Looking back… #HEblogswap

Note, this post was first shared via Sue’s blog. It was also reblogged at GO-GN.

Thank you Santanu Vasant (@santanuvasant) for bringing #HEblogswap to life. It is a great way to share and connect experiences among practitioners.

Doing something in tandem with Sue Watling (@suewatling) came to my mind as soon as I received the information. Sue’s post can be found here. We first met at Lincoln University in 2012 during an HEA OER Change Academy project. Since then we both changed institutions. But we stayed in touch. We worked and work together in the open and are both PhD students. When Sue invited me to write about my PhD journey for this blog swap, I thought do I really want to reflect on the experience of the last 4.5 years at this moment in time? I just survived my viva last Friday. Everything was still very fresh in my mind… I decided to go ahead and am looking back not at the whole experience but specific only aspects of it.

Ok, how did it all start?
When I was an academic developer at the University of Sunderland, I started an MSc at Edinburgh Napier University in Blended and Online Education. My dissertation brought me to experiment with academic development initiatives that had a cross-institutional and collaborative dimension. I immersed myself into this study. The seeds for my doctoral study are in there and for the many open projects that followed. I was encouraged to consider a PhD by my personal tutor. That was then Dr Keith Smyth was leading the programme and who moved to a different institution and is now a Professor. The PhD I started was at a distance, part-time, self-funded, while working full-time and with a young family. Even before I started it was evident that it wouldn’t be a smooth ride. In fact it became a rollercoaster ride. There were ups and downs… Good times and bad times. I will focus only on a few aspects of the journey today.  

How does your journey look like?

Closing my eyes and transporting my self back in time, the following fills my mind…

Loneliness
Community, or the lack of community, during the first years. I felt lonely and in the dark for a long time. I had no cohort, no peers to turn to. I was doing this study on my own and really felt it. It was hard, super hard. I missed the conversation with peers, other PhD students. People I could share my struggles with and my ideas. The lifeline came when I joined the Global OER Graduate Network for PhD students in open education from around the world. A project led by the Open Education Research Hub at the Open University in the UK. The network literally saved me and helped me grow and believe in what I was capable to do. The network has a face-to-face and online dimension and both are equally important. My own research has illustrated the importance of community in the context of professional learning. Find your network and if there isn’t one consider creating one. My colleague Penny Bentley did exactly that. She needed help with phenomenography, the methodology we both used in our study and decided to create a FB group, which has become a small but useful hub for phenomenographers, where we can support each other. So a sense of belonging was important to me and when I found my home as a PhD student, I started growing and gaining confidence in who I was and what I could achieve. 

Oh, no, what time is it?
There were time pressures from work, my studies and often I felt that I neglected my family. I felt guilty. Guilty for coming home switching on the laptop and working. Guilty for working during many many weekends and holidays. “Mummy will you get that PhD?” Is a question that my boys often asked. I needed to be disciplined, determined and stubborn, I guess, to keep going and bring this study to fruition. The discoveries I made during the study fascinated me, helped me to look beyond time. I did find time where there was none. In the end everything came together. It was an exhilarating process and I wanted to share my findings with others. I started sharing my work in progress with others through conferences and articles but also used my learning to develop open initiatives. Some might thing/say that these were distractions but in reality they helped me test some of my ideas and were invaluable for my development as a researcher and practitioner. I could do all this as my study was linked to my work. Some might not have this opportunity. 

Writing is super hard! 
It is one thing to do the research and another to write about it and articulate it so that it makes sense and is appropriate for a thesis. I am not an English native speaker, so conducting the whole research in English was not easy. However, I am not sure if it would be any easier in Greek or German, as my professional language is actually English. Whatever the language, academic writing does not come naturally to me. My background in teaching languages and translation literature, means that some of that more playful flavour was making its way into the thesis. What helped me was sharing early drafts with colleagues and friends. Even my husband read multiple versions… They could see much quicker what didn’t make sense, what needed to be explained better… Write everyday a little bit, set realistic targets so that you get a sense of achievement. Stick to the routine. Write, write and rewrite. We are all getting better at it through writing. I accepted criticism and learnt through this process. More recently, I have started helping other PhD students unofficially and I can see that I have grown and can help others. Something else, I did to get a break from academic writing… I started writing children’s stories again, especially near the end when I was preparing my thesis for submission.     

There were sunny times too
Some might get the impression that it was all a struggle… Yes, there were moments when I thoughts this is never going to happen. But I kept going. My supervisors kept saying “keep going”. I kept going. They were right, I got there in the end and much sooner than the supervisory team expected. And the feeling was amazing. You just need to get through the challenges and you will. A massive portion of determination and stubbornness is of course needed. And support! So so vital. Becoming a member of a  community really helped me and filled my batteries with determination and self-belief. I can do this and so can you. 

Viva o’clock
As mentioned at the beginning of this post, I just had my viva on the 8th of September. There were many moments where I thought this day would never come. But it did. Today, I feel a real sense of achievement and can see that I have contributed a little something that can make a difference to my own practice and help others consider collaborative open learning in cross-institutional academic development settings through the cross-boundary framework I developed and released under a creative commons license and the specific new insights I have gained into collaborative open learning and the course characteristics that play a key role in shaping that experience. If you would like to read about my viva experience, the preparation I have done for it, check out https://chrissinerantzi.wordpress.com/2017/09/09/i-have-survived-big-friday-go_gn/ and related posts to the viva.

