Recognising, assessing and documenting your skills as a doctoral candidate and developing your e-Portfolio (205) MODIFIED

18 October 2016 (morning)

modified (see description)

This workshop has been modified to a shortened format (4 hours) and will be lead by Dr Verity Elston, Director of the Transversal Programme.

This mini-workshop will provide an introduction to transferable skills, why they are important in career development, and how we can identify and improve them as doctoral candidates.

ORIGINAL ANNOUNCEMENT

For the increasingly competitive national and international job markets - both within and beyond academia - it is becoming more and more important to provide evidence of transferable skills to complement subject expertise in a specific research field. These include being able to apply project management, communicate to different audiences, take on responsibility, or work effectively in a team. The university research environment offers many opportunities for developing such transferable skills.

The objective of this workshop is to increase awareness of the range of skills that can be, are being or should be developed while carrying out the normal duties of a doctoral candidate. We will examine the contexts in which particular skills can be identified and developed, and look at how these skills can be documented and presented to potential employers in the form of an electronic PhD portfolio. The course will help to prepare participants in their search for employment, both within and beyond academia, by enabling them to relate and respond to the needs and requirements of employers.

An electronic PhD portfolio offers a way for doctoral candidates to monitor, build and reflect upon their personal development, not only in their subject area but also in the area of transferable skills. An e-portfolio has no expiry date, can be accessed worldwide and enables the owner to show to or share contents with other people. By the end of the doctorate, the e-portfolio presents a collection of the achievements and abilities of an individual student, which highlights both what has been done, together with the kinds of skills that have been developed.

The course offers participants an opportunity to set up their first e-portfolio. They will also receive the chance to join virtual follow-up sessions after the course (optional).

Content

• Self-awareness about skills: What skills do I have? Where do I have gaps?
• Opportunity awareness: Knowledge of opportunities to further develop skills and ability to find these
• Communicating skills in a convincing manner with specific examples
• Decision making: Making a plan for personal development
• The electronic PhD portfolio: how it works, the process for creating and sharing one's own portfolio, advantages for its use in building and communicating one's personal profile.

Methods

Short inputs from the trainers, individual exercises, group discussions.

Université de Lausanne

Date: Tuesday, 18th October 2016

Schedule: 09:30 to 13:00

Location: University of Lausanne or Fribourg (to be confirmed)

Trainer:

Head of the CUSO programme in generic skills and director of Portfolio Formation Sàrl, Verity Elston has broad professional experience in the private and public sectors in several countries, including in middle- and high-level recruitment. She holds a doctorate in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of Chicago and the FSEA Certificate 1 in training adults. She also conducts ongoing qualitative and quantitative research and analysis on the career paths of doctorate holders in Switzerland and in Europe.

AS ORIGINALLY ADVERTISED:

Dr. Pamela Alean-Kirkpatrick studied chemistry at Durham University, UK, has a postgraduate certificate in education PGCE also from Durham, and a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Zurich. She has worked for ETH and the University of Zurich as an academic developer for over 20 years at Centres for University Teaching and Learning, at the Department of Biology UZH and in Human Resources ETHZ.

She has her own "one-woman company" called alean-academics: personal development in a university context. Her work focuses primarily on fostering the development of young academics from a range of disciplines, and on the advancement of women in academia.

As a freelance trainer, Dr Alean Kirkpatrick gives courses in transferable skills for researchers at institutions of higher education throughout Switzerland and in neighbouring Germany.

As head of the eLearning unit at the University of Geneva, Dr Patrick Roth is in charge of managing the teaching and learning platforms. His areas of expertise include Learning Management Systems, Mobile Learning and e-portfolios. Between 2010 and 2014, Patrick Roth was member of the Swiss Special Interest Group e-portfolio bureau where he actively contributed to producing guidelines for establishing e-portfolios and collaborated on various projects and co-animated workshops related to this domain. As a HCI lecturer at the University, Patrick Roth also had the opportunity to practice the e-portfolio approach on students for over 4 years.

Participants are eligible for reimbursement of incurred travel expenses by train between the town of their university and the location of the workshop (half-fare card, 2nd class). For full-day workshops, lunch costs will be reimbursed upon presentation of original receipts (no photocopies or scans). A reimbursement form will be supplied to all registered participants for this workshop.

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