minisessions

Tiina Kotti
Planning Officer
Doctoral Education Services (TOKOTI)
Aalto University

Planning officer, M.Soc.Sc. Tiina Kotti started her career in the university sector by organizing orientations for international students. She has work and personal experience of orientations from five different universities. Later on, Tiina has worked with doctoral education issues ranging from admissions to pre-examination and graduation. Currently she works at Aalto University Doctoral education services and coordinates the university wide Aalto Doctoral Orientation Days, among other tasks.

Workshop A. What characterizes a good orientation?

The beginning of the doctoral path sets the tone and pace for the doctoral researcher’s journey towards a doctorate. The ways in which the university community offers support at the beginning has the potential to empower and boost motivation of early-stage researchers. The orientation of doctoral researchers has various aims: in addition to introducing the basics of doctoral studies and the available resources for support, handling practicalities and creating peer connections, the orientation can aspire to create a meaningful and inspiring kick-start for the doctoral path.

Doctoral researchers begin their doctoral studies from various positions, both physical, mental and economical, ranging from full-time researcher employed by the university to part-time enthusiasts located away from the campus. Their academic backgrounds and histories are manifold, and the research practices and traditions may vary even within one doctoral programme. This creates a challenge for the orientation to cater for different kinds of needs and situations. Some of these issues have been addressed by providing self-study packages online, organising scheduled orientation days 100 % online, or organising a day onsite with a remote participation possibility, for instance. Of course, the contexts of universities are different, starting from the question of their different sizes, the variety of their research field and the number of new doctoral researchers granted a doctoral study right each year.

Planning Officer Tiina Kotti from Aalto University is inviting contributions to this mini-session that aims to discover good practices for organising orientations for doctoral researchers. When does the orientation stage actually begin – perhaps already in the stage of planning doctoral studies? How could doctoral schools and doctoral education services support this stage optimally? How can we facilitate networking among doctoral researchers from the very beginning? Discussion on this topic in a collegial and supportive atmosphere will be carried out, with a keen interest in the advancement and quality of doctoral research projects.

Pirjo Nuutila
Professor, Head of the Graduate School (UTUGS)
University of Turku

Head of the Graduate School of University of Turku (UTUGS), Professor Pirjo Nuutila is an active and innovative developer of the doctoral training. She has supervised 43 completed PhDs, served as a long-term director of Turku Doctoral Programme in Clinical Research and has been a treasure-member of follow up groups of about nearly 20 doctoral researchers. She is also high rated professor at the PET Centre of the University of Turku.

As member of the Doctoral Studies WG of the Coimbra Group and National Doctoral Training Network, professor Nuutila has been enthusiastically developing doctoral training internationally and nationally. In addition, Nuutila was involved in a specific steering group of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity, which lined the nationwide recommendations: Supervision of doctoral dissertations and their review process in Finland with a special emphasis on research integrity. Starting from 2010, while serving as Vice-Rector of the University of Turku, Nuutila has led and organized the establishment of UTUGS.

Workshop B. What can be achieved through dialogue between supervisors?

This workshop is an opportunity for supervisors, Doctoral Programme directors and Graduate School directors, in particular, to discuss the potential of increased interaction inside their peer group. In order to enable supervisors to fully embrace their roles, sharing experiences and wisdom is key.

Having supervised almost 50 doctoral dissertations, Professor, Director of Graduate School Pirjo Nuutila is hosting this mini-session with a presentation mirroring her long-term experience and reflections on the value of sustaining a dialogue between supervisors. She is inviting you to join this session with a presentation on your experiences. The presentations will be brief, max. 10 minutes each, discussing good practices from traditional or more novel, emerging perspectives on the topic of the mini-session. Presentations can deal with e.g. two-supervisor system, supervisor peer-groups, supervisor training, leading of multidisciplinary doctoral programme, international or intersectional co-operation etc.

Taina Saarenpää
Information Specialist
LUC Library
University of Lapland

Information Specialist Taina Saarenpää obtained her PhD at the University of Turku in 2019. In her doctoral dissertation, her focus was on the relationship between historical research as well as archives. While she has a wider background extending from historical research and archives to museums, since 2020 Saarenpää has been based in the Lapland University Consortium (LUC) Library in Rovaniemi. As Information Specialist in this northern academic community, she works mainly with research data management, open publishing, and open science. Saarenpää also teaches doctoral courses dealing with research data management, open publishing and open science at the Doctoral School of the University of Lapland.

Workshop C: What has been achieved by introducing electronically published dissertations? Lessons learned and ways forward.

While electronically published doctoral dissertations have become almost the norm in many Finnish universities, the process of moving towards e-dissertations has brought along both benefits and problems. The benefits include more visibility and impact for doctoral dissertations, undoubtedly a development that delights Open Science practitioners and academics alike. Meanwhile, the need for printing press has decreased, followed by consequences such as lower direct costs of the publication process for universities. However, this change has not taken place without agility and flexibility of staff, and some trial and error.

Information Specialist, PhD Taina Saarenpää reports examples of good practice that have been developed since the turn of the 2020s at ULapland, and, more recently, refined further in a network-based collaboration. She is inviting contributions to this session from stakeholders interested in collegial, supportive experience sharing.