1.Setting up peer groups and academic community support---Reading groups and sharing work in progress
Reading groups are one form of student self-help.
They are essential groups of students exploring ideas together and sharing various problems, whether of motivation, methods, fieldwork, expression or completion.
2.Online support---Online chat-rooms and discussion forums
In graduate Learning and Teaching, students talk with each other and with the staff or supervisors in the web environment. Online chat-rooms and discussion forums related to research can enable the exchange and development of ideas and support over difficulties.
3.Research development programmes
Research development programmes enable students to develop their skills, research methods, question framing, literature reviewing and the integration of theoretical perspectives to drive the research.
4.Seminars--- Peer group exchanges and conferences
Building on US models, students are encouraged and expected to disseminate and share their work-in-progress with their peers, supervisor and other colleagues at staged seminars through their research. Here they deliver on the questions, conceptual framework, design of the study, problem faced,surprises, analysis, findings and changes in their work. They compile seminar presentations marking stages in their progress.

The contribution of others present as a critical friend greatly helps the continued development of students’ work, helps build confidence and reduces isolation, giving students a sense that they can share problems which may be specific to their work but, more often than not, are quite common and generalized and in relation to research stages. Students practice discussing their research and defending it in preparation for a viva. Students can effectively, join and maintain a ‘community of practice’.