Event Details

This Meet & Eat event will reflect on key ideas from Autoethnography in Online Doctoral Education (Lee, 2022), a special issue recently published by Studies in Technology Enhanced Learning.

The special issue consists of 16 autoethnographies and a collective reflection written by doctoral students on an online PhD programme at the Department of Educational Research, Lancaster University. The use of autoethnography in this online PhD programme is a deliberate pedagogical attempt to move students from marginal to central positions in their research. By investigating their own experiences of social and educational challenges and struggles, students learn how to connect their personal experiences with their academic practices and produce more personally and socially meaningful research outcomes.

A collection of online doctoral students’ authentic voices, concerning a range of different educational problems, demonstrate the great diversity of this group. By learning and doing autoethnography as a shared module project, the students develop a strong sense of community—an essential ingredient for successful online doctoral studies. They not only increase self-awareness but become more critically aware of differences among them (unjust social relationships existing in different formats), which helps them become ethical educational researchers.

The launch event will take the form of panel discussions with invited commentators and authors, warmly inviting questions and comments from the readers. It is recommended for audience to read the Editorial before joining the discussion. The entire issue can be downloaded for free here: https://stel.pubpub.org/vol-02-issue-03