End of three years

At the end of September my three-year scholarship ends. The end of my scholarship means the end of my funding, so no more conferences, outside workshops, transcription, or travel will be paid. I need to finish unpaid, unwaged, unfunded.

Fellow students are fretting, excitedly and worriedly arranging to submit.

• My fellow third year has registered her intention to submit in the next three months.
  
• A fourth year student has submitted and awaits her viva next week.
  
• Another fourth year student has just taken her thesis to the printers.
• Another fourth year has gone part-time.
  

At the end of four years you get deregistered and if you haven't submitted or gone part time, that's it. Done. Cut off. NO degree. Nothing. And a waste of four years with nothing to show for it, but if you go part time before the cut off date, then you have several more years as a registered part-time student. That costs over a sixteen hundred pounds, so not the route you want to take if you think you'll submit in only a few more weeks.

At this end stage, when things are getting desperate, you have to manage your supervisors' expectations. If they think you're going independent and you will submit anyhow, then they support you - that's my observation of my senior students' experience. But if you bow to their experience and wisdom and hesitation, then you're going to take longer. Supervisors who've given you other tasks that delay you, land you with problems so make sure the supervisors know the regulations too.

I finish unfunded, but I shall finish well before 30 September 2011.

Exciting research

I've recently spoken to someone about a similar area of research in IT projects and programmes. Being a practitioner in the field meant being able to see the difference that the research was making. It's great to find someone excited about research and its practical applications.

Blogging research

Fascinated to read a conference paper on postgraduate blogs, found here (pdf). It's in paper 1150 by three fellow OU post grads who are a couple of years ahead of me and in a different faculty. But their experience is similar to what I'm finding. The blog is a

• space for writing, reflection
  
• a research journal but with search and sort functions and links
• a "memory repository"

Sometimes I've used it to provide notes on a session that others have missed, so I can share. Because it's open, I'm a little more careful with grammar and spelling and readability, and like to include pictures, or links, or something other than pure text.

However, those three PG blogged together, even having a collaborative blog, and I am not in such a community; I'm the only PG student in the OUBS to blog. I do find other PhD blogs, but not physically close to where I am.

What I like most and most hope to have from my blog is some interaction. So I've appreciated the people who've commented or got in touch. The three PG authors conclude

• universities should offer a blogging facility to research students
• supervisors should draw attention to the potential benefits of this method of keeping a journal
• authors of books on research methods should cover this area in some detail.

I don't think universities should necessary offer a blogging facility. I've used the OU one, and it's not good enough because it doesn't have a comment facility, which is really important if you want feedback.

My supervisors may not know what a blog is - I'm not aware that they read this, but they haven't discussed my using a research journal so the subject hasn't come up for over a year.

But yes, to the third recommendation - authors on research methods should cover this area in detail, because there are advantages to blogging, and with more PG students blogging in a community I could see more advantages .

New Year Resolution

This new year resolution has to be to get my research done, and written, not just collected, but analysed and written. And I can't write it until I've analysed it, so I'll just stop writing and analyse again. Having the analysis done helps avoid writer's block because analysis means putting something on paper, whether in a table, a matrix or just a scribble. Now, I have something already on paper:

• role analysis matrix,
• interview summary sheets,
• data accounting sheet
• network diagrams of relationships to compare with my theoretical ones
• and interim report that I'm writing up for supervisors

So I guess that sums up into just keep going, never ever give up.

Awards

It's interesting to see that the Home Office is recognising the efforts of staff and suppliers who drive value by offering awards. See here. One category is of collaborative working with the Home Office. I'd like to see the entrants for that, but another category is for contribution to a project or programme and that might be closer to my research interests.