workforce campusreview . com . au
Technology can save the PhD
Current support systems for graduate students are outdated and inadequate ; it ’ s past time for an update that brings the whole process together for doctoral candidates .
Linda Glassop interviewed by Antonia Maiolo
A lack of good technology and support infrastructure is partly to blame for the 25 per cent dropout rate amongst PhD students , an expert says . Dr Linda Glassop , founder and chief executive of ComWriter , has been involved in higher education for 14 years , teaching at seven Australian universities . She says today ’ s PhD students need access to up-to-date technology , rather than programs designed decades ago .
“[ At the moment ], there are not a lot of tools available to help [ students ], it ’ s still very much a pen-and-paper environment , which is unfortunate ,” Glassop says .
Glassop , whose company has developed a platform to help make academic writing easy for PhD students , spoke with Campus Review about how doctoral candidates can better use their time by incorporating technology into their research process .
CR : What does the data say in regards to the extent to which PhD students integrate certain technologies into their research practice ?
LG : Students vary because they are from different disciplines . An engineering student might use something completely different to a commerce student or an arts student .
What we do know is that in the last 29 years , numbers of research personnel in Australia have more than doubled , from 40,000 to 90,000 . Unfortunately , most of those are destined to stay in academic work , as opposed to moving into industry . In Australia , about
30 per cent of PhD students move into industry , whereas in the US it ’ s closer to 75 per cent .
The education sector is [ experiencing ] heavy competition , so technology needs to be integrated into any role , whether you are staying in education or moving into industry . Higher education has evolved – with online teaching , online publishing and mobile students – but research work has stayed still from a technology perspective . With a 25 per cent drop out rate , there is a lot of pressure to ensure research students successfully complete their degrees . So we need to focus on tools to support the process , rather than on monitoring mechanisms . There are not a lot of tools available to help research students ; it ’ s still a pen-and-paper environment , which is unfortunate . We don ’ t have good technology and a good support infrastructure in place to help these students through the process .
There has been a lot of energy focusing on making sure undergraduates complete their degree . For a graduate student , it ’ s a long journey on a single project , often seen as something you do on your own as opposed to in a team or group . So it can be a lonely existence and this creates a lot of problems .
Just completing the PhD and understanding the whole process is quite difficult . We are old-fashioned , I think , with our training and the technology that supports PhD students . We run little workshops for them and training sessions and things like that , but we ’ re not sophisticated with our support infrastructure .
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