What supervisor, student and programme practices can be seen to align with successful dissertation outcomes for online distance learners?
As a number of new online Masters programmes launch at the University of Edinburgh, and online distance learning (ODL) becomes more mainstream across the University, supporting part-time, online distance students through the latter stages of their studies becomes a matter of shared interest as well as a priority for individual programmes and supervisors.
This one-year project was funded by the Principal’s Teaching Award Scheme (October 2014-September 2015) to investigate:
- what students want and need from their dissertation experience,
- what connections exist between programme and supervisor practices and student outcomes,
- how student and supervisor understandings and experiences of ‘success’ mapped onto available dissertation-related data on four ODL programmes, based in in Education, Law and Medicine.
A key output from the project was the ‘Dissertation Situations’ game, for programme teams and supervisors.
Images on the site: background image – ElvenEmma; header image: British Library