Defining and Supporting Professional Doctorates in Higher Education

Abstract

The impetus for this paper was to gain some consistency in how advanced degrees are described, developed and evaluated at the author’s institution. A particular focus was on professional doctorates, which was found to be a topic of relevance to universities in many countries. The result of that effort will be reported in this session. Specifically, after a brief history of graduate education, including the emergence of professional doctorates; the discussion will provide a synthesis of the core components of doctoral pedagogy and curriculum, with foci on the research training environment and the capstone process. The session will end with a set of recommendations for making choices about doctoral programs, especially in the increasingly distributed and online environment of global higher education.