>> 28.04.05

Contribution to knowledge
These three words are what will ultimately decide whether or not you get awarded your PhD/EngD. In your final viva, your examiners will require you to prove that the work you have done as part of your postgraduate studies has made this much-vaunted contribution to knowledge. Undertaking training then on a piece of equipment, principally designed to solve an ‘industrial problem’, means you have to look for the academic angle. Perhaps the biggest danger associated with the EngD, an industrially based form of postgraduate study, is that you spend the... {>>}

>> 26.04.05

Training day
Starting off as a postgraduate student, the theory goes that your previous studies (usually your undergraduate degree) will have equipped you with the skills you need to be a “researcher”. The theory often fails because the types of things that you will do as part of a PhD/EngD are usually very specialised, whereas undergraduate teaching tends to be somewhat more generalised. A surprising amount of your time is therefore spent “learning”, be that through (directed) reading of printed matter (journal papers etc) or hands on training with equipment etc. Having... {>>}

>> 25.04.05

Back to reality
Having completed my clutch of conferences for the time being at least, I’m back in the office today ploughing through the usual pile of emails that always accompany any period of absence from the computer. Local Government always seems busier around election time and with May 5th being the polling day for County Council elections along with “the other one” this office is no exception. My priority today is to complete my assignment from the Environmental Law module. Keen readers will remember that the EngD has about 16 modules dispersed... {>>}

>> 21.04.05

Conferences III
This week I presented at my second conference in two weeks. Last week, I stood up in the elegant surroundings of the Institute of Electrical Engineers in Savoy Place London. Here I talked about the factors that car sharers consider important in their decision to car share. Essentially, it’s all about the money. For those of you who pay an annual fee to a professional institute (Physics, any branch of engineering, computing etc) and wonder quite what they spend the money on I may have an answer. Their plush London... {>>}

>> 20.04.05

Conferences II
As touched on in the last entry, this week I'm in Birmingham for the "Smart Moving conference 2005". Essentially, it's about all different ways that technology improves travelling. This covers everything from parking technology, increasing road capacity, giving information to the traveller and a whole lot more. Yesterday I stood up and presented my paper entitled "Strategic Management of Urban Road Networks" - basically talking about examples of good practice for local authorities looking to minimise delays from highway incidents. From my experience, conferences seem to be divided into two... {>>}

>> 18.04.05

Conferences galore
During my last stint as guest diarist, regular readers will remember me describing some of the projects that were keeping me busy back in August 2004. A key part of academic research is publicising your work – this very much fits in with the brief of a university to create and disseminate knowledge. Whilst papers in academic journals, not unlike the current one being undertaken by Mr Watts himself, are a key part in this, conferences also have a vital role. Thanks to some unfortunate timetabling, I'm presenting my second... {>>}

>> 15.04.05

I have the bridge
Many thanks to Rich for once again turning the shop keys over to me. In the next few posts, I hope to try and bring you up to date with the things that have been keeping me busy on my EngD, not least the two conferences that are taking up a big chunk of my time this month. More on that story later...... {>>}

>> 14.04.05

Guest diarist takeover
Having confirmed his fee and the very generous rider, I am happy to confirm that my good friend Paul Canning will be resuming his guest diarist post here at the PhD diary for the next two weeks. Whilst Paul wows you with his car-sharing antics and irreverent wit, I'll be concentrating on writing-up and maintaining a healthy obsession with LaTeX help pages scattered around the internet.... {>>}

>> 19.08.04

Strategic Management
Today I've been working on the only project I have at the moment that is not de facto managed by me. "Strategic Management of Urban Road Networks" is a government project being managed by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL). The basic idea is to examine how various highways authorities (County Councils, Metropolitan Borough Councils, Unitary Authorities etc.) go about the management of their networks with regards to such things as technology, organisational arrangements and information dissemination. The team consists of about six people, mostly from TRL. I have to travel... {>>}

>> 18.08.04

On the buses
Today I'm taking some time to work on a slightly more technical piece of work involving Real Time Passenger Information (RTPI). Guildford, like a number of towns in the UK, has recently started installing the infrastructure to provide "real time" information both at the bus stop and on the web that gives accurate information on exactly when a service will arrive at a particular stop. Each bus is kitted out so that it can be tracked by GPS and reports into the mainframe here at the NMIC in Leatherhead. Where... {>>}

>> 16.08.04

Report time
One of the biggest gripes of many PhD students is the dreaded write up phase of the degree. This usually involves several months of thankless scribing and hoping that you've either documented everything you’ve done or relying on your photographic memory. Students on the EngD scheme are assessed slightly differently. Final assessment is 'thesis by portfolio' as opposed to thesis by dissertation. The portfolio that is used as your final assessment vehicle consists primarily of six monthly reports that you submit throughout the degree. In addition to this, you can... {>>}

>> 13.08.04

Captain car share
As I like to do at least every couple of weeks, today I am working from home. At first I was sceptical as to whether or not I would ever get any actual work done but my experience thus far has been very positive. The big difference seems to be having a high-speed Internet connection. Wireless broadband, a laptop and nearby phone means that most rooms in the house can make a pretty good makeshift office. The other requirement has to be that you’re doing something that genuinely doesn’t require... {>>}

>> 11.08.04

Pick a project, any project
Some PhD projects suffer from the accusation that their final results have little or no relevance once they've been published. I remember seeing one thesis that had been written about the differences between Bermondsey in South London and a village in rural Africa. Quite to whom this was of use to evades me but I’m sure that someone has a solid use for this sort of thing. Answers on a postcard to the usual address. Given the 'with company' setting for EngD research, an EngD project will be based on... {>>}

>> 10.08.04

In for the long haul
One of the first things that stands out about the EngD is that the scheme runs for four years as opposed to the usual three for a PhD. The principal reason for this is that about a quarter of your time is spent attending taught 'modules' (usually of one week in length) that are distributed throughout the four years. The remaining three years is set aside for research – broadly the same amount of research time available to a PhD student. Together, these modules are intended to be roughly the... {>>}

>> 09.08.04

Choosing the EngD
Like the majority of you reading these lines now, the term "EngD" meant nothing to me until relatively recently. Students can study for a Doctorate of Engineering (to give it its full title) at one of the 15 academic centres in the UK. Each centre has its own 'specialist' area around which it offers projects. The Surrey/Brunel programme that I'm registered with specialises in the field of 'environmental technology' though this could perhaps be better described as projects that deal with topics related to sustainable development – reducing the impact... {>>}

>> 08.08.04

Minding the shop
A big thanks to Rich for his warm introduction and for being brave enough to leave me the keys to the shop as it were. Over the next two weeks I hope to give some background on both the history and structure to the EngD, what makes it different from the standard PhD and the sorts of things that keep me busy as a "Research Engineer" as students on the scheme are known. The EngD is a relatively new qualification having been established in 1992 after a review of doctoral... {>>}

>> 05.08.04

Guest diarist
From Friday, I will be away on holiday for two weeks. In order to keep the PhD diary functioning at some reasonabe level and to help provide further information about the sorts of options available in the higher education world after a first degree, my good friend (and very occasional squash opponent) Paul Canning - who is currently enrolled on the EngD (Civil Engineering) postgraduate course at the University of Surrey - will be taking over the roll of diarist to shed some light on what keeps him busy during... {>>}