IRIS Workshop

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IRIS Workshop

• David Avison
• ESSEC Business School, Paris
• and
• Jan Pries-Heje
• Roskilde University

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Potential Problems?
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One Attempt to Improve Research Supervision as
well as PhD Research
Why only PhD consortia? Shouldnt supervisors be
trained?
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Some Questions to Ask Yourself

• How would you characterize your preferred
  research student style? Metaphor?
• How would you characterize your preferred
  supervision style? Metaphor?

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One Metaphor Master and Slave or (Not a
Perfect) Father and Son
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Another Disinterested Assistant Problems with
Supervisor?
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Summary of Common Metaphors
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• Other Metaphors?
• Why is this Important?

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Other Metaphors?

• Dancing partners

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Why is this Important?

• Researchers, Supervisors, Research Topics,
  Research Approaches Differ ... Let ,many flowers
  bloom!!
• But if you and your supervisors have different
  metaphors ... you may have problems!!
• Try to agree with your supervisor/student what
  metaphor you are jointly following
• ... And what about other stakeholders
• Industry partners, Our partners? Our children? ...

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Stakeholder Analysis
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Supervisor Strategies

• Define student-supervisor relationship clearly
• Set an agreed standard of regular meetings and
  turnaround times equivalent to a service level
  agreement
• Be sensitive to cross cultural issues.
• Set and actively manage milestones
• Be more flexible with part time PhD students
• Assist part time students finding blocks of time

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Managing Time

• Efficiency
• Scope
• Meeting management
• Blocking time
• Relate teaching content to the PhD
• Project planning
• Tools and software
• Distinguish between the urgent and not important
  and important but less urgent (like the PhD)

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Gaining Personal Support

• From your partner
• From your children
• From colleagues, friends and fellow PhD students
• Support from yourself
• Personal support universities could provide

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Gaining Personal Support

• Organize uninterrupted blocks of time
• Actively manage the relationship
• Commit to long term working relationship.
• Choose topic to have some longevity to fit in
  with the longer timescale of a part time PhD.

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Institutional Pressures

• Budgetary demands and the competition for
  resources
• Institutional reputation and re-evaluation
• Staffing of research centers and courses
• Competition for research scholars

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Pressures on Supervisors

• Publish or perish
• Evaluations, tenure, promotion and post-tenure
  review
• Competing demands on their time
• Teaching
• Student advising
• Service to departments, universities, and larger
  research communities

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Pressures on Students

• Financial pressures
• Social pressures
• Existential crises

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Ethical Issues

• How grant money should be used
• What tone should be adopted when reviewing a
  paper for a journal or conference
• What is data fabrication and why it is considered
  unethical
• The importance of keeping promises and deadlines
• The need to ensure that you do not plagiarize
  (intentionally or unintentionally) in your
  writing
• How one should make a useful contribution to the
  broader research community
• What about joint publications?

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Other Issues

• International students
• Language and culture
• Racial issues
• Gender issues
• LGTB

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Publications

• Who owns the work that has been done?
• How should the ownership and the level of work be
  reflected in the order of authors on any paper
  submitted for publication?

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Publishing?
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Publishing?
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Diverse Cultures

• International students
• Language and culture
• Racial issues
• Students studying in developing countries

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Some Questions to Ask Yourself

• Do you compartmentalize your time well?
• Have you harvested all possible sources of
  funding?
• Do you resent publishing with your supervisor?
• Do you feel that you are not being treated
  equally because of your gender?

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Different perceptions of the Researcher/Scientist
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Serving Two Masters
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Are you an Outsider?
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Are you an Outsider?
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Are you an Outsider?
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Exercise

• You are sharing a meal with strangers not
  academics nor people who know anything about
  information systems ...
• Explain to these people what your research is
  about within 2-3 minutes convince them that it
  is important, useful, worth investing in (in
  words that they can understand ) ... etc.

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Mental Attitude

• Have great determination
• Believe in what you are doing
• Learn to cope with occasional setbacks and
  disappointments
• Learn to deal with criticism (both valid and
  invalid)
• Build-up your support network

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Research Methodologies

• Mathematical modeling
• Experimental simulation
• Laboratory experiment
• Free simulation
• Field experiment
• Adaptive experiment
• Field study
• OTHERS?

• Group feedback analysis
• Opinion research
• Participative research (action research)
• Case study
• Archival research
• Philosophical research
• WHICH ONE(s) DO YOU CHOOSE?

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Research Method
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Holistic supervision
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Holistic Supervision

• Balancing competing forces on institution,
  faculty and studentsMonitoring and considering
  the students emotional and intellectual state,
  in addition to being aware of and appraising the
  students motivations, capabilities, and
  scholarly achievements, such that the advisor and
  institution are able to access and interact with
  the student in the most appropriate way befitting
  the circumstances.

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Emotional Stages of the PhD Journey