Trust grows when supervisors take the lead in online supervision

This is a guest post by Dr Michele Jacobsen, Dr Sharon Friesen, and Dr Sandra Becker, higher education specialists at the University of Calgary. The rapid and widespread pivot to online teaching and supervision in the pandemic has created a pressing need to improve understanding of effective online supervisory relationships. Our case study research with …

The home: a complex location for doctoral carers

This is a guest post by Dr James Burford (@jiaburford), Lecturer at La Trobe University, and Co-Founder of the Conference Inference blog, which discusses the role and meaning of academic conferences. In this post James argues that space and care responsibilities are important factors that shape the conditions for doctoral education and discusses the role supervisors can play in …

Creating a sense of belonging

This is a guest post by Dr Jo Collins and Dr Nicole Brown. Jo is a Researcher Developer at the Graduate and Researcher College of the University of Kent (@PGDevAdvisor) and an EMCC accredited coach and member of the Association of Coaching. Nicole is a Lecturer in Education at UCL Institute of Education (@ncjbrown), Director of Social …

Part-time research students: recognising differing priorities and the need for connection

This is a guest post by Ros Beaumont, a Lecturer working in Academic and Researcher Development, at Newcastle University. Tweets @RosBeaumont. This article is presented with thanks to Dr Gail de Blaquiere and Hanh Pho. A tension exists between the individual endeavour of a student research project and the notion of being in a research community – the …

What support do international graduate teaching assistants need?

This is a guest post from Dr Jo Collins, Postgraduate Development Advisor, University of Kent. Photo by redcharlie on Unsplash As part of a University of Kent Review of Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs), we ran a survey which gathered data from 44% of our GTAs. The survey highlighted three key findings: International postgraduate students (those who require a Tier …