OU PhD student conducts research about research

An OU PhD student is doing his research project about research.

David Pride is a second year PhD student in the OU’s Knowledge Media Institute. His research uses web scale analytics to investigate how research is disseminated and evaluated.

In his project, entitled Understanding Excellence - Evaluating research using a publication's full-text, he is looking at many different methods from counting citations to peer review.

“However, there are distinct biases with both of those methodologies,” he said. “So that is what my PhD is looking at. So my research is about research.”

Watch the video to find out more about David’s research project:

David never expected to go to university after going to a school “where not getting stabbed on a Wednesday afternoon” was his greatest learning.

He went straight into work after school and set up his own web services business but found it tedious. After discussing further education with his wife who is an academic, he did a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) which was an introduction to Python programming and he did very well. This led to a Masters in Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire and then he applied to the OU for a PhD.

“Doing a PhD had never been remotely on my radar up until this point but when I read the descriptions for the funded PhDs, one was very similar to my Masters programme, so I sent it to my dissertation tutor at the University of Hertfordshire and she said ‘whatever you do, apply’. So I did!”

Watch the video to find out how David came to do a PhD at the OU:

Watch more videos about David’s reflections on the route that brought him to the OU:

• Imposter
• Progress
• Giggle

Read more about David Pride and his research

Read more about research at KMi