Doctoral Research Training: Supervision

The role of supervision, including the responsibilities of the supervisor, student and department, are described in the Graduate Research Office´s Code of Practice and Guidebook for Research Students and Supervisors. All research students registered with the Department of Journalism Studies are encouraged to read the guidelines pertaining to supervision.

Allocation of Supervisors

It is the Department's policy to allocate each research student with two supervisors provided suitably qualified individuals with relevant interests and expertise are available. Where this is not the case, joint supervision with an appropriately qualified member of the academic staff of another department may be found, though availability of such support cannot be guaranteed.

One supervisor will be designated as the 'first' or 'lead' supervisor, while the other supervisor will be designated as the 'second' supervisor.

The supervisors have a specific training role. At a general level, they are concerned with training in writing and oral skills. At a more specific level, supervisors provide advice and leads on relevant literature and data sources, choice of research techniques, and thesis planning.

No member of staff is allowed to act as a lead supervisor unless they themselves have been awarded a PhD or have spent at least one year in the role as a second supervisor. During the early part of their tenure, the Department encourages junior academic staff to supervise undergraduate and taught postgraduate dissertations to obtain supervisory experience with research projects that run on a more limited scale than those associated with research degrees.

The Department will place academic staff inexperienced in supervision as second supervisors with more experienced members of staff who will act as mentors. The University also provides a course for new supervisors which junior academic staff are strongly urged to attend.

Supervisor-Student Contact

Research students and supervisors should aim to meet frequently, i.e. about once every three or so weeks, though events may dictate less frequent meetings in the case of students who pursue fieldwork overseas for extended periods. Under circumstances where student and supervisor(s) are not able to meet, face-to-face, for extended periods, arrangements will be made to ensure that regular updates on the student´s work are supplied (e.g. via the use of e-mail).

While both supervisors should keep themselves appraised of the student´s work, the lead supervisor is expected to devote more time to supervision of the student than the second supervisor, and this will also be reflected in the time allocation accorded to first and second supervisors in the department´s teaching workload model.

In the event of a supervisor being granted study leave, the student will receive a letter from the Head of Department or Director of Research advising of alternative supervisory arrangements. Under these circumstances, the second supervisor will act as primary supervisor or where this individual lacks the experience to fulfil this role, another suitably qualified member of staff will be appointed to advise the student.

Monitoring Student Progress

It is essential with any significant piece of work such as a doctoral research project, that the work is divided into a number of constituent parts, that specific targets are set embracing manageable goals, and that written work is delivered regularly to the supervisor who then provides feedback to the student on a regular basis. The supervisor needs to be able to identify when the research is falling behind or is going off track in sufficient time to advise the student before the designated period of study (usually dictated by the period over which sponsorship is available) has ended.

Supervisors are required to complete a progress note at the end of each meeting that indicates what progress has been made since the last meeting and in particular whether targets set at that time have been achieved. If they have not, then the reasons are explored and steps agreed between student and supervisor(s) about their resolution. Further targets are then set for the next meeting. Both student and lead supervisor should agree to the content of the note and, wherever possible, sign this note at the end of the meeting to endorse what has been agreed. The lead supervisor produces a yearly report on the number of supervisory meetings held with each student.

Each student´s progress is reviewed at the end of each 12 month period and both student and supervisors indicate their impressions about the progress that has been made and problems that have been experienced, if any. A written report is produced the copy of which is agreed between student and supervisors which also plots expected progress and target dates for the next 12 months.

The Research Committee (which meets about once a month) also plays a part in reviewing the progress of research students and the support systems for students and supervisors. As indicated earlier, the Research Committee considers annual reviews of the performance of research students that are presented by the lead supervisor. However, the Committee can be called upon to act on other occasions, in relation to research student issues.

Research students are invited to appoint their own representative to attend the Postgraduate Staff-Student Committee meetings where they can raise issues relating to supervision and support.

The annual review also includes consideration of cases for the upgrading of students from M.Phil to PhD. A student who wishes to upgrade must produce at least two chapters (a minimum total of 15,000 words) containing the literature review and methodology plus an outline plan of the proposed work to be conducted in subsequent years. The student will be expected to present this work to the Director of Research who will arrange for the student to be interviewed about their work by the Research Director and one other senior member of staff. Supervisors are encouraged to attend this interview.

The standard achieved by the submitted work and the student´s ability to explain and discuss their proposed area of research will form the basis of the decision of whether or not to upgrade the student to PhD Status. Students will be given feedback on their interview by the Director of Research.