My colleagues and I recently published an article on distance doctoral students in The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning. It’s a Field Notes article, with practices from our experience shared.

Lim, J., Covrig, D., Freed, S., De Oliveira, B., Ongo , M., & Newman, I. (2019). Strategies to assist distance doctoral students in completing their dissertations. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 20(5), 192-210. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v20i5.4532

Strategies for Three Goals

In the paper, we share strategies and technology tools that meet the following three goals:

1. cultivate a shared culture of responsibility and commitment
   • a tool to discuss the distance doctoral student’s social network
   • teaching students how to manage their split life
   • a tool to evaluate the student’s readiness for the dissertation process
   • mapping out where dissertation skills are developed in the program
2. increase effective communication between researchers
   • being available to students
   • giving effective feedback
   • generating trust
   • using humor
3. grow departmental and institutional services and technologies for faculty and students
   1. the use of online and library resources
   2. campus-wide use of research software
   3. writing retreats
   4. departmental support for research

If these areas are of interest to you in supporting online doctoral students, I encourage you to take a look at our article. It’s open access, so please enjoy!