At an institutional level, the Research Degrees Committee is responsible for the University's research degree policy and provision. The Committee includes representatives from all academic units as well as research student members. The Committee's policies are implemented by the Research School which has a pivotal role in providing advice and support to both supervisors and research students. They produce Guidelines for Research Degree Supervisors and a Code of Practice for Supervisors and Research Students. These two documents form part of a more extensive work -- the Research Degree Student Handbook File -- which is given to all postgraduate students on their registration and to all supervisors on their first appointment. The contents of the File are updated regularly to reflect changing University policy and practice.
With the advent of the 'STM895 Research Skills' course, each student will maintain an e-Portfolio in which are recorded details of all the training sessions, seminars, conferences, external visits, presentations, etc. during each academic year. Attendance at each training session must be electronically signed off by the relevant person, including a confirmation that the assessment has been successfully completed in each case. Students can also upload seminar abstracts, training session outlines, and any other relevant information to their e-Portfolio.
The University has a formal reporting procedure each year, requiring the production of an Annual Report for each research student to a specified timetable. For full-time students at the end of their first year (and at the end of the second year for part-time students) this is referred to as a Probabtion Report. Each year, the Annual Report both encourages and recognizes in a formal way the good work of the student and also provides the Department with the opportunity to filter out students who should not be allowed to progress to PhD. The Annual Report contains information from each of an individual student's supervisors which assess the student's progress in the previous year. In the case of first year students, the student also has to produce their own written report, summarising their year's work and future plans, and undertake a 'First Year Viva' conducted by two academics who are expert in a related research area. The feedback from these assessors forms part of the Probation Report, which cannot be signed-off to authorise progression to Year 2 until all issues raised by the student's written report and First Year Viva have been addressed satisfactorily. An important part of each Annual Report is to confirm that the student's progress has been monitored by a third party. In most cases within the Physics and Astronomy Department, this third party is the Departmental Graduate Tutor who acts as a monitor for students giving them the opportunity to discuss the progress of their research, and any related issues, with someone who is not their supervisor nor Head of Department.