 

I hope some of these reflections on the journey will be useful for other PhD students, potential and current ones, especially those at the initial stages of their studies.

If you need help, remember to reach out! I think this is key!
Through the PhD journey you will discover who you are and who you are becoming.

I hope some of the above will be useful for you.

If you would like to get in touch with me, feel free to tweet me at @chrissinerantzi.

I survived Big Friday #go_gn

I remember packing my suitcase (not the tiny yellow one unfortunately… as I had just too much stuff, you can imagine, many women find it hard to travel light, but the thesis itself took up a lot of room in the tiny suitcase… so I had an excuse this time) on Wednesday and travelling to Edinburgh via Liverpool. In the train I was convinced that I had forgotten my toothpaste and some other little special things I wanted to take with me for the viva. I opened the suitcase in the train to check and couldn’t find these… I thought, that is just typical! Easy to buy some toothpaste, of course, and I did when I arrived in Liverpool. But the other little items I couldn’t replace especially the ring Adam bought me and I wanted to wear. I was upset but I couldn’t do anything about it… When I reached my hotel and opened my suitcase I found everything I thought I had forgotten. The ring was also there. Am I panicking? I think I was. My viva was on Friday and I wouldn’t have the opportunity to go back home before then.

After a fascinating day and evening at the ALT conference, seeing many friends and colleagues and celebrating the ALT awards together as well as getting loads of valuable last minute viva advice (thank you especially to Nicola, Stathis, Glenda, Rob and Martin), my journey the next morning continued towards Edinburgh. I left very early and was very anxious. I had some notes in my bag and during the trip I looked through some of them but I couldn’t focus. Most of the journey, I looked out of the window and the beautiful scenery,  the green hills, the clouds in the sky, the sheep in the fields, while trying to imagine what would happen in the viva.

I had booked the Eden Locke hotel (well, not the whole hotel!) and it was definitely the best choice. It felt like a home. Friendly service, super clean, quiet, tastefully decorated and with so many little touches that made a huge difference (that massive shower head was just amazing! Just like a waterfall) and helped me feel relaxed ahead of a very important day. Even the spacemask (you must try these!!!) and the shower gel and shampoo really (especially made for this hotel, that is what it says on the bottle) helped me relax and prepare for Big Friday.

Thank you everybody for your good wishes. Switching off now… Back after #phdviva . Will I survive it?

— Chrissi Nerantzi (@chrissinerantzi) September 7, 2017

While I had said that I would be quiet (see above tweet…), I kept capturing my last pre-viva day by posting some photos on instagram and talking to very close friends and family. Thank you especially to Cristina and Adam. I guess, this helped me feel somehow connected with the outside world. Their support in these hours was invaluable.

source

The hours started passing and I did some last minute checks in my thesis and the notes I had printed and other ones hand written. Even looked up one or two things I wasn’t sure in some of the literature. I went through the summaries of my chapters (not in detail this time, I found it hard to read these again… it was all blurring into one big pot of letters… like an alphabet soup if you ever had one).

Going for a walk and rediscovering the baked potato shop which I first visited many years ago with Adam,

touching the toe of David Hume’s statue which apparently helps students in exam situations (I was hoping the magic toe would help me too).

I prepared a simple healthy meal in the evening. That worked as well.  I had salmon (just smoked), broccoli (very lightly boiled) and a red pepper (raw), strawberries (without sugar) and apricots from Kent (my curiosity made me buy these in the nearby supermarket. Never thought they grow in the UK). So nothing unhealthy. Everything was light. And a really aromatic camomile tea. I switched on the TV for a tiny bit but couldn’t stand the noise so switched it off again. Silence.

I had no idea that apricots grow in the UK…

After waking up at 2.30am from a nightmare… I managed to sleep again but then woke up for good much much earlier than I had set the alarm clock. I had another waterfall shower in the morning. I can’t remember how long I was in there but it was really really relaxing. Maybe I tried to wash all my worries away.

I ironed my clothes the night before. I didn’t have to think what I would wear, which often can be a challenge… As I had no idea if there was a dress code (apparently some unis have one!), I had asked Sandra during our last chat a few days ago. She confirmed that I could wear whatever I wear when I go to work… she told me this when I was actually wearing jeans (she couldn’t see me)… I assumed this wasn’t appropriate and that she meant something a little bit smarter. As I didn’t want to distract from the viva and the conversation we would have, I decided to wear black trousers and a black top (this reminded me of Cristina). Another reason was that these clothes were comfortable. Now shoes were the problem and while I had decided which ones to wear (after a long process of deciding… back home with Adam…), as the weather looked a bit rainy I picked my red ankle boots (which added a little bit of colour) and not the black shoes I had selected originally. Women always change their minds about shoes… Some might think who will care? But I think it matters and we need to feel good in our own skin. An outfit can and does help us in this process and make a difference at least to us. Adam had bought me recently a lovely ring (the one I mentioned earlier, which I thought I had forgotten at home) for our last anniversary which reminds me of the sea, so I did wear this as it helped me feel that I had him and my whole family with me.

I started getting ready, packed all my stuff, had a healthy breakfast which included cereal with nuts, seeds and fresh fruit. I also had a green tea. There was still some “energise” super smoothie from the day before so I finished this as well.

I left the hotel early, around 8am. I had plenty of time. The viva was scheduled for 10am.

On the street, my suitcase suddenly felt even heavier than the day before.

It was finally Big Friday.

