“By creating we think, by living we learn” Patrick Geddes
The programme aims to develop specialist competencies to an advanced level and promote evidence-based policy and practice. The quality of your development and research work will be enhanced, through:
Pursing the programme immediately adds value to your employers' operation, as well as preparing you to add more value in the future.
You might expect to allocate half a day per week of employed time and the same of your own time. However, as most of your modular work is very likely to be based on development work you are doing as part of your employment anyway, this should not be too much of a problem. Also, you will need to be at the university physically for only a small proportion of this time, where group sessions and individual tutorials can often be scheduled at convenient times. (Module 1a is exceptional, necessitating a total of 40 hours attendance at the university in the first year of entry, unless RPL is agreed - see below). However, you will obviously need the support of your line manager (who will need to consider your request in the light of local policy and priorities for CPD), and you will need to plan and allocate your time carefully - as ever!
Some professional contexts have substantial training budgets, and if your work has wide implications, you might be able to access other budgets also (see value-added FAQ above for the rationale). When bidding for future funded projects, you might build in a costed element for "consultation with the university". However, some employers will expect you to make a contribution to the costs yourself. As the degree should enhance your professional status, your investment in yourself should more than pay for itself over time. It might be tax deductible. Professional contexts able to offer the opportunity to pursue the doctorate are likely to be well placed to attract and retain the most able, forward-looking and dynamic staff.
The university fees for the Professional Doctorate are the same as the fees for a Ph.D. As the Professional Doctorate is at least as consuming of staff time as a Ph.D., this is inevitable. Some professional doctorates elsewhere charge a fee per year - so if you take a long time, you pay much more. Remember the university will top-slice the fees to pay for central resources such as the library, computer support, teaching rooms, etc.
Every professional possessing a qualification at Master's level is in principle eligible to enter the programme (although others without this qualification can also apply). Every entrant will successfully complete Level 1, leading to the appropriate exit award if required. Many will then wish to continue in the programme immediately, some will wish to continue after a pause, and others might not wish to continue at all. The range of options is very wide and the programme is designed for maximum flexibility.
Certainly not. Doctoral level study is required to be characterised by originality - this is rarely developed through lectures on fixed topics. The needs of professional contexts and employers are very various, and the programme seeks to respond to that variety. Module 1a is the only module which features a substantial common core of seminars, but these are in groups of modest size and are interactive. As you progress, more of the teaching and learning is in individual or very small group tutorials, focused on your specialist areas and particular needs. Regular communication with your personal supervisor will also occur by telephone and email (and video-conferencing where possible). Some larger group meetings will always be held to enable peer support and interchange between all entrants, however, and visiting speakers will feature where it is clear this meets an identified need.
This means you can submit work you have completed some time ago for assessment as the product for some of the modules. Peer reviewed journal papers, research project reports for a local authority, and other written research products might be acceptable. However, they would have to meet the standards required of doctoral level work, in terms of critical analysis and evidential basis. You might need to add an up-dated critical analysis of the original work. Your personal doctoral supervisor would advise you in detail about this. The complete product would need to satisfy programme staff, the external examiner, and the university examining board. RPL is thus not the easy option it might first seem. Not more than half the modules can be completed by RPL. Generally RPL submissions are not acceptable if the work has already been submitted for a degree or other qualification elsewhere. (However, where the candidate has already completed a research degree and/or substantial research thesis, RPL for module 1a is possible).
New work for modules must be written solely by the candidate for the degree or other award. If it stems from a collaborative project, it should focus mainly upon the candidate's personal contribution to that project. The candidate's proportional contribution to the underlying development work must be recorded in an agreed statement signed by all the project collaborators. RPL submissions might credit several people as co-authors, and such a statement is also required for these. The same reported work from a collaborative project cannot be submitted by another candidate at another time.
