PhD-forum

On Wednesday, 2th of march at 11.00 we will formally elect a new leader for the PhD forum, and PhD candidates at OsloMet are therefore invited to nominate a candidate for leadership. According to the statutes, the leader must be an elected member of the Forum.

Stian Brynildsen has announced that he is running for election. If you have other candidates, please nominate them via your programs’ forum member or email Line Aasen, who is responsible for the election committee at (laasen@oslomet.no). Voting will be done by the PhD forum members.

This fall PhD Night happened on 11th November 2021. The event provided a platform to PhD students to discuss research topics (either related to their PhD or personal interest) with other PhDs across programs in a group or one to one discussion. Inspired by events like ‘speed friending’ or ‘speed dating’, our intention was to introduce candidates to what might become their future co-author or simply a good colleague!

The evening began at the conference hall at P52 where individual booths were set up for the participants to host a more intimate chat with those interested in their projects and ideas. PhD candidates from a wide variety of programs and fields participated and one of the benefits this provided was that candidates who might ordinarily not come in contact with each other had the opportunity to foster new friendships and professional relationships. After a long pandemic period, we received feedback that this was very welcome and the discussions were engaged and refreshing!

After the networking at the conference hall, we headed over to Deilig Fyrhuset for pizza and refreshments. The atmosphere remained enthusiastic and it was lovely to see our fellow PhD students finally able to relax in a social setting and forge new relationships. Our thanks go to Deilig for creating a warm environment for this to occur and to all of the participants who attended and made this event so special!

PhD Day at the beautiful Sentralen locale was a success with approximately 100 attendees. After a lengthy pandemic period, just seeing so many PhDs gathered together under one roof was refreshing! We started off the day with a speech from our Vice Rector, Per Martin Norheim-Martinsen and a round of info on the supports our kind folk over at the University Library Research team can provide, followed by a brief orientation on PhD-forum and what we do.

Presenters held parallel sessions on a variety of topics from kappa and thesis writing, to how to handle aspects of writing for academic journals, to managing all the data we deal with on a day-to-day basis. We hope that all who attended found these sessions helpful. The aim of this event was to bring us PhDs, especially those who began their journey during the pandemic, up to speed. Parallel sessions, were one thing we hoped would contribute to this. Thank you to all the session holders who offered their advice and wisdom! You will find the compiled PowerPoint files at the end of this blog post.

In between breakout sessions, three recent graduates, Håvard Aaslund, Sissel Lea Heggernes, and Andreea Ioana Alecu, took part in a panel Q&A session led by Kristin Solli to share their experiences on thesis writing, focused primarily on what they wished they had known at the start of the PhD research. Several excellent questions were presented and learning from those more experienced than us proved quite enlightening.

Over the course of the day, much time was provided for mingling and networking over coffee, lunch, and dinner. This is an important aspect of the PhD experience that a lot of us have missed and we hope participants could make new connections across programs and fields!

We wish to thank everyone who contributed to and attended this event for making it such a success. And as always, we would love to hear your feedback and suggestions for how we might create needed events to set us all on the right track following a rather strange period in PhD-research history!

Slides from the presenters :

First, some of you may ask right off the bat: “What is a MOOC?” MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Courses. They’re extensive online courses, often offered by renowned universities, and the best part: they’re free to enroll in. They also cover a vast variety of topics, from programming languages to philosophy. This can be your opportunity to learn a specialized skill that you may need for your research that isn’t offered at OsloMet, or to take a short course on a topic related to your research that is so niche that it isn’t offered anywhere else.

MOOCs sometimes get the reputation for being easy courses for the public, but that isn’t often actually the case. They’re intended as a supplement in this context and can be a great way to spark off new thinking on your research topic or learn about literature you may otherwise not have stumbled upon. And again, as previously mentioned, on the big MOOC sites, they are most often offered by highly respected universities, including some Norwegian ones! Some also offer certificate programs for a fee, while others offer a certificate for free to show that you’ve completed the course if needed.

Three of the more well-known MOOC websites are:

Future Learn: www.futurelearn.com

MOOC.org: www.mooc.org

and Coursera: www.coursera.com

One of the best things about MOOCs (in this PhD fellow’s opinion) is that some of them allow you to learn at your own pace, so you can pick up a lesson anytime you’re feeling less motivated and get inspired to dive into your project again.

EDIT: Due to some unclear communication mishaps, we must inform that the following guidelines only apply to those employed under the SAM faculty. The others are still negotiating their agreements. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

Recently, it has been brought to our attention that the current agreements in place for the use of translation and language washing services was less than ideal for PhD students, in particular, due to budgetary restrictions. We are pleased to announce that after the subject was brought to the attention of the administration, it was determined that the agreement with Allegro does not apply for academic articles or research-related texts. This means that those who require the translation or language washing of a research-related text can choose the service provider of their choice. The author should also not deliver the order via MinBestilling, but instead order the service directly with the service providers themselves (upon prior approval from your leader).

The text is then sent directly to the service provider. One must use service providers which can send an invoice for the order. The invoice should not be sent directly to you, but rather to OsloMet. If the service provider is Norwegian, then an electronic invoice (e-faktura) should be sent. If the service provider is not located in Norway, the invoice should be sent either in PDF-format as an attachment via e-mail to regnskap@oslomet.no or via regular mail (see below).

You must never pay with your own funds and seek reimbursement after the fact.

Invoices should also include an invoice reference (fakturareferanse).

OsloMet’s electronic invoice address (e-fakturaadresse or EHF): 997058925

Oslo Met’s address for surface mail-delivery of invoices:

OsloMet, Postboks 4 St. Olavs plass, 0130 Oslo Norway.

We hope this clears up any confusion about the process in the future!