8.1 The PVC Dean of Faculty is responsible for ensuring that a member of staff is appointed as Postgraduate Research Tutor for the Faculty, who will have responsibility for research students within the Faculty or Department.
8.2 Each Faculty will have an appropriate committee that will have responsibility for reviewing student progress and other postgraduate matters. It is recommended that this committee consists of the PVC Dean of Faculty or Deputy, Chair of the Research Committee; the Postgraduate Research Tutor (or tutors), at least 2 or 3 members of academic staff, and, where appropriate, a student representative. It is considered inappropriate for student representatives to be present when the progress of individual students is being discussed.
8.3 Each Faculty will produce its own guidelines for students, which will include what expectations it has for their progress, the specific Faculty procedures for monitoring expectations it has for their progress, the specific Faculty procedures for monitoring progress, and the timetable for transfer to PhD where appropriate progress, and the timetable for transfer to PhD where appropriate.
8.4 The progress and status of all research students, including Professional Doctorate students, full-time and part-time, must be reviewed annually by each Faculty. Candidates must produce a brief written annual progress report or equivalent, about their research as appropriate for their discipline (approximately 1,000 words).
Where appropriate, students may be asked to submit particular chapters of their thesis as part of the monitoring assessment. The work should be submitted to the Faculty or Departmental Postgraduate Research Tutors and copied to the Supervisory Teams in accordance with the annual monitoring procedures. This assessment process must include 1 person external to the supervisory team and all students should be interviewed each year as part of the monitoring process.
8.5 Each Faculty must ensure that progress monitoring occurs during the first year of study and either at transfer of registration or the end of the second year for full-time students and pro-rata for part-time students.
Where a student has registered for PhD direct, in addition to the first-year report, a full progress review must take place at the end of the second year and should include an interview. The monitoring must include someone external to the supervisory team. Appropriate arrangements must be made for all students to make 2 oral presentations during their research degree programme and these should form part of progress monitoring.
8.6 The PVC Dean of Faculty, in conjunction with the Postgraduate Research Tutor, must ensure that no supervisor is overloaded with supervisory responsibilities. The recommended maximum number of registered research students for each supervisor must be laid out by each Faculty and will vary according to the supervisor’s other duties.
In making this judgement, the PVC Dean of Faculty should bear in mind the guidelines for supervisory sessions in paragraph 6.3, and the recommendation of the University Research Degrees Committee that a supervisor's load should not normally exceed that of 6 full-time students or equivalent supervised as Director of Studies with a further 6 students supervised as a Second Supervisor.
Supervision contact with research students is to be allocated as part of the formal contact hours of staff. PVC Deans may choose to divide the contact between the members of the supervision team. The terms of the allowable contact hours should be made explicit to the supervisors and the student. The Research Degrees Committee will retain the right not to approve a registration for a research degree if, in its judgement, the supervisor(s) would be overloaded by approving it.
8.7 Exceptionally the role of Director of Studies may be divided between no more than 2 Co-Directors of Studies. A Co-Director of Studies may supervise 12 students but this should not be added to the full quota allowed for other supervisory roles. In these cases, the role of each person would have to be clearly identified at the outset and a case made to the relevant Sub-Committee for approval.
Where the role of Director of Studies is divided in this way, a second supervisor is also required to complete the team.
8.8 The PVC Dean of Faculty, in conjunction with the Postgraduate Research Tutor, should ensure that supervisors have the training and support they require to undertake effective supervision.
This support might include recommending a supervisor to attend various training courses, conferences and seminars; teaching relief; and adjustment of other Faculty responsibilities to take account of the supervisory load.
The PVC Dean of Faculty, in conjunction with the Postgraduate Research Tutor must ensure that students are accepted into an environment that provides support for doing and learning about research and where high-quality research is occurring.
Where this environment is not already in place, they must facilitate networking links with the wider research community within the Faculty or Department. The Research Degrees Committee has overall responsibility, on behalf of the University, to ensure that appropriate training for supervisors is available and to monitor this provision.
8.9 The staff development and appraisal system should be used to identify training needs and PVC Deans of Faculty should review supervisors’ responsibilities on an annual basis.
8.10 The PVC Dean of Faculty should discuss complaints with the supervisor if the supervisor is criticised for poor supervision. If the complaint is substantiated, the PVC Dean of Faculty should recommend remedial action, such as training or, if necessary, withdraw the supervisor from supervision duties.
8.11 In cases where the supervisor being criticised is also the PVC Dean of Faculty, the Chair of the Research Degrees Committee will have the responsibilities set out in paragraph 8.6 above.
8.12 Appropriate action should be taken by the Postgraduate Research Tutor to ensure that the supervision of students is maintained when a Director of Studies either leaves the University or is temporarily absent for a period longer than 6 weeks. This may involve a change in roles within the supervision team or the appointment of an additional or replacement supervisor.
8.13 The Faculty must, when asking research students to teach undergraduate students, provide appropriate instruction. Students whose teaching duties exceed 50 hours per year are required to attend the training course run by the Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development.
Undergraduate teaching should be distributed amongst research students as fairly as possible to prevent individual students from being overloaded, which could have a detrimental effect on their research. Full-time students should not be required to undertake more than 6 hours of teaching duties per week including all teaching related activities. In total Full-time students must not be employed for more than 20 hours a week at any time during the course of their programme.
8.14 It is the responsibility of the PVC Dean of Faculty to ensure that the level and amount of teaching duties undertaken by a student are appropriate to the student’s experience in this area.
8.15 Special arrangements should be made where faults or a shortage of specialised equipment causes delay to the student, and the Faculty should attempt to minimise such disruption.
8.16 The Faculty must ensure that the student has access to all the data, results and information collated during the course of his or her research and that this is freely available to the student for the purposes of the research degree for which the student is registered.
8.17 Faculties must ensure that the progress of all students is monitored formally on an annual basis. The annual 1,000 written progress report produced by the student should be submitted to the Postgraduate Research Tutor, and the progress report should be followed up by an interview at the end of the student’s first year and, where necessary, in subsequent years. In addition to any usual informal meetings with the Postgraduate Research Tutor, students are entitled to request an annual interview.
8.18 Faculties must have in place a separate procedure which allows students to anonymously comment on the adequacy of supervision and facilities provided for their research. This could be done through a form submitted to the PVC Dean of Faculty or Postgraduate Research Tutor or Deputy and the issues raised would be reported to the Research Degrees Committee for consideration.
The Faculty must also ensure that an annual interview takes place between the students and the Postgraduate Research Tutor to discuss specific supervisory issues. Faculties must ensure that these procedures are made clear to the students.
8.19 Faculties should arrange seminars on a regular basis where students can present work to their peers.
8.20 All students should have training in research methods appropriate to their discipline and Faculties should ensure that appropriate research training programmes are in place to achieve this.
8.21 In addition, all students should have training in appropriate generic skills such as computing skills, communication and presentation skills, and report writing.
8.22 The Faculty is responsible for ensuring that the students are fully aware of the relevant Health and Safety Regulations.
8.23 The Faculty must ensure that students receive appropriate training regarding plagiarism and the use of an appropriate referencing system.