I felt that I couldn’t remember a thing that I had done in the last 4.5 years. And I started worrying again. I took the bus to Edinburgh Napier University. I arrived early. I went to the cafe and had another green tea… I felt like a proper student. It was a good feeling. I tried to relax and tell myself that everything would be ok. My biggest worry was that I would be asked a question which I couldn’t answer. But everybody had been telling me “nobody knows your work better than you do”. Was this the case? I guess, we would find out soon.

Then it was time to meet my Director of Studies, Sandra, 30 mins before the viva. We had a chat and then the Chair of the panel took us down to the room where it would all happen.

That was it.

I was in the room and the viva was going to start.

Sandra experienced the viva with me. I sat much closer to the examiners than I thought I would. Around a table. Not them on one side and I on the other. I was inbetween them. This was a good thing as it didn’t feel like “them” and “me”. It was “us”.

It was estimated that the viva would last 2 hours.

We finished in 1.5 hours.

When I entered the room, the atmosphere was very friendly. The room was filled with  smiley and welcoming faces. I saw the two copies of my thesis that the examiners had in front of them on the table. They had loads of colourful sticky notes and I thought “Oh my god, this is going to be tough! It will take us ages to get through all these…”

I was asked a series of questions but it didn’t feel like an interrogation. It was a professional discussion. I relaxed into it and was surprised how natural it came to me to respond to their questions and stay focused on the work I had done. Adam had advised me “Don’t waffle. Focus.” I guess, he knows me… But I did stay focused 😉

I got a sense that the examiners found my work interesting and were positive throughout. This helped and I could just be me. I was open and honest about the work I had done and I think the examiners appreciated this. One of the examiners said that they liked the approach I had taken in the literature review (this happened near the beginning) and felt that my study makes a significant contribution to knowledge and that I should target heavy-weight journals and that this is REFable work (near the end of the viva). I had written these comments in my notes.

After the viva, Sandra and I were asked to leave the room. Sandra had captured important bits from the discussion and I am grateful for this. I could already sense that there were a few things that I would be asked to fix. But that was fine.

During the viva, I had my thesis and the appendices in front of me but didn’t need to open them at all. I didn’t open them. What I did find useful is writing down keywords relating to the questions. This helped me stay focused and respond to the questions with greater accuracy. I also had my notes (some copies of pages from the thesis). I mainly used the framework and the outcome space figures. I think it did help that I had printed these out.

My LEGO(R) Phenomenography kit

The little bag with LEGO(R) bricks was used to explain the methodology. I wasn’t sure how this would be received… But I decided to take this risk. I am pleased I did, as it helped me relax a bit more and show that complicated things can be explained in simple and creative ways.

Sandra and I stepped outside when it was all done and we then waited for an hour to be called back in. This must have been one of the loooooongest hours… I spoke with Adam and told him that the viva was a positive experience but didn’t know the outcome yet. Then it was time to go back in. The outcome was…

Award PhD subject to minor corrections:

• some typos and repetition
• enlarge the picture of the outcome space and the framework I developed
• explain briefly the link between the structural factors and the lived experience area of the outcome space
• rewrite the abstract as I didn’t sell my work
• remove some of the appendices

Well, I was informed that I have 2 months to fix these and submit the changes (from the moment I receive the official letter from the Research office) to the internal examiner… I have already started working on the above (Sandra predicted this) and hope that by the end of next week (we will of course need to wait to receive the official notification from the Research office first), we will be able to submit the final final thesis with a record of the changes made.

In my hands, I have a copy of the informal report from the external examiner which says some very encouraging things about my work and definitely made me smile. Not sure I am aloud to share this in public, so will wait until I find out.

I received a text message from Nassi (15) my eldest just after 2.30pm who I guess was thinking of me. He asked me “Πώς πήγε;” It is always so nice to receive messages from my little boys. They always come through in Greek despite the fact that when in the UK they always speak to me in English. But that is ok.

Travelling back home now… survived viva with minor corrections. Was a great experience. Thank you all involved & supervisory team. pic.twitter.com/MnGQiADlZ2

— Chrissi Nerantzi (@chrissinerantzi) September 8, 2017

When I arrived home, two big bunches of colourful flowers were waiting for me. Ody and Nassi had picked them. It was such a nice feeling to be back home.

Thank you to the Chair of the viva panel, both examiners, Sandra for being there with me, the whole supervisor team, Norrie who chaired all progress meetings also for suggesting the examiners  and all family, friends and colleagues who have supported, encouraged and believed in me in this process over the last 4.5 years.

#LTHEchat @NTF_Tweet #RAISE17 @Seda_UK_ congratulations Chrissi from all your friends and supporters:a fabulous week! pic.twitter.com/HZWENvkqr7

— Sally Brown (@ProfSallyBrown) September 8, 2017

Thank you so much Simon Rae for creating this and Sally for sharing with me and all. You touched me deeply.

If you have followed my viva prep chronicle here on this blog (there are multiple blog posts that capture my whole viva prep since I submitted the thesis on the 5th of May 2017)… I have to tell you that everything I did helped and I am pleased I started this preparation.  I am grateful to everybody who has helped me. Even the early and little last minute rituals made a big difference, even my little art projects and the pottery I made with my sister in the summer, to my readiness to perform in that viva. Some of it might have seem too much (I think a colleague of mine said, “I don’t know anybody who has prepared for their viva that much”, I think it was Rachel), but my body and mind did synchronise and worked together in harmony and I achieved a good result. I am very happy.

