Post viva questionnaire - responses from Rita Wan-chik

Rita Wan-chik successfully defended her PhD thesis on 28th February 2013.  She agreed to complete our questionnaire, and her responses are below.  Many thanks Rita!

What is the title of your thesis?

Religious information seeking on the web: A study of Islamic and Qur’anic information searching.

Can you provide an abstract (for inclusion in this blog)?

See Abstract.

How long did you spend preparing for your viva? 
To be honest, I only started to prepare for the viva about a week from the viva date although I wish I could’ve started earlier. I’d planned to read the whole thesis at least 2 or 3 times but only really managed to do it ONE time. Other than reading my own thesis, I also read all the papers that have greatly influenced my research and papers by both examiners (their selected studies which are related to my research). I also tried to answer some of the popular viva questions which I have compiled from the web and from friends.

How long did your viva take? 
Almost 2 hours. It was an afternoon session.

Is there anything you wish you had done differently? 
I wish I could’ve planned better for my research methods and data collection and that I should’ve started writing my thesis way earlier so that I didn’t have to dump everything at the end. I am one of those people who wait and only write when there are a lot of things to write about. 

Did the examiners concentrate on any particular section of your thesis? If so, which? 
Yes, the concentration was mainly on my Literature Review, Methodology and Discussions chapters. The examiners thought that my LR needed more depth and breadth to the discussions of the literatures and that the scope of my LR was not clearly indicated. We also discussed on the justification for choosing a mixed-methods approach and the data collection techniques employed in my study.

Can you describe any part of your viva where you were pleased with your performance? What was it you did that pleased you? 
I was quite pleased with myself on the way that I managed to answer almost every question asked by the examiners, although only the would know which responses were really answering their questions (J), but I did try my best to explain. I was also pleased when one of the examiners pointed out that I have done quite a great job with one of the data analysis techniques carried out in my study (although I still need to add a lot more clarifications on some of the steps taken to improve the repeatability of my research).

Can you describe any part of your viva where you were dissatisfied with your performance? 
I am pretty much satisfied with my performance and the whole viva process.

Please give an example of a question that you found hard. 
N/A

What was the outcome of your viva? 
The examiners were happy to recommend the award of PhD to me subject to minor amendments.

Please give some examples of the sort of corrections you need to make (if any).

• Further detail on the procedure for the interviews, e.g., on how follow-up questions were asked (p.37), to probe responses, would be helpful.
• “Throughout … lengths.” On page 39 requires clarification. 
• Page 41. Further detail on how the codes, subcategories and themes were developed, e.g., bottom-up or top-down, would be helpful. 
• A diagram of the final themes, categories and codes should be provided in the Results chapter.

Do you have any tips for looking and feeling confident in front of the examiners?

• Get good sleep and rest on the day and night before the viva.

• Don’t force yourself to try to read everything or as much as you can a few days before the viva.
• Start preparing early so that you can do it gradually. You will know when you just need to stop preparing.
• Don’t stress yourself out.

Can you think of any good advice that you would give to students who are preparing for their viva?

Talking to your friends about your study can help you to answer confidently in viva. It is like doing rehearsals, only it’s unofficial and more relaxed. You can try to improve yourself on the answers which did not get good responses. By trying to answer the popular viva questions (you can find this from the web), can also help you to prepare for the viva. It did help me.

I’d also like to add, for those who are still in the process of writing their thesis, make sure you get somebody within your research group, other than your own supervisor(s), to read your final thesis. Let them comment on things that need more clarification and then make those amendments accordingly. People within your group may be able to see the ‘holes’ that you and your supervisor(s) may have missed or underestimated. 

All the best to you!

Ethics case studies

I thought this was an interesting project: The Observatory for Responsible Research and Innovation in ICT (TORRII) "A repository of information and methods about responsible research and innovation (RRI) in information and communication technologies." The website includes some descriptions of how particular issues have been dealt with in research projects. I just skimmed a few, but I noticed this exercise in:
Read, J.C. "The ABCD approach to working ethically with children in ICT research and development". http://torrii.responsible-innovation.org.uk/case-studies/abcd-approach-working-ethically-children-ict-research-and-development
They identified key decisions and asked why, then gave the "excuse" and the "to be honest (tbh)" answers. e.g."What platform are we using? Answer; Android tablets
"Why this platform? Answer (Excuse for use) it will engage children (this would be their first exposure to this technology) and the technology has low power needs; Answer (tbh version) we want to showcase the work of our technology group"
There are also material relevant e.g. to those studying social network data.
http://torrii.responsible-innovation.org.uk/case-studies

Post viva questionnaire - responses from Robinah K. Namuleme

Robinah  (who led a discussion about her project in 2011) passed her viva in December 2012.  She kindly agreed to complete the post-viva questionnaire that was drawn up after last month's discussion group.  Her responses are below.

What is the title of your thesis?

Information and HIV/AIDS: an ethnographic study of information behaviour.

Can you provide an abstract (for inclusion in this blog)?

See Abstract.

