Viva details

Time is really tight!

Here is the summary of the tips given so far from Vajira Sir | Dr
Roshan | Students of BMI

• Date: 20th May
• Material required:
   1. Laptop (internet connection if demo is online) [Assumption:
Power sockets to plug in laptop will be available @ presentation area
and viva table as battery life of laptops is not 100% sure)
   2. 5 printed copies of 1 paged abstract
   3. Demo (running in the local machine | online)
   4. Printed thesis with comments of thesis examiner will be with the
viva examiners
• Components of defense:
   1. 10 minute presentation of slides + running of demo
   2. 10 minute question and answer session

• General Advice:
   - Dont Panic
   - All of us are good on paper
   - Present what you have done clearly
   - Prepare early
   - Practice many times
   - Stop on time

• 10 minute presentation of slides
   1. Number of slides to make: ~15
   2. Content of slides:
       - Address the research question, methodology, implementation
and brief discussion (and anything you feel relevant)
       - Emphasis for PHI, MEI: Implementation & Results
       - Emphasis for BI: Data analysis including tools used and data
sources
   3. Running the demo: Just do it! 

• 10 minute question & answer session
   - You can be questioned on anything you say in the viva or anything
you have written down in the dissertation so watch what you say
   - Know every word and sentence of your thesis

Did I mention its 50% of the exam?

Defending the fort!

Well what a relief! My thesis was accepted and it feels great!

Take no prisoners!

But the work is not over yet! The viva is due. These are the basics of the viva:

• 15 minutes slide presentation
• 10 minute viva
• You will be given your corrected thesis
• You need to hand it in inside 2 weeks

So the task I now have at hand is:

1. Revise the thesis I did to get the overall picture
2. Revisit the knowledge domains I used in the thesis as this is where they will question us from
3. Identify the chinks in my thesis and be prepared to defend it
4. Make a presentation which answers all the examiners questions & leaves them speechless!

Easier said than done! Stay tuned...

The end of the beginning is the beginning of the beginning!

The end of the thesis ≠ The end of the question

I waited a few days in case there was a major resubmission. There wasn't thankfully! So then after what has been 3 months of posting what more can I say than... Phew!

So what did I finally submit?

My thesis book in a nutshell:

1. Rationalized a dire need for an online system for nurses for CPD as well as a means for regularizing unregistered nurses in the private sector
2. Introduced nursing in general and finally went down to the private sector
3. Exposed the problem of the non-registered nurses and discussed the existing attempt to run a refresher nursing course
4. Made objectives to perform the pilot project
5. Saw what the literature had to say about what had been done with online nursing courses
6. Applied a method to make the system a reality
7. Tested it with nurses
8. Got their feedback
9. Analyzed and discussed this data along with the data available in Moodle
• In general about the review of the students of the components in the course
• In detail about how they have spent their time in the course
• Tried to illustrate that their was no advantage even being a more learned staff nurse as compared to the student nurse and thus the main reason for learning was the design of the LMS so to speak to avoid the question if more experienced nurses had made the course seem 'good' because of their pre - training
10. Gave my limitations
11. Finally recommended how we should proceed in the future

My thesis CD included:

1. A .pdf of my thesis
2. Any source codes I used (In my case the flash project files I designed + the HTML)
3. Clearly labelled with name and index number

What this thesis wont tell you

• Dont be fooled: The work required for even the most simplest scientific process is quite a bit. Value the time you have got. At a point with many problems around me I took it easy and finally had to race against the clock.
• Sleep less (which I did)
• Eat less (which I did not)
• Keep thinking: For me this thesis seemed like a constant answer of questions. And I kept on trying to answer questions within questions. So keep thinking of little details which might make your thesis distinct.
• Give insight: Off the bat I did not want to vomit out mere facts. I felt I needed to give insight to my examiner who will read my thesis and this what I strived to do: to give the story behind the facts.
• Blog blog blog: Who said a blog cant save your life? This blog did! I cannot remember how many times I was off track and this blog put me back on track. I feel this is particularly useful when working with a team member.
• Email email email: I was lucky in that my supervisors, Dr Gominda and Professor Jayantha were constant on the email. So push your luck and keep on emailing your supervisors even when you dont meet them for any doubt you have. They may grumble but in the end you and your supervisors will feel the better for it (with apologies to my supervisors).

Stay tuned for post viva voce updates...

Methodology of a discussion...

Well the data was analyzed and I must say this business of data, those unemotional sets of numbers, has surprised me a lot. Some of the more pertinent things I found in the questionnaire and from Moodle.

• Nursing students have finished the course quicker
• Nursing students have only scored 1 mark less than nurses
• The distribution of time spent in the course is very similar for nursing staff and students!
• When there is little difference it gives my LMS more weight as the more experienced staff not running away with the show tells me the LMS has played a part in educating both groups.

And thus the results had a lot of charts and tables and then we went on to the discussion.

In the discussion I tried to be as unemotional as the data that I possessed. No airy fairy words of self congratulation. In fact I tried to state to the reader not too take too much 'notice' of the feedback I had received and suggested there is more to it than meets the eye! Problems in the help section, deficiencies in the human computer interaction were shamelessly exposed by this budding researcher!

