Nursing graduate supervision of theses and projects at a distance: issues and challenges

Nursing graduate supervision of theses and projects at a distance is a new experience for many faculties. In our global and mobile society, nursing students frequently seek graduate programs that are geographically distant from their home communities. As options for nursing graduate education through distributive learning become increasingly available, the challenges for faculty to supervise graduate students at a distance pose issues and concerns. In this paper, key issues including difficulty deciding between a project and a thesis, difficulty identifying a supervisor, developing the mentoring relationship between the student and the supervisor, and conducting analysis at a distance are discussed. Strategies developed to address these challenges are presented and critiqued.