Examples of existing good practice: Supervision
The supervision models shown below offer a flavour of the models currently in use across the University:
Model 1:
- Primary supervisor: academic lead;
- Secondary supervisor: additional academic support/guidance;
- 1 independent member of academic staff: involved in progress reviews and upgrade only;
- Wider supervisory team includes: Director of Graduate Studies and Head of Department.
Model 2:
- Primary Supervisor: academic lead;
- Secondary Supervisor: additional academic support/guidance;
- Advisor: provides pastoral support and acts as a ‘critical friend’ to PGR student.
Model 3:
- Primary Supervisor: academic lead;
- Secondary Supervisor: additional academic support/guidance;
- Research cluster: acts as an extension of the supervisory team and provides student with access to a wider range of perspectives;
- PGR Tutor: available for pastoral support.
Model 4:
- Primary Supervisor: academic lead;
- Secondary Supervisor: complementary expertise to provide additional academic support/guidance;
- PGR Tutor: available for pastoral support;
- Director of PGR: available for escalation of academic issues;
- Wider supervisory team also includes Head of Department.
Examples of existing good practice: Continuity of supervision
- Ensuring that secondary supervisors are actively involved in the supervision process (i.e. they meet the student regularly, if not frequently, and are provided with copies of the records of meeting they do not attend) so that they are able to take over primary supervision duties either temporarily or permanently (if appropriate) when the primary supervisor is unavailable;
- The expectation that supervisors continue to supervise whilst on study leave (e.g. by making use of email, phone and Skype when away from Sheffield);
- The circulation of a study leave timetable to academic staff a year in advance, allowing staff time to prepare for their own absences, and negotiate replacement supervisors if they do not wish to continue with supervision duties;
- Arranging a period of overlap where a replacement supervisor will be taking over from one who is leaving, or where a supervisor is returning from long-term sick leave, during which time both supervisors attend meetings with the student to ensure a coordinated handover;
- Arranging to ‘buy back’ the time of a supervisor who is leaving, so they can continue supervising students who are nearing completion.
Examples of existing good practice: Record keeping
- Encourage students and supervisors to make a record of their formal meetings an integral part of the meeting itself, which both parties sign at the end of the meeting to confirm they both agree with the record;
- The department's PGR secretary (or equivalent) maintains or monitors a central repository for records of student-supervisor meetings and follows this up if records aren't provided regularly;
- Records of supervisory meetings are made available for review at key progress monitoring points within the department, to enable the department to take a holistic view of the student's progress and ensure that meetings are regularly occurring.