And all with good reason. A discussion is meant to tell the reader things beyond the simple result. And this I feel will always be appreciated. In fact its a reference point for myself when I take it to the next level انشالله!

Acknowledgement were for all who had helped me. My supervisors Professor Jayantha Weerasinghe, Dr Gominda Ponnamperuma led the parade of thanks from lecturers to laymans.

References were in the Vancouver Style which were available in Word 2007 via the ISO 690 reference tool in the Reference section in Word 2007. Hope it is adequate.

Appendix had my questionnaires.

It also had a picture of a rather interesting blog...

Questions on Questionnaires

Right so its about that time to see what sort of output I can get. I should be able to get two types of result sets:

1. From the feedback form itself
2. From Moodle's built-in activity log

Removing the seal

 So lets do the questionnaires first. The general information I have is:

• Number of questionnaires completed: 21
• Number of questionnaires with no errors in the answering of the questionnaire: 10 (Category I or C1)
  
• Number of questionnaires with errors in the answering of the questionnaire: 11 (Category 2 or C2)
• Types of errors:
• Unclear whether student or staff
• Said they understood the lesson (Question 17) but then gave reasons why they did not understand the lesson (Question 18)
• Said they fully completed the course (Question 6) but then gave reasons why they did not complete the course (Question 7)
• Average number of errors in a C2 form : 1 - 2
• In addition there is a inherent error in Question 14 which means I have to discard this

There are errors but  is not unusual

 Now what can I gain from Moodle?

1. Percentage of Students vs Staff (Prof Jayantha feels as both are low knowledge this is not an issue) [Student/Staff breakdown answered]
2. Their duration in the course
3. Details of what they participated in and ~ how long
4. Whether all parts of the course were covered (Q6 answered)

So how do I work around the problem of the questionnaire. Some ideas from my supervisors:

• Have 2 result sets
1. From the Feedback form
2. From Moodle's monitoring system
• Remove Questions 2 - 5, 14, 17 & 18 from the analysis
• Try as best as possible to get information lost from the Question from Moodle.
• Discuss the value of Moodle as a more reliable method of surveying.

As a pleasant surprise it seems a lot of nurses want the next survey online! Puts a bit of a dampener on why I used a form but yet its good news that these low knowledge learners are willing to change their habits so readily particularly as not even 33% in the pre-questionnaire knew hot to use the internet and probably still don't have a very good idea!

Hopefully I should have a better idea in a few days time.

Day 3: Another day in cyberschool

As in days 1 and 2 the nurses came with great interest about this course which by now had spread among the staff.

• I think overall (until I see the results of the questionnaire of course) I think students liked the real time interaction of the 'chat' feature the most although their English limited them to short conversations.

Student in a chat session

• Today again I realized I have to study human computer interaction a lot more. I found many students searching for the login and lesson in the shortcut section; no doubt after the lesson I shall change this as I cannot alter the lesson environment during the experiment as that shortcut area is part of the questionnaire data. Shneiderman's 2nd rule is wanting!
• Today we had a nursing sister who joined the course as well.

The Sister in action!

As of this post I am nearing to get about 20 questionnaires filled and I hope I get more. Tomorrow I have to give 1 computer station away and my technician will not be available so I dont know if this is the last day. It has certainly been a learning experience.

Day 2: More to learn!

Day two was busier than the first and I cant remember how many nurses have come. Word has spread about the course and we found even nurses who were on duty taking short leave to attend the course. The highlights for today.

• Could not keep track of nurses count today...

Some came off duty...

Some even took short leave!

• I had to demo the system for my Managing Director who is also the secretary for the Association of Private Hospitals & Nursing Homes. It was a pleasant visit and he seemed to think this PBL lesson method would serve training nursing assitants well. 

Demo for Secretary, APHNH

• A lot of interesting things to note about the human computer interaction

1. User had a tendency to search for the lesson link near the help center / shortcut area.
2. Clear color differentiation in the flash lesson helped these learner as I did not find any with a problem using the lesson after having gone through the available audio help.
3. The help section could have done with audio as nurses tried to 'listen' to the help which was in visual form. Perhaps this generation is used to hearing instruction.
4. I felt the help section needs to be very comprehensive for a online session with 'no' technician. I dont think with this level of learner it will be possible to hold classes without any technical help.
5. Exploratory learning of the students were there but they needed to be coaxed into pressing buttons as if something wrong would happen if they did. I dont think this will be a problem with a more advanced learner.
6. The fact that a Sinhalese dictionary was linked to the lesson was a thoroughly used by the students from my observation.
7. Chat function was met with enthusiasm by the students but I felt they were hesitant to type wrong English due to their language difficulties and thus chats were short.
8. Exam area was handled well by most students with a few hiccups here and there. The fact that I had put a time challenge was not well understood although the instructions were given.
9. Not only were all students taught to log in but they were taught to be polite and safe and log out as well. A bit of netiquette!

• My technician and I caught 3 minor errors in the LMS and corrected them.
• On a more comical note I had a nurse who came away from her private feedback form answering area and asked if she should put 8 for everything! I laughed and sent her back and told her that pass or fail the data would always be good and useful.

So although still not finished day 2 is also looking decent.

Slow and steady...