There are plenty of very mature PhD students in my non-OU department, so I wouldn't rule out the local possibilities so quickly.

I considered an OU PhD (after leaving a science PhD I did a part-time OU BA(Hons)), but went with my local university instead, where I did my part-time Masters.

I had minimal supervision. For much of my 6-years as a part-time history PhD-er I met my supervisor maybe 4 times a year, if that much. I steered my own course, defined the project myself from scratch, applied for AHRC funding part-way through my first year and won it, and decided the structure that my thesis would take, and just got on with it. I think my background as an OU student encouraged me to be more independent than other students might have been.

I do have a good online friend who recently passed his OU PhD viva. I got back in touch with him towards the end of his PhD though, so don't know how good his support was in the earlier stages. He got good advice in the run-up to the viva though, including a DVD preparing him for it. I could have done with that :p

I felt quite unreal after submitting. Yes there was relief, not least because I'd submitted within my university's absolute deadline (barring official extensions) for part-timers of 6 years. That deadline had been hanging over me rather like a cloud so it was nice to beat it, by quite a few weeks.

But I didn't feel like celebrating. I remember buying a small bottle of champagne, but not feeling quite like celebrating because things weren't over yet.

I took a couple of weeks off after submitting before even thinking about the viva. My viva was 7 weeks after submission, and I don't think I'd have wanted to prepare too far ahead, or I'd be likely to forget more things.

So maybe give yourself a bit of breathing space to recover. I certainly needed it after the final push for submission.

I waited until after graduation to use Dr, though practically it was 100% confirmed once the Senate had conferred the degree at their meeting several weeks before.

I've known people use it immediately after passing though. A work-colleague of my husband for example is still waiting to hear his corrections are ok, and approved, but his title has been changed.

Use it now if you want :) If I was filling out a CV pre-graduation I'd put PhD (completed - viva passed FILL-IN-DATE with minor corrections), but it's up to you how you word it.

Excellent! Next time should be easier for you too, which is a big plus :)

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During my first full-time PhD, which I had to leave due to developing neurological illness, I worked in the office 9-5 Monday-Friday. That was expected. It was a science PhD.

During my part-time history PhD I worked from home, and much fewer hours. Towards the end of the PhD I was managing on just 5 hours total a week, in 1 hour chunks spread throughout the week. That's all I could do as the illness progressed further. But it worked, and I completed.

The most important thing, especially for part-timers, is to find a routine that works for you that you can apply week after week after week. Except in rare circumstances (for example teachers with extended summer holidays) it isn't practical to hope for another time when you will have more time available, and instead you should put the work in week after week. And view the PhD as a marathon rather than a sprint, especially part-timers, and don't burn yourself out.

Good luck both.

Get an early night's sleep! And breathe, and breathe again when you get there. Oh and have a bottle of water.

Good luck Wally. I didn't have a date for my viva until after I submitted, but we knew when I had to submit by (university 6-year part-time deadline), so it sort of boiled down to the same thing. I had to submit by the end of March 2010 or I would need an official extension.

As for what to do after the PhD, I can't work due to MS-like illness, but I drew up a list of things I wanted to try to get on with, once the PhD was out of the way. I drew that list up before finishing. It was full of fun things I wanted to do. And I've been working slowly through them. Which is fun. And, of course, I'm turning my thesis into more journal papers as well (two out for review now).

If it was me I'd answer that the original idea for the project was thought up by my supervisor, but that I wanted to do it because .... [fill in the blanks] .... and that over time I made it more and more my own project.

This was the very first question I was asked. I was lucky with my history PhD because I designed the project all by myself. My computer science PhD was much more like yours though, so if I'd got to the viva stage for that I'd have had the same dilemma!

Ah right. Yes I was a bit muddled by the no revisions thing, thinking that meant no corrections at all ;-) I don't think my convenor checked my corrected thesis either, though I included a PDF of the changed pages with all the changes highlighted in red. He just emailed me back quickly to say send in the hard bound theses, and he passed those on fast to the university authorities. It really is a formality at this stage, but typo corrections should be done so your thesis looks good in posterity to anyone reading it in future 8-)

So you don't have to correct all those typos Biddysbottom? I had far less than you, just a dozen or so all told. So I had minor corrections, just typos, but they could be done in a matter of hours. I was very happy :)

It was impossible for me. What with the required photocopies of historical records, and the photocopies of journal papers (journals which couldn't be physically removed from the library to scan, only photocopied or read there) meant I have the piles of doom 8-) I wish I could have had much more PDFs, but wasn't possible. At least I did get digital photographs of some records though, many hundreds of images worth. That saved a bit of space :p

As another view though we had a similar problem, but with our next-door semi-detached neighbours. Our note to them (after speaking about things many times) led to a huge irrevocable falling out. We moved out eventually, and are much happier where we are (detached bungalow).

So notes can backfire, depending on how the recipient takes them. Ours certainly did.

On the subject of flats, we lived in a flat for many years, and had a lovely quiet neighbour up above. As soon as his flat went on the market I said "We're moving". And the new people who we lived with for a short while were very noisy. Very very noisy. We were glad to get out.

My papers were very much a by-product. One was my writing up a case study I worked on, which automatically translated into a paper, and my sup said I should send it in to a journal. And it was published, with virtually no changes. And then I was able to rework it into my final thesis.

The other was a short opinion piece about historical archives which came out of talks I gave over several years to trainee archivists. So again very easy. I didn't plan to publish, but one of the archivists organising the training said I should give it a go, and it took very little time.

I wouldn't have gone out of my way to publish though, and certainly wouldn't have spent time that would be better spent focusing on my thesis. The thesis was my top priority throughout.

I didn't have a talk to do. I was a humanities student, and it's unusual in that field to do a talk. Also I'm a severely disabled student with huge neurological problems, and I said to my supervisor very clearly that I didn't want to do a talk at the start 8-)

My external's very first break-the-ice question was something along those lines though, asking me why I'd chosen my topic, and then she followed up a point I made about there being a huge gap to ask why. So I sort of gave a little talk as such, but in a more relaxing way.

Crikey Alpacalover: good luck! The crikey is me thinking of a viva in a week's time. Been there done that ;-) You have plenty of time to prepare though, so don't worry. Focus on your talk, the chapter your supervisor says, and if possible the 5 key things I recommend focusing on: originality of thesis, contribution to knowledge, methodology, weaknesses/gaps/mistakes, and what would I do differently if starting again. Those only take a few minutes really to think about. I summarised my answers to them on a single side of paper, and took it into the viva with me.

Lucky you getting a sneak insight into the examiner's thinking. I went in blind, expecting anything from failure upwards! And I definitely had a Que Sera Sera attitude about everything.