Where it began

Thinking, writing, and working on academic research mentoring seems strangely detached from reality if the discussion happens without building on students' insights.

Our associated digital companion project “Research Stride” was very fortunate to be supported by Prof. Jan Marco Leimeister's chair at the Institute of Information Management at the University of St. Gallen in two student projects during the Spring semester of 2021:

One team investigated supervisors' views (Pascal Gomringer, Dayana Hug, and Romano Schäppi) of the potential for improving and supporting supervision processes, the other focused on students and their experiences and ideas (Henrik Seest, Jonathan Gress, and Lukas Bollinger). Both teams performed admirably in capturing critical opportunities for support and for hindering a good experience - several of which we had not considered before.

While the student projects ultimately focused on the generation of digital business models for a student research companion and academic supervision app, it also generated valuable insights into student and supervisor experiences while working on and guiding thesis projects. We have synthesized and condensed these findings to eleven challenges and their possible solutions for students and supervisors. You will find the posts that briefly illustrate and then reflect upon these findings below as they appear over the next months.