Module 1a is unlike the later ones in that it contains a considerable amount of direct teaching. You can expect to interact with a wide peer group exploring diverse topics and problems. This half-module is intended to provide strong support in the early stages and enable you to form close links with the other entrants in your cohort. Do not worry that "Research and Evaluation Methods" might be all statistics - it covers the whole of research design, methodology and dissemination, and qualitative as well as quantitative data analysis. This half-module provides the essential foundation for the development and research projects on which your later research will be based. The evidential basis for current contentious professional issues will be critically examined. This first half-module does require significant regular attendance at the university (the other later modules are supported much more by flexibly arranged individual tutorials). However, for those already holding a postgraduate degree with a substantial research component, RPL might be available for much of Module 1a. It is also possible to seek to take Module 1a at another more local university or by distance learning (see below).
For Module 1b, you carry out a systematic, critical and wide-ranging review or meta-analysis of the research literature on a topic of your choice, using the methods learned in the first half-module, and analysing the implications for practice and policy. Reviews of the literature on the relative effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of different interventions for particular educational problems are a popular focus. This is likely to be very useful to your employers.
The other modules can focus on any research and development topics connected to your professional context which are of value to you and your funding sponsor. They can be on four quite different topics, or all relate to one theme, or anything in between. Modules can be aggregated, so candidates can submit a larger piece of work which takes up two or three modules. There is maximum flexibility here. Your negotiated Individualised Learning Plan will specify your own chosen modular topics over time. Plans can be changed as you proceed through the degree.
The total written output required is the same as Ph.D. candidates would put into one single thesis. However, for the Professional Doctorate this is split into five modular products each of 15,000 words. You can combine these into larger and deeper studies if you wish, subject to the agreement of your personal supervisor. Module 1 is designed to help sharpen up your technical writing skills. The standards and criteria are rigorous, as you would expect at doctoral level, but you are given support to ensure you achieve those standards. These written assignments are intended to be easily reducible to a paper which can be submitted for publication, and candidates are strongly encouraged and supported to do this.
You certainly can take other courses in the department, if you have the time, at no extra cost, and these would not be assessed.
In principle this should be possible, given the greater consistency which should have resulted from the implementation of the National Qualifications Framework (Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework in Scotland). However, professional doctorate programmes in other universities might not have the same number of modules nor the same assessment procedures. Consequently, particular proposals for taking modules elsewhere would need to be explored in detail with the course staff.
This is particularly true for Module 1a, which if taken at Dundee is the only module which demands regular attendance at the university. This can be difficult for busy professionals working some distance away. However, it is possible to take a Research Methods module at a nearer university, or to take a Research Methods module with the Open University or some other distance learning provider, and seek to have this accredited as prior learning within the Dundee programme. However, you should discuss the content and level of your proposed alternative research methods module with Dundee staff to ensure that it will be suitable for RPL before embarking upon it.
Entry to Module 1a at Dundee is only at the beginning of each academic year. Entry to other modules can be at any time, because the other modules are much more individualised, and need not start and finish at any standard time. Thus you can go as fast or as slow as you like, subject to the maximum of 8 years for the whole degree. Most people will probably take 4 years for the whole doctoral programme, depending on how much RPL is involved and how fast they can work.
For advanced practitioner skills in areas other than research and development, the difficulty is how your performance of these might be assessed as of doctoral standard. Consequently, while you could certainly focus a module on your favourite advanced practitioner skill, you would need to develop it and research its effectiveness, to produce a written or multi-media product which could be assessed in the normal way.
If you seek only minor updating, there are many short-term Continuing Professional Development opportunities at meetings and conferences. Doctoral level programmes are not for minor updating. Doctoral level work has to be rigorous, critical and show originality.
You will wish to explore the Research Groups and Research Centres within the School - these will give an indication of areas in which doctoral supervision can most readily be offered. Informal discussion prior to application is very much encouraged (email c.m.z.mclaren@dundee.ac.uk in the first instance). Formal applications are by application form with curriculum vitae and a plan for a Module 1b topic and preferably provisional plans for at least one other Module. You might also wish to consult the Course Regulations.
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