Welcome to #phdchat - please read this first

This wiki takes its name from a Twitter hashtag. In November 2010, a group of UK based research students began to meet together on  Wednesday evenings for an hour using the medium of Twitter in order to share their experiences of the doctoral journey. News of the gatherings quickly spread, and the discussions began to encompass postgraduate researchers from around the globe together with a number of people who have completed their doctoral journeys and a number of academics who are involved in supporting postgraduate research. 

The Twitter discussions have continued each Wednesday evening, from 19.30 - 20.30 GMT or BST, according to the time of year. One of the hallmarks of #phdchat is that the discussions take a different theme each week, the theme being selected by participants through a poll, set up by Nasima Riazat, one of the founding group. Anybody can suggest a theme to be added to the list of topics available to choose from by tweeting @NSRiazat or by adding the suggestion to the wiki page for that purpose. 

#phdchatters come from a variety of disciplines, are at different stages in their doctoral journeys, and are based in different geographic locations around the globe. Discussions are open to all postgraduate researchers, those engaged in the doctoral journey, those considering starting the journey and those who have completed it.

The purpose of this wiki is to support the #phdchat community. This is achieved in a number of different ways:

• pages in the wiki include an archive of some of the more recent themed Wednesday chats. These have been left in an unedited form, but there are many useful resources and ideas as suggested by participants in the discussion
• other pages in the wiki focus on activities we have undertaken as a group, for example challenges we have given ourselves to explain our research in plain English or to write a brief cv
• There are links to resources we have found useful
• There is an opportunity to share conference presentations and articles relevant to our research - another method of dissemination.

As a group of postgraduate researchers, we value the professional nature of #phdchat and the opportunities it presents us with to learn and to develop our ideas. Many of us have had contact with each other beyond Twitter, using other online media or meeting face-to-face, thus building our professional networks.

In addition to Twitter and the wiki, #phdchat also has a Diigo group and a Facebook group. We use these for sharing resources and ideas and general socialising.

This wiki is 'owned' by Liz Thackray, another early participant in the group, and it is available for all #phdchatters to develop. To join in, register and you will be given editing permissions. You can then add content, edit content, etc, etc. Once you have editing permissions, do visit the contributors page and add your details - that will help us all to find colleagues with similar interests to our own.

So welcome to #phdchat. Let's learn and share together and develop our professional personas together!