Thank you Sandra for being there with me on the day.

So proud of you and real admire your dedication & determination. Enjoy the celebrations !

— Sandra Cairncross (@smcairnx) September 8, 2017

Note 1: Below is the Powerpoint I had put together in preparation for the viva. 

Note 2: By 8.20am this morning (9 September) I had made most of the corrections. Three more to go and I am done ;).

Note 3: Just the abstract now and I am done 11.55am (9 September).

Note 4: Working on the abstract (10 September), the final change I need to make and I am done.

Note 5: Everything is done now (10 September pm). Sent everything to Sandra for a final check.

Note 6: Contacted the Research office (11 September pm) asking when I would receive the official notification so that I can submit the requested changes to the internal examiner.

Note 7: Received the official letter today (14 September) about the outcome of the viva and what I need to submit, in what format and where. Have done all this and forwarded to my Director of Studies today. Hope to be able to submit final thesis to the Research Office beginning of next week. 

Note 8: I sent all the changes, the thesis with highlighted the changes I made and an accompanying document with the location of the changes to the research office (15 of September, exactly one week after the viva). The internal examiner will now check these. Hopefully everything will be ok. 

Note 9: Examiners approved the amendments (21 Sep). Committee meets on the 4th of October. I can graduate end of October. Yeah! I can wear the silly hat… this will be my first ever graduation I attend. It will be end of October.

Note 10: BTW I registered for a Research supervision and examination module.

In 14 days it will be all over #phdviva #go_gn

Time has started flying… literally. I am now more nervous than ever. I have  been preparing for the viva since one month after submission of the thesis on the 5th of May… for almost 3 months…

The thesis was a companion this summer again and traveled with me to Greece, on a boat in the Aegean.

the endless blue of the Aegean…

I engaged with it almost on a daily basis… my boys started showing an increased interest in my work, beyond the “mummy when will you finish that PhD?” Recently we even watched together one of Tara’s videos (thank you dear Penny for sharing, what would I do without my #go+gn family?)… and Nassi (15) afterwards checked some things Tara mentioned in my thesis… have I done it properly Nassi?

I have used a range of techniques to prepare for the viva and have progressively focused on what I have actually done, what I have found and what this could mean. The thesis has been annotated and I have sticky notes (some say these will not be useful and that the thesis should remain clean!). The preparation has led me to read a range of advice, sometimes contracting each other. Not sure yet what will work for me during the viva. I guess, I will find out.

What I really need is to be focused and actively listen to what I am asked and articulate a response that reflects my work, makes sense and shows to the examiner that I know my work and what my original contribution is.

The visualisations I have linked to my research design, the outcome space and the framework I developed will be useful stepping stones during the viva and I plan to print them. In the last few days, I have also created a page that included key visualisations, tables etc. with their page numbers which I might want to refer to. I suspect less will be more and I need to be clear and precise throughout and transparent. I am pleased that I have also kept a reflective diary during the study and mainly during the analysis stage but also used this blog (some of these posts are private) to reflect on the process and my dilemmas. I was never sure how much I should blog about it…

In under 14 days it will be all over…

The countdown to the viva has started… 46 days left #go_gn

Chrissi a computer programmer in the Navy

Yes, I got a proper tape measure (actually 2 from the Poundshop, yes, for £1 both of them and I am not throwing away the 47-150cm bit but will make a lanyard out of it). Last time I bought one I was waiting to finish my service in the Navy. I had 150 days left then. Now I have 46 until the viva. So I cut the tape to 46cm… this is my starting point… and I will cut 1 cm each day… yes, not inches… every day I will cut 1 cm until the big day when there will be no tape left. There is a strange satisfaction in doing this and seeing the time pass in front of your eyes. 

My viva date was confirmed today. It is the 8th of September 2017 and I am pleased that I didn’t wait to start preparing for it until I knew the date. Pleased I had my own internal deadlines. The main preparation I wanted to do is done.

I have…

• re-read the thesis carefully and critically.
• created one page hand written summaries for each chapter.
• made annotations throughout the thesis, initially I thought I should keep the clean look.
• added sticky notes to help me locate things quickly… hopefully.
• I have found a few errors… things that I should have seen… frustrating!

AND, as a result of the above, I did definitely overcome the fear of reading the thesis, which is a good thing.

In a PowerPoint, I captured the following

• a presentation of the study
• questions and answers linked to the whole thesis and individual chapters
• questions which I have found with the help of colleagues and friends and the web, of course
• typed up the page summaries for each chapter
• copy of all visualisations used in the thesis and two more that will help me explain the framework and my theoretical framework, I hope…

My plan is to print this powerpoint presentation and use as a mobile revision tool in the next 45 days… The whole thesis is coming with me to Greece again this year. It wouldn’t be the same without it… but hopefully next summer I will be PhD study free… 

Colleagues have offered to do a mock viva this Friday. I am very nervous.

I will also ask my boys to keep asking me viva questions on the beach. Soon they will stop asking me “Mummy, when will you get that PhD”… if I pass… 

What else do I need to get ready? 

Thank you all.

viva preparation day 1 #go_gn

Recently, I admitted that I am scared to open the thesis I submitted exactly a month ago, on the 5th of May. Today I did… and oh dear…

…  yes, it did happen… I found a mistake… one that can easily be fixed… at least but it could have been avoided!!! I guess, only when you distance yourself from such a massive undertaking you can see your own mistakes. Anyway, it has happened now.

