The beginning of the beginning is about to begin!

Well well well... What a relief. Here is how the viva went down:

• Items we needed to bring + ideal to bring:

1. Filled examination card (given by Exam Dept. & you do the filling)
2. Copy of examination rules (given by Exam Dept.)
3. 2 Pens
4. Laptop with presentation and demo
5. Laptop charger
6. USB Flash with a backup of presentation and demo

• We all turned up in the morning and were shoved into a hot room with a poor A/C
• While we were kept sweating a doctor from batch 2 escorted each student out to their viva tables
• It was very important to have a fully charged battery as then you could open your presentation and demo and keep. If you don't you will do start up and getting ready on your presentation time of 10 minutes. Ouch! Better to have a battery that will last at least one to two hours. I borrowed a friend's laptop!
• Off your cellphone. Keep the bag inside the examination hall.
• The presentation went off well. The practice of my presentation over 5 times with friends and family really helped!
• Question and Answer session is of course highly dependent on the examiners you get but some things I learnt:

1. It really pays to have results of even a small pilot of your project in the form of pre-questionnaire, post-questionnaire and of course data outputs of the system you created. With all these results to discuss examiners wont have time to go through tricky technical questions.
2. Try your best to answer everything but don't try to bluff the examiner
3. Accept that you will not be able to answer everything and you will find peace
4. Answer slowly so you drag more time

• You will be given comments on your thesis. It will probably fall into:

1. Minor corrections: Small typing, spelling, styling & formatting errors. Nothing big. Perhaps a few rewrites of paragraphs.
2. Moderate corrections: The examiner may like your project but not agree with your approach. I'm afraid their is going to be some re-writing to do.
3. Severe corrections: Highly unlikely scenario @ the viva stage. Forget it!

• Thank your examiners.
• Remember to take your bag.
• Have a tea and a chat @ the canteen | Leave.

What will happen next? Stay tuned...

No turning back...

Just a little further...

So now it comes down to this. 15 slides. Questions and Answers. 2 years in 20 minutes. It cannot get any more tense than this. Will all my practice go to waste (How many trial runs is enough to present?). Will I forget my definitions?

Either way this course has taken me on a journey of self discovery that the world of Health Informatics is certainly a part of my life now...

Lets hope for the best tomorrow!

My Viva Preparation

The best of both worlds!

I though to follow the plan below:


1. Reading the thesis a few times to get a good overall picture of
what I have done
2. Scanning for keywords used in the thesis and preparing a keyword
list:
    • Description
    • At which points have I used it in the thesis
3. Read the thesis to find out the weaknesses in my thesis
    • Identify where I could have done better | gone wrong
    • Steer clear of presenting | talking about those areas
    • Since you may be asked prepare a feasible alternate explanation
    • Dont lie: If you messed up you messed up. I am sure examiners
hate conjecture!
4. Prepare a PowerPoint presentation based on the guidelines above
highlighting strengths and steering clear of weaknesses
5. Write down what your going to say in front of each slide | Write
down the key points per slide
6. Do a dry run with supervisor | senior consultant | family member a
few times to get the timing and style right
7. Pre-loading my content tabs in sequence to improve time efficiency
8. Its good to give some charity before going for the exam


I Hope this cracks it!

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...