
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Thank you !