I decided to make a list in my blue notebook as I suspect that there will be (a few) more… at least I am sort of overcoming my fear of opening and reading the thesis.

Voila…

Mary, a dear colleague has given me loads of viva resources and I started reading these carefully. Tomorrow is the committee meeting that will or not approve the examiners. So soon, we will be able to arrange the viva day… when will it be? I was hoping before August but this might not be possible.

Yesterday I spoke with my dad and told him that I am worried that I will forget all the work I have done over the last 4.5 years… Anybody else has/had that feeling? I suspect that sharing this fear with my dad helped me realise that I need to get started. I need to get organised. And I started today.

After reading for the first time through the above mentioned viva resources, I decided to create a presentation that captures the overview of the study and then questions and answers and anything else I feel might be useful. A presentation might not be needed for the actual viva but the presentation format will help me prepare for the viva and print it out as flashcards. This is my idea at the moment. I will work through the resources and make sure that I will be able to respond to the sample questions, some of them appear more complex than others.

I need of course to familiarise myself with the viva format at Edinburgh Napier University but my understanding is that I will have the thesis with me, can add post-it notes, use and take notes too.

The presentation is no longer blank. The basics about the study are there already. I will continue working on the study overview and create shorter versions of it too. How about my thesis in a tweet? Then as a 2, 5 and 10 minute overview. Maybe I should record as audio too and share?

When this is done, I am going to filter out some of the key questions from the resources I have, add them to my flashcard set and attempt to respond. Further preparation is needed, I am sure. Everybody talks about a mock viva and it would be useful to organise something like this too and if I could watch or observe a viva that would also be helpful. Adam will be my first examiner. Maybe I can ask the boys too. Maybe all three of them together?

If you are reading this and have any suggestions from your personal experience, please let me know. Thank you so much.

Chrissi

 

Thesis submitted #go_gn

It was a milestone day for me as I posted the thesis to Edinburgh Napier and therefore submitted it officially for examination. There is loads I could say how I feel just now, but for now, I am adding the abstract below and need to get ready for the viva. I am not there yet…

one set for the internal examiner, one for the external and one for me

Towards a framework for cross-boundary collaborative open learning for cross-institutional academic development

Abstract

Academic development in the United Kingdom (UK) has been criticised in the literature for being behind the times and for not modelling innovative and technology-supported practices. Concurrently there are increased external pressures on Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UK to engage large numbers of academic staff in Continuing Professional Development (CPD) to gain a teaching qualification and/or professional recognition, to enhance their teaching practice, and to raise the quality of teaching in order to achieve teaching excellence. The UK Government view is that teaching excellence can be achieved through competition and financial incentives. However, academic staff collaboration combined with open education, can provide an alternative model. The call for more outwards facing and connected CPD by academic developers point towards real opportunities in this area where cross-institutional academic development and collaborative open learning can play a key role. This thesis reports research that provides some options tackling issues in this area. It is a phenomenographic study, which explores the collaborative open learning experience of academic staff and further open learners in two specific cross-institutional academic development courses. It also includes collaborative open learning characteristics using digital online technologies. The findings demonstrate the impact these courses had on the study,  participants’ experience and the benefits and positive nature of collaborative open learning in cross-institutional academic development. The study adds to what is known about collaborative open learning in cross-institutional academic development, and also provides new insights for academic developers and course designers about the benefits of crossing boundaries (i.e. open learning) in an academic development context. The study concludes with the proposal of an openly licensed framework developed with the aim of informing academic developers who may be considering and planning to model such approaches.

… I received confirmation from DHL that the yellow box is travelling North

Submitted the thesis 10 days ahead of my personal target… which was the 15th of May.

Yeah! We agreed a submission date! #phdchat #go_gn

I thought it would never happen. But now it did. Yesterday. After a constructive meeting with the supervisory team with Sandra ad Keith as well as Norrie who chairs the progress meetings, it was decided to agree a submission date.

Some more work needs to be done, and I am determined to do this but I can’t stop smiling to have reached this important milestone. I need to be extremely focused now until I complete the final thesis on the 15th of May 2017. And viva, hopefully before August. This is the plan.

On the train back from Edinburgh I started doodling… the above is the result of this. It is not 100% accurate, especially as the first part before the 1st full draft did really take much longer… and there is history before Jan 13. I will put it all together when I reach viva stage. Now I need to focus on getting that final version of the thesis as strong as possible.

If you have any suggestions, for the rest of the journey, I would love to hear from you.

Thank you so much to all who have been, and still are, my supportive travel companions.

Timeline of academic development in the UK #phdchat #go_gn

For the last four years I have been and still am a PhD student at Edinburgh Napier University in the area of collaborative open learning in cross-institutional academic development in the UK. One of the main outputs of this phenomenographic study is the cross-boundary collaborative open learning framework. More info about my study can be found here.

Since September 2016 I have been revising the first full draft.

During this process, I realised that a timeline for the literature review section around   academic development, would be useful to capture important milestones in the area and the ones related to HE in the UK. This would give the reader a quick visual overview.

I was surprised at how little specific information I could find in the literature especially around historic academic development provision and particularly dates linked to provision and when it all started. Is this linked to the fact that in the first years of its existence not much was written about academic development?

This led me to reach out to the SEDA community for help via the Jisc mailing list. I am  grateful for all colleagues who responded and helped me add some vital pieces to this timeline.

The below is this timeline.

