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On the morning of 5 November 25, I attended a CPD session about a third party monitor (TPM) for doctoral students. What follows are some points that I came away with. These points are shared from the perspective of a monitor rather than a student.

Role of a TPM

A third party monitor is someone who is outside of a supervision team who is able to provide independent pastoral support to a doctoral student. A TPM and a student meet at least once a year, with the first meeting taking place no later than 5th month after registration. Students be given the name of their TPM within the first month of registration.

The TPM meetings are confidential. Nothing is shared with the supervision team unless specific agreements have been made to do so (or the student faces immediate physical risks that must be attended to). TPMs can offer independent comments on matters of procedure, and can help with the identification and resolution of problems, such as potential areas of conflict within the supervision team. Meetings can take place at any point within the academic year.

The TPM meetings can be characterised as a mentoring relationship. They are, of course, should be collegial. Sometimes, these relationships do not work out. Like other mentoring relationships, students can change their TPM, without judgement, if the student and the third-party monitor doesn’t ‘click’ with each other.

Tips for the first meeting

Here are some tips I noted down:

• What is the student carrying out research into?
• Who is in the supervision team?
• Set expectations of the meetings and share contact details.
• Share something about yourself and what you can bring to the discussions.
• Fix a date of the next meeting.

Tips for all meetings

During the session, I made a note of the following points:

1. Be friendly.
2. Be always ready to listen, and repeat what has been said.
3. Be directed by the student.
4. Be prepared to share your own experiences.
5. Be clear about boundaries.
6. Offer clear and direct encouragement.

I hold the view that it is important not to offer solutions to problems, but instead to offer useful directions towards information (or sharing of experiences) that might be helpful.

Resources

We were directed to the third party monitoring guidelines document, available from the graduate school. It contains a TPM person specification. Another resource was the Research Career Development (RCD) website. We were also directed to the Graduate School advice by stage summary.

Other sources of advice include the OU page of the National Support Network. There is also the university’s student welfare team, which can offer help and advice. If a student is struggling, a referral can be made to the university’s Mental Health Casework Team (MHCAT). If a student discloses a disability, they may also be directed to the disabled student services team.

If third party monitors needed assistance, they should contact the graduate school.

Reflections

The TPM role was also described as being a bit like a mentor, and some STEM mentoring resources were also highlighted by the facilitators. In a post about mentoring I shared some definitions that I found helpful:

Mentoring is all about the sharing of experience, and may involve signposting of resources.

Coaching is all about supporting someone to find a way forward with something that is known, or you know what the ‘answer’ is going to be.

My understanding is that coaching relates to helping someone to carry out a specific task or activity. A TPM isn’t there to solve a bit problem (the doctorate), but might be useful in the solving of smaller problems. I hold the view that there is a ‘mentoring and support’ continuum (as well as a ‘mentoring and coaching’ continuum). My reason for suggesting this is that mentoring is more explicitly about the sharing of experience, whereas monitoring (as the title suggests) is more to do with support.

A thought provoking session.

Acknowledgements

The event was facilitated by Liz FitzGerald (IET) and Jane Wilson (Graduate School)

This post shares some notes that I made during a continuing professional development (CPD) event organised by the Research Career Development Team (RCD) that took place on 6 November 2024. The event was all about how a third party monitor supports doctoral students and doctoral level study. 

The event was pitched as being useful for “those who are new to third party monitoring”. It’s key objective and learning outcome were to help participants understand what the OU expects of third party monitors, whilst also sharing practices and experiences between participants.

Before moving sharing the key points that I took away, I would just like to share that I’m mostly writing this piece from the perspective of a third party monitor, sharing points with other potential fellow third party monitors. Although I’ve made this post widely available, some of the links that I’ve shared are very OU specific, and will not be available outside the OU.

Third party monitoring: the role

The aim of the third party monitor (TPM) is to provide pastoral support for research students outside the supervision team. A TPM is an academic member of staff who has had research degree supervision experience. They are there to provide confidential, independent, and dispassionate support. They are able to offer advice about how to deal with the challenges of doctoral research, how to deal with and handle conflict within (and possibly outside) the supervision team, and can offer perspectives about research process. A TPM can provide practical opinions about the supervision process. They may, for example, help to identify resource management difficulties; a student might meet with supervisors too frequently, or not frequently enough. A TPM may be able to offer practical advice on how to broach this with supervisors. The key point is that a TPM must always act in the best interest of the student.

In terms of meetings, there is an obligation for a TPM to meet with a student at least once a year, but a student might email the monitor at any point throughout the year. Meetings do not need to be in person; they can take place online. The first meeting should take place by the fifth month following registration. In my own practice, I tend to meet with students every quarter, but I would be happy to meet more regularly if there are any emerging or ongoing issues that need to be addressed or resolved. Meetings can be documented through a form (which is used within the WELS faculty) but this is not compulsory. All that needs to be recorded is a date of a meeting.

The TPM is described in the section 6 of the university research degree regulations. There are also third party monitoring guidelines from the graduate school network. Any member of staff who is carrying out third party monitoring should record it within their academic workload management (AWM) tool. At the time of writing I don’t have an official figure, but a guideline to work to is: one day per year, for each student you are monitoring.

What happens if things are not going well?

During the session, there was a useful discussion about what to do if things are not going very well. I noted down some important points.

The first point is: if possible, have discussions with everyone. Before even picking up the phone, gain permission from the student you are supporting; confidentiality, trust, and transparency in terms of actions are paramount.

It isn’t easy doing research. Depending on the topic, it can be sometimes lonely. It can sometimes place significant demands on reserves of intrinsic motivation. When looking at a subject in a new way, this can have a potentially destabilising way of seeing the world. All this means is that there are times when doing research can negatively affect our mental health. A TPM might be able to help just by having a chat about how everything is going. You can also signpost some resources that relate to staying mentally healthy.

Sometimes, you may well need to seek advice to answer some questions which may come up when meeting a student. Two key points of help were mentioned: the graduate school, or a group of staff within your academic school that supports postgraduate students. If something is serious, you might wish to contact your head of school, or their delegate.

Resources

A number of useful resources were shared during this session. The OU national support network that follows isn’t specific to the TPM role, but offers pointers to a whole host of different resources.

• Research Degree Regulations
• Research Career Development (RCD): Third Party Monitoring Resources
• OU Graduate school network
• OU National support network

There is also something called the STEM Mentoring Scheme: Framework, which dates back to 2021.

Reflections

At the time of writing, I’m a third party monitor for two doctoral students.

When I started as a third party monitor, I have to confess that I didn’t really know what I was doing. My interaction with students began with an email introduction from a graduate student supervisor (or lead). The was the followed with organising an informal meeting between myself and the student, where we introduced each other.

My big take away from this session was the importance of active listening and relationship building. Empathy also plays an important role. As third party supervisors we all have our prior doctoral experience we can draw upon. In some cases, it can be about being practical; sometimes third party monitors need to find things out for our students. In turn, we may need be their advocate, but always with their permission.

I found the discussion about the formality of a form, and its usefulness interesting. During my own meetings, I do sometimes make notes, but it does always depend on what is being said and what needs to be done.

Given the title of the session, I was expecting to learn more about mentoring, perhaps even something about models of mentoring. At various points in my OU career, I’ve been both a mentor and a mentee. Sometimes these relationships have gone well, other times less so. To help others more effectively, I feel as if I need to know more about how to ‘mentor’ well.

Acknowledgements

The event was facilitated by Dr Liz FitzGerald, a Senior Lecturer in the OU’s Institute of Educational Technology.