In the Orientation section, students begin by carrying out a skills audit in conjunction with their supervisory team, and are introduced to mastering the literature, formulating their research problem, identifying an appropriate approach for addressing the problem and specifying a plan of work. In the Investigation section, students are led through generic principles of conducting a programme of research, reasoning accountably and explicitly to reach conclusions, then critiquing, iterating and validating their work. The final phase of the PhD training course, Discourse, introduces students to exposing their work to discussion and scrutiny, i.e. presenting and defending their work both orally and in writing. Throughout the course, students continually build up an on-line e-Portfolio of their work., which includes a record of their attendance and performance on subject specific training courses and other faculty-wide or university-wide training courses (outlined below). These sections are jointly accessible by the students' supervisors, and allow the students' progress to be monitored, assessed, and validated at each stage.