Timeline of academic development in the UK (Nerantzi, 2016)

If you are reading this, and have more accurate information, that should be included/replaced in the timeline, please let me know.

Thank you.

Chrissi

“Openness is the absence of restrictions, so ultimately about freedom” Rob Farrow #OEGlobal #go_gn

The above phrase by Rob @philosopher1978 stayed with me… such simple words that mean so so much! This is why we need philosophers!!!

Is this what we are after?

… or do we prefer this and what does this mean in the context of OER and OEP?

It was the first time I experienced the Open Education Global conference and it was truly fascinating to find out about open ed projects that were happening in different parts of the world and most importantly connect with some of the people associated with these.

The conference started with the Open Ed scene in Poland while during the conference I had the pleasure to meet and chat with Dr Tomasz Boinski a lecturer in Computing from Poland. We started talking after our contributions and I could sense that he was keen to make a real difference in his institution through opening-up practices. We started talking about our open source app we are developing at the moment and he offered to help us with finding the right licence for this and forwarded extensive resources around these which will be extremely useful for our project. On the last day, Jaroslaw Lipszyc, a polish poet, emphasised that he sees open as free, and therefore he claimed, that we don’t need the word ‘open’. But open doesn’t come without a cost attached… there is the human cost, time and resources etc. Even if for the learner the “open education product or experience” is free or freely available, the process of making this happen can be costly and rarely calculated in especially when we talk about non-funded projects and funded projects usually have a funding time frame which doesn’t go on for ever… some might.

RESOURCES

I felt that there was still a strong focus on content at the conference and many seem to be working on the production of OER, including film format. We are creating more and more such resources, not just universities but also private providers. Are we reducing learning in the open with watching videos?

While we talk about active learning, many do watch videos for hours and I can see this with my own children. We often reach out to YouTube to learn a new skill or find a new recipe or activity. It is not just children… My youngest started video production and shares his films via YouTube with others. He shares Minecraft stuff. It is an interesting development and I haven’t asked him yet why he is doing it. Looking at it from my perspective it almost feels as if he wants to give something back, as if he wants to connect through his work with others, he loves it when others leave feedback on his clips. So I think it is more than just watching videos, it might be more about connecting with others in a very humane way and non personal at this stage as he is only 12 and he is using a pseudonym. So the social interaction he has are at a somehow removed level.

My eldest, 14, seems to have great fun watching science films and funny stuff on YouTube.He hasn’t got a channel and doesn’t leave digital traces behind. He doesn’t share the stuff he creates, except some clips we added to my YouTube channel a while back now.  I often hear him laughing loudly and there seems to be emotional engagement when he watches the clips, it is really fascinating. Sometimes the boys watch YouTube video on telly… My eldest also started coding and he can do this for hours,he is searching for help to develop what he wants without interacting with anybody online… As far as I can see. We haven’t got any firewall but both seem to have a maturity when navigating through the video jungle. Two very different behaviours which make me think about learners more widely and there is something there that reminds me of the digital residents and digital visitors model by Dave White and Alison LeCornu and other stuff that might indicate that change is happening. Both are autonomous and know where to look when they need help.

… I only have snippets of their digital behaviour and habits  and maybe this is problematic especially as they are still children. Do we trust them too much? Is this freedom good for them or not?

Back to my world… still thinking about resources… While I recognise the need for putting together course resources it would be useful to further explore opportunities using inquiry-based models of learning which would I think free us from racing to produce new content. We have done this in different open initiatives such as FDOL, BYOD4L and FOS as well as #creativeHE. Could we shift the purpose of creating resources for  teaching to capture the process of (co-)constructing learning? After all we learn so much more through experiencing and making stuff. Is this another reason why OER are not used that widely? As we want to create our own resources as educators since we recognise that the process of making helps us engage deeper with our subject that we will help others understand? Is it also about academic ownership? And what about context? De-contextualised resources with global reach… how valuable are these? I am now wondering if the real potential of resources is actually (c0-)creating these as part of the learning process? Could the resources actually be more valuable for the creator and what does this mean about sharing? Are resources more ephemeral than we think? If we talk about authentic learning, could we instead use open data as Dr Javiera Atenas invited us to keep learning and teaching fresh, fully contextualise and create the conditions for an inquiry-rich environment for learning through discovery?

PRACTICES

As an open practitioner with a focus on work that sits outside MOOCland, I was interested to hear at the conference how things have progressed within it. In some cases making available resources equated to course design in a MOOC context. This was very problematic for me… I was looking for a pedagogical rationale but couldn’t see it. Some called this platform pedagogy. Not sure what this is… There were some cases and I had read about them and included in my Literature review were MOOC organisers recognised the need for social learning including learning in groups and collaborated with other institutions or colleagues in other institutions to facilitate these. One of these projects was introduced by Alannah Fitzgerald and it was fascinating to hear their exploration into using facilitators in a MOOC as well as groups and the difficulties they experienced with both but also with the technology, the team tool from EdX. Alannah mentioned “platform education”. Is this similar to teaching from within a VLE or LMS? I shared with her some information about our work in this area outside the MOOC world and the Open Facilitator Project. I would have loved to find out more but in the end we didn’t manage to get together again. At scale the challenges are amplified, of course, require big investments in time and resources, but also a robust pedagogical scaffold, I would say. The support scaffold is vital but often missing.

The conference didn’t help me understand “massive”. I am still confused why we need and often start with massive. Somewhere I read “what we mean by massive, is the potential, the potential is massive”… But  does massive work? Businesses start small and in nature things grow from a seed… Does the education world know better? What is the rationale for massive and global? And what are the real expectations? What are we trying to achieve and what is happening in reality?

