Being a huge fan of succinct communications and plain language, I was drawn to the ideas behind the 3 Minute Thesis contests, developed originally (and trademarked??) at the University of Queensland in Australia and now supported international from http://threeminutethesis.org/. Since their development in 2008 the idea has spread globally with 3 minute thesis contests happening in many countries including Canada.
However, the origional model doesn’t really fit Athabasca University – or other online institutions, as these contests have all taken place on campus and face-to-face. Our students are located mostly in Canada, but we have students enrolled in many locations around the world as well. Thus, last fall I organized a small Online 3 minute Thesis contest using web conferencing for students in our own Master and Doctorate Program at Athabasca. With that positive experience, I wanted to expand and take advantage of the international scope of the Net, to invite colleagues and students from other online universities to participate (and of course help organize the event).
I recruited colleagues from Open University of Catalonia, Open University United Kingdom and DaVinci University of Mexico. We established a web site for the event, where we provided links to the rules, details of participation, a WIKI for organizing contestants names and titles of their presentations and provided links from YouTube recordings of other 3MT contests (not online) to serve as models.
Traditionally 3 Minute Thesis contest run at a single university and benefit from a wide variety of interdisciplinary contestants – the English student up against the Physics student. However, we decided to change the format slightly by focusing only on students researching in Education and given the specialized nature of these institutions, this is primarily focused on online learning, educational technology and other issues related to distance education. We wanted to create possibilities for collaboration and networking among our students, that likely would not have developed in a fully interdisciplinary contest.
How did it go? Well you might want to check it out yourself by listening to the recording at https://connect.athabascau.ca/p98796822/
Highlights and recommendations:Read More