the online Doctorate in Health and Social Care Practice course video transcript

Hello my name’s Dr Alan Williams and I am the programme lead for the Doctorate in Health and Social Care Practice, commonly referred to as the DPrac. I want to talk you through what looks like a complicated diagram but this will show you the journey of student who decides to undertake the DPrac.

The programme is delivered online following the principles upheld by the University, ensuring an equivalent experience for online students. Starting on the left hand side of the diagram you’ll see year 1 and year 2 of the postgraduate taught phase comprises 2 60 credit modules. In year 1 (7EU502 Developing Strategies and Skills for Professional Doctoral Research and Study module) is hosted by the College of Arts, Humanities and Education and is a shared module with the Education Doctorate. The second year (8DP002 Service and Practice Development module) is purely for DPrac students. In both these modules, you’ll be required to undertake formative and summative work and you must pass both modules to be able to progress on to the Postgraduate Research phase of your programme.

At the end of the year 1 module you’ll be awarded a postgraduate certificate in Health and Social Care Practice and at the end of year 2 you’ll be awarded a postgraduate diploma.

During year 2 we will start the process of identifying your supervisory package, unless this has already been done and that will comprise a director of studies and a first supervisor.

The move to the postgraduate research phase occurs after the exam board has confirmed your postgraduate diploma award to the postgraduate research office. You’ll enrol on the 8DP001 Independent Scholarship module for the rest of your studies. In the postgraduate research phase you will have access to the University of Derby research manager where progress is noted and recorded by you and the college. This includes supervision records, college documents, examination and completion. There are key milestones in the PGR phase, the first of which is an application for registration or AFR. The application for registration involves you in conjunction with your supervisors providing a report for the college research committee to review and confirm your studies are at doctoral level and at a stage to progress. If the college research committee have concerns over your AFR, they will ask you to revise your report and ultimately could determine that you should not progress on with your doctoral studies.

The year 2 module is designed to prepare you for this milestone and by working with your supervisors, it is unlikely that you will be unable to progress. The second milestone is applying for ethical permissions from the university and quite possibly, other organisations depending on where your research is to be undertaken. You must not commence any aspect of your postgraduate research project before you have achieved approval from ethical and other organisations. The third milestone will be a confirmation of registration which for part time students is 24 months after your application for registration approval. This is a similar process to the AFR and is so the college research committee are reassured you’re on track to complete your programme. You also have annual progress reports with your supervisor and a progress review in year 3 and year 4 that are also considered by the college research committee.

The latter stages of your doctoral studies involves writing up your thesis, an examination, the viva voce or viva for short, you may have minor or major amends to your thesis and this is not uncommon and should not be perceived negatively – you’re on the final lap and by addressing your examiners comments, you’ll be awarded your doctorate and process across the stage at graduation.

Of course we all experience life events and in addition to your programme leader, module leader, tutor and supervisors, you’ll have access to the full services of the university including the student wellbeing team, processes to accommodate extensions and authorised breaks from study and the Union of Students. It is possible to leave your studies with a postgraduate award after the taught phase or during the postgraduate research phase and gain a Masters award by completing an additional 60 credit module. Though these circumstances are not common.

I’ve shared quite a lot of information and I hope this has been useful. You should make your own enquiries by discussing with colleagues, friends and family and carefully review the DPrac public web pages. The application process is fully explained on the program public web pages. You need to submit a research proposal providing sufficient detail of your planned postgraduate research project so we can see potential for a doctoral research project and be invited for interview. We plan to hold interviews every 2 months and the program starts at the end of September, following the usual academic year.

The application process can take time and you should plan well ahead to make sure you don’t miss the start should you decide that this is the right programme for you and subject to interview, we make you an offer of a place.

If you’ve any further questions please contact the university online enquiries team who should be able to answer most if not all your queries. If they are unsure, they will contact me for further advice. Thank you for listening and I wish you well in your studies.

The online Doctorate in Health and Social Care Practice course video

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