The more I think about it the more I see grey zones in open education. Maybe I see them more as red zones, zones that are alarming. We all have different motivations, of course, why we are in it, in open education. If only we could collect authentic and honest responses, I think that might be eye opening… Would there be any surprises? Philosopher Dr Rob Farrow, highlighted that some of us see Open Education as a moral mission. What about everybody else? The OER Hub invited us to think big… how big can we think? And how can we make our thoughts and ideas reality? And what would we change through these if we could make them happen?

My own research reveals that learning with others and being supported by facilitators makes a big difference, feeling part of a community that fosters online and offline interactions shape our engagement in open learning with others who are like us and very different from us. Like-minded people create a sense of belonging and other-minders people stretch us intellectually. Above all, we flourish when there is variety… Variety of people, variety of approaches and freedom to make our own choices.

Learning has always been personal. How can we think that technology would change this? We are still seeking personal connections. Technology actually can strengthen such opportunities and create new ones. I have used this example before… The party. And I have a question for all of us: when we go to a party, do we chat and dance with everybody? Does it depend on the size of the party? How many people are there? How confident we are etc. etc? But I am sure if there are loads and loads of people there, we wouldn’t even attempt to interact with all in a personal way. Or would we? But we would reach out to a few, or one other individual nearby perhaps? But then again, sometimes we go to the party with somebody and stick with this person throughout. Are there parallels? Something to think about…

COMMUNITIES

What really matters are the conversations, the collaborations and feeling and being part of what is happening around us, nearby and sometimes further away. We humans always had a need for belonging as social beings and social media can be useful tools that help us connect with others in the digital jungle. Open practitioners as I mentioned already use a variety of tools and platforms, including social media. Dr Leigh-Anne Perryman and Tony Coughlan shared some findngs from their Facebook project and it was lovely to hear that the emphasis was on community. Educators and learners are appropriating social media for learning, teaching, professional development and research and they have become valuable spaces to be to meet peers and keep up-to-date with what is happening in our area. I had a very interesting conversation during the conference with Tony Coughlan about social media and open practice. Are they compatible, we were asking ourselves with open practices? Dr Ronald Macintyre in his contribution about the “hidden tariffs” also talked about the fact that open educators might be exploited by others economically… I have felt uncomfortable about this for some time now, despite the fact that I am using social media regularly and the open projects I  have initiated are all built using these. There are open practitioners out there who stay away from social media, not because they don’t like to be with others and share but because of the commercial character of social media. The poet Jaroslaw Lipszyc mentioned that we can learn loads from the open source community.Tony Coughlan has written a post about the conference and included some thoughts around this too.

“In distance education the equivalent space is owned by network providers and proprietary platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, whose primary motivation is commercial rather than educational, so their environments are designed for commercial benefit.

The open education movement has some experience of this type of challenge, as open textbooks and journals have been challenging commercial publishers with similar priorities.” (Coughlan, 2016)

I am just wondering what we could do about this as an open community… some ideas are emerging…

Very pleased I went to the OER Hub action lab on the last day where we got some insights into the very first voices that come through the survey that was shared recently. All data will be open data and I am looking forward to reading some of this. With Viviene Vladimirschi, a PhD student buddy from Brazil, we actually would like to do a tiny bit of work on some of the data linked to the action lab we participated and hope this will be possible. One of the key outcomes for me from this action lab was that we need frameworks into open pedagogical practices. I am working on one of them for collaborative learning in open settings. So that was good to hear that my work might be of interest to others. Hopefully others will test it in practice and develop it further.

A big thank you to the GO-GN  and the OER HUB team, Prof. Martin Weller, Dr Bea  de los Arcos, Dr Rob Farrow, Dr Beck Pitt, Natalie Eggleston  for supporting this trip and enabling me to share the work we do within the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at Manchester Metropolitan University with many colleagues from my own and other institutions in the area of open education and related PhD research. A big thank you also to all colleagues PhD students part of GO-GN who were present and others who engaged online as well as Prof. Robert Schuwer and Prof. Fred Mulder for their camaraderie.

@GOGN_OER Days in Krakow, Poland 10-11 April 2016

Day 1 of our GO-GN event arrived! It all started with a lively icebreaker. It really was a lovely way to help us start talking with others and spot connections and specific interest hot spots, personal and research ones. I had the opportunity to chat with Beck Pitt who I knew through her open courses and Twitter and we discovered that we both love photography. I wish I could say that I am a keen runner like Beck is… It is always strange, but in a nice way, when we finally meet somebody we have been “talking to” in the digital jungle. It is not always possible. So I feel fortunate to have met her, finally 😉 And Natalie too, who has been fantastic in supporting us and making sure that we would get here in one piece and Bea, of course too and all the rest of the GO-GN team too.

From the introductions I could see we are a multi-cultural mix of people doing research in the area of open education around the world. Prof. Martin Weller mentioned some numbers too. See image below.

Prof. Martin Weller in action showing us the GO-GN map so to speak

Bea invited us to reflect on being an open researcher and why open research is actually good for us, for others and society. For me personally it is about the opportunity or opportunities, I should say, to connect with others and share. Share ideas and dilemmas and find ways to initiate and continue conversations but also debate. To extent our own little world and feel less lonely and get a sense of belonging. However, it is not just about, or it shouldn’t be just about seeking like-minded people. Of course, we all love to have people around us who sort of agree with us and we can just be ourselves with all the craziness and silliness this comes… at least sometimes.

