Great and excellent workshop at DoctorateHub, Porto, Portugal! Very well organised and particularly useful learning and information delivered in a brilliant style. I would highly endorse and recommend the Porto Workshop to research students that are interested in improving their research thesis and in growing their research “scissor”. Overall, the learning environment was conducive and Porto, a beautiful city……

I have been attending several webinars of Doctorate HUB and also used the Full Thesis Review and the Mock Viva services. Doctorate HUB always delivered and it was extremely helpful for me. I could not make it through the Viva without these 2 services. Dr Andreas, Dr Ana and Dr Nii were extremely helpful with their feedback and suggestions during the review and mock exam. The Mock exam added lots of confidence for me and also helped with the strategy on how to answer difficult questions. I am very happy with how I dealt with the questions at the real Viva, and major part of it was due to the rehearsal with the Doctorate Hub. I have had a bit of 'light touch' feedback from my primary supervisor and the Doctorates Full Thesis review helped me a lot to re-construct the thesis to achieve much more professional and presentable version before the submission. Overall I am very happy that I have been referred to Doctorate Hub services and this has helped me a lot during my thesis stage. Many thanks to all involved !

Each webinar and contact with Doctorate Hub has always been instrumental in my progress throughout my thesis journey. I only wish the service had been available at the beginning of my DBA, as I would have participated in every support aspect on offer including the mock viva. On the other hand, the Doctorate Hub has been key in clarifying the research challenges I was facing and always met my urgent deadlines with prompt supportive responses. This is an excellent service and I highly recommend it to other DBA students at any stage of their studies. I am very thankful for the team at the Doctorate Hub and wish continued growth and success.

It is a pleasure compiling this recommendation for the Doctorate Hub. Its Professors are vigilant and strategic thinkers with an eye for detail and a devotion to their careers. They have the capability and expert knowledge to teach a variety of subjects across a faculty, and their curiosity of expanding the horizon never diminishes. The Hub has an incredible ability to draw on their own experiences and observations to develop thoughtful opinions on a variety of encounters. Aloma Jayasundera

Advanced Course: Issue Identification, Problematizing and Research Question Framing.

The learning on this course has been phenomenal as it has brought to view a number of blind spots in research, in fact they are not even blind spots, they were complete unknowns. The main one relates to what is broken in any given situation, if there is nothing broken then it is unlikely that it worth researching, at least for a DBA. Finding the broken pieces, added to the rigorous challenges from yourself, have highlighted my shift in thinking about problems in general, particularly digging deeper into the problem by asking why of the problem. I moved out of a comfort zone around what I have interpreted as action research. The why RQ allows for the superficial or surface layer problem to be problematised with relevant stakeholders, who in turn, (and as a collective) can penetrate to the deeper domains with a view to establishing the actual causes of such problems. In other words, the problem can be properly 'ventilated and saturated' which I have termed as key to staying on the problem side instead of jumping into the solution without properly understanding the problem. All of which is key learning for me and for participants involved in the exercises on this course. 

Once I shifted away from strategy formation (rejected by supervisor) and shifted to observing what was going on in practice, and ended up on a lack of strategic thinking and had to source the literature for what was a new topic for me, I battled timewise to shift gears from strategy formation and strategic thinking literature and would have preferred more time to get immersed in the new literature to get the 'objects' under control through reading. I felt that I rushed it and it became messy. The strategic thinking literature that I have been immersing myself in is highly theoretical and conceptual which worries me as there is very little in terms of experiential. This is likewise with already established RQ's, there are none that I have found, and also, the literature refers to hypothesis testing which petrifies me as there is a fairly big chunk that is quants orientated.  

I won't go as far as saying that the above didn't work out well when it actually has, I have learned about how the mirroring and juggling works in practice. 

In all, I have learned more about problem identification, RQ's and framing than on all of the earlier coursework in this doctoral program - I am very grateful for your time and efforts, Sir. Much appreciated!

Advanced Course: Writing Up and Structuring your Thesis.

Hi Final week, of a great course. My only regret is not having access to this programme earlier. Andreas, I have to congratulate you and thank you very much. I do hope you /Doctoratehub find a means to market this to students in the Thesis phase. It is a pity about the other participants not completing but I think it’s the challenges of work/study. However, I do think they would have benefited from finding the time now, rather than not finishing or having a difficult Viva.

Advanced Course: Writing Up and Structuring your Thesis.

Thank you for your invaluable input on my thesis journey.

I acknowledge the sacrifice in time and effort you made to help me grow as I learn to adopt an academic perspective of my work-based problem.

It was rigorous but worth it.

May your journeys yield great success.

Advanced Course: Tackling Wicked Problems – or how to nail jelly to the wall.

It was a good 8 weeks, though I would have loved to have had this module during my DBA programs theoretical stage ...or even during one of the DBA DDP’s (Doctoral Development Plan).

A key learnings for me was to keep the focus on the problem, and not get diverted towards a solution based approach. 

The mirroring technique and the table shared in the module will be an useful tool for candidates to compare and ensure that relevant points have been reflected on and addressed in the respective sections of the thesis.

I see myself using the table for communicating how triangulation has been supportive both at the data collection and analysis stage of the thesis. 

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and the team at the DoctorateHub for your time and patience and appreciate your feedback and comments that have ensured further clarity in my thesis. Wishing everyone the best in their future endeavours.

Advanced Course: Tackling Wicked Problems – or how to nail jelly to the wall.

The course has been invaluable in:

1. Understanding problems as "wicked",
2. Assisting with my Thesis and,
3. For practice.

Despite the difficulty in balancing work, completing the Thesis and the course, at first the 8 weeks could appear to others as taking time away from Thesis development, but actually, it enhanced mine.

I would highly recommend it. Thank you. I do wish you the best with taking the course forward.

Advanced Course: Tackling Wicked Problems – or how to nail jelly to the wall

The wicked problem course was very fruitful for self-development and thesis progression.

Its structure facilitated progressive learning that built up well for the final write up in week 8.

It has enhanced my understanding of the thesis requirements.

Overall, the course was of great value because the resultant knowledge gain can be leveraged into thesis chapters.

Webinar attendant.

"Working with the DoctorateHub, a range of webinars have been presented and scheduled to cover topics of interest to Doctoral students.

The content and benefits have been invaluable as we progress through our doctoral journey."