How long did you spend preparing for your viva?
3 years and 4 months.

How long did your viva take?

1 hour 25 minutes.

Is there anything you wish you had done differently?

Part of me thinks nothing - it is a learning experience, but practically I might have...

• tried to obtain full funding for the PhD (to enable me commit ample time to research);
• included a quantitative element in my study;
• allowed ample time after writing up.  I would like to have got away from my work for at least a week and thoroughly re-read the thesis to be able to identify formatting problems, such as extra spaces, before submission;
• published more papers. 

Did the examiners concentrate on any particular section of your thesis? If so, which?

Although my examiners moved systematically right from the abstract to Chapter 9, they concentrated on the methodology, including justification for the choice of the approach employed.  They sought to know how I gained access to the research setting, how I addressed ethical issues, and built a rapport with the participants.

Can you describe any part of your viva where you were pleased with your performance?

The literature review and findings chapters.

What was it you did that pleased you?

I was mostly pleased when the examiners said that my literature review and analysis were competently presented that they had no questions to ask.  I was also pleased by the fact that the examiners confirmed my claim about the contribution to knowledge.  They advised me to publish papers in order to disseminate the findings.

Can you describe any part of your viva where you were dissatisfied with your performance?

The model.

What was it you did that dissatisfied you?

Although my model was a good attempt to present all the findings, it was perceived to be complex.

Please give an example of a question that you found hard.

Why didn’t you use Grounded Theory (GT)?

Why was it hard?

It was hard because both my examiners are so much in the tradition of employing GTto Library and Information Science research.  However, I had strong reasons for choosing the ethnographic approach to the study of information behaviour of persons infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS.  This enabled me to defend my decision to employ ethnography and not GT.

What was the outcome of your viva?

The examiners recommended the award of a PhD subject to minor amendments.

Please give some examples of the sort of corrections you need to make (if any).

Some examples of the corrections I needed to make:

• Spacing issues page 49,51,97,113,118,121
• On occasions you omit spaces e.g 3,5,33,50, 97,
• The model is complex.  It needs to be made simpler then it will have more impact and make it easier for the reader to follow the explanation.
• Page.  38 cognitive needs a capital “C”
• Different font sizes on page 48.

Do you have any tips for looking and feeling confident in front of the examiners?

Tips:

• Be passionate about your work
• Know your thesis so well in order to defend it. 
•  Practice answering viva questions
• Request for a mock viva to be arranged
• Talk to other people about your work.  Their feedback can greatly enhance your confidence

Can you think of any good advice that you would give to students who are preparing for their viva?

ALLOW ENOUGH TIME TO THOROUGHLY REVISE THE THESIS. 

STOP REVISING AND GET AWAY FROM YOUR THESIS AT LEAST THREE DAYS TO THE VIVA.

IT WILL SURELY COME BACK TO YOU DURING THE VIVA

More about journal clubs

This is to alert people to the fact that there is an online journal club meeting on 13th March at 8pm UK time. You can find more information here: http://infolitjournalclub.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/online-journal-club-13-march-ancil.html I will be talking more about this on the researchers' meeting in the iSchool on 14th March.

Also if people want something to read about reading clubs, what they are and why people use them, a useful paper is:
Deenadayalan, Y, K Grimmer-Somers, M Prior, and S Kumar. (2008) “How to run an effective journal club: a systematic review.” Journal of evaluation in clinical practice, 14 (5), 898-911.

Vivas and other scary things

At the last researchers' discussion, a request was made for reports from the frontline - i.e. - could people who have just had a viva tell others for whom it is still a future hurdle, what sort of questions they were asked and what sort difficulties they encountered.

James Wallace (who contributed to this blog recently) had just successfully passed his upgrade viva (congratulations!) and made the following points:

"People need to be made aware that the whole point of the exercise is that the examiner is wanting to find ways of proving how good you are, rather than trying to cause problems. It's not a case of trick questions - if something is asked that seems straightforward, it probably is, although no-one will object if you take a little time to think things through. 

"In my case, the questions were based on discussion points from my own text, so making sure you familiarise yourself with your work before the day is a good idea."

Following the session however, we decided to try putting the following questions to students who have just completed their viva.  Hopefully they'll yield some interesting answers.

1. What is the title of your thesis?
2. Can you provide an abstract (for inclusion in this blog)?
3. How did you prepare for your viva?
4. How long did your viva take?
5. Is there anything you wish you had done differently?
6. Did the examiners concentrate on any particular section of your thesis?  If so, which?
7. Can you describe any part of your viva where you were pleased with your performance?
8. What was it you did that pleased you?
9. Can you describe any part of your viva where you were dissatisfied with your performance?
10. What was it you did that dissatisfied you?
11. Please give an example of a question that you found hard.
12. Why was it hard?
13. What was the outcome of your viva?
14. Please give some examples of the sort of corrections you need to make (if any).
15. Were they classed as minor or major?
16. Do you have any tips for looking and feeling confident in front of the examiners?
17. Can you think of any good advice that you would give to students who are preparing for their viva?