While we often seem to emphasise that through open and social practices, we can connect with like minded people elsewhere and this is indeed a huge benefit for all of us, I feel that it is equally important to “expose” ourselves and our ideas to other-minded people. And social and open practices enable this too. This is where we are really challenged, stretched intellectually and start thinking much deeper about what moves us, what upsets us and gain deeper insights into what we stand for and why. Criticism and critique are valuable, even if it can be painful at times as emotions are part of this process. We are not machines.

When we keep an idea for ourselves it dies very quickly. Therefore there is no value in ideas that remain in the dark, locked away in the cupboard. They turn to dust! Ideas need oxygen and feeding to grow and evolve and people to look after them. People not just one person. One person is not enough. There is an African proverb that is very powerful “On our own we can go fast, with other we can go further”. This doesn’t just apply to our individual journeys but also our ideas and their travels.” So share freely, I would say, as giving will not just make you feel good but also give something back, as I am sure others have helped you too.

None of it can happen if there is no sharing and/or closed-mindedness. Can we be half-open or half-closed?  Is there such a thing as wide-open or open unlimited? I think we all sit somewhere on that open-o-meter and see it more as a dynamic continuum depending on the situation, circumstances and context. There is personal and professional judgement that we make each time and we decide what is appropriate and what isn’t. And sometimes, of course, we get it wrong…

I think we could say that it is a fact that the world of open wouldn’t be there, wouldn’t exist without sharing, full stop. So the people are the driving force, the force that makes things happen and change things. Glenda Cox @glencox talked on Monday about her PhD work and I got really interested in social realism (Archer). It didn’t take me long to realise what type I am… and how this translates into what I do and how I operate. We will of course have to be careful, I think, how we use that information as I wouldn’t like us to fall into another learning styles trap… I will do some more reading into social realism to better understand what this is all about and what this could mean for people, practices and innovation too, this is what interests me most.

Throughout the two days, it has been fascinating to meet other PhD students in open education from around the world and find out about their research. We were all at different stages in our journey and this was extremely valuable as we

1. could see that we have similar challenges and dilemmas
2. depending on where we are on our journey, we could position ourselves in relation to others and create a map looking back and ahead at the same time in what is still to come.

And this can be extremely motivational! There was no sense of competition. In the contrary, the atmosphere was very open and inclusive with a focus on individual and collective growth. After presenting our work, we were invited to respond to critical comments as well as comment on the work of our peers. It wasn’t easy at times, but then this was the point. Thinking deeper and into new directions and thinking the unthinkable is what we need to make surprising links that might lead us to new discoveries. Learning is also being in a state of discomfort… and being challenged. This is how it felt.

There were so many great learning opportunities for all of us, through each other’s work!

Jamison from the US is on a PhD programme that reminded me of a Professional Doctorate that we have in the UK. After completing his study modules he is now ready to put a proposal for his research together and start working on the thesis. My understanding is that this will be based on three papers. He shared some of his initial ideas and thoughts with us and I am really looking forward to how these will evolve and where they will take him. Jamison showed an interest in using a learning and teaching lense and his strength are the theories. Paco from Spain, is looking at MOOCs and accessibility within these, while Viviene from Brazil is going to carry out research into teacher’s professional development linked to OER and one of her outputs will be a CPD course for them. I was wondering if she could re-use an existing course that is already out there and contextualise maybe? Bernard, from Rwanda, is almost at the finishing line. He carried out research into how OER could supplement learning at HE within Rwanda where access to electricity and therefore the internet is extremely low. What stood out for me from his research is the emphasis study participants paid to policy and I kept wondering if this had to do with local and national socio-political culture(s).

Bernard Nkuyubwatsi’s work and reminder of the challenges in some African countries

Glenda from South Africa who is now waiting for the decision by three external examiners (there is no viva in South Africa, the final thesis is submitted to the external examiners), did research in the area of quality and OER from the perspective of academics. A very interesting piece of work that also made me think about the digital residence and digital visitors model (White & LeCornu) while Sujata from India is looking at OER use within an Open University in India from a student and staff perspective; Nicolai from the Netherlands and his work has a focus on medical education and exploring OERs through the lense of eco-systems and complexity theory for sustainable implementation and Jin from China discussed the 5-minute micro-lessons which is a  government initiative which invites teachers to create short films as learning resources that are shared with learners and other teachers via the web. It wasn’t clear to me if these would be made available under a creative commons licence and I didn’t ask.

The two days were extremely fruitful. It was really lovely to see that the GO-GN organisers, Bea, Beck, Rob, Martin, Nats as well as the two fathers of GO-GN, Fred and Robert,  showed a genuine interest in our work and felt that our plans were worthwhile pursuing. For me, this event, really helped me feel part of a community and I am looking forward to staying connected and growing what we started in Krakow during the last two days. It requires feeding… in other words commitment but if we feel that it would be worthwhile for all and benefit us all, the only way to go, is together, right?

A massive thank you to the whole GO-GN team for creating this fruitful opportunity for all of us and all PhD students who were there with me for their openness and collegiality.

Monday evening GO-GN meal: Great company and mushroom soup in bread!

… as you can see, I wasn’t the only one taking bread soup pictures 😉

 

The storify from our tweets during our time in Krakow can be accessed here a visualisation can be seen below.