Supervising and examining a thes

This document is intended to provide information and pointers necessary for supervisors and examiners of thesis projects . Specifically, the following courses require each student to have at least one supervisor and an examiner.

Students

Students are often doing their thesis project in their fourth year of studies in a range of programs (listed above). Students are responsible for finding their project and supervisor but often benefit greatly from assistance from prospective supervisors.

Supervisors and examiners

The supervisor (normally an ITEE academic) is responsible for ensuring that the assessment is completed for all parts of the project. This responsibility includes finding a suitable examiner for the project early on in the project so he/she can complete parts of the assessment (written thesis and oral examination). A suitable examiner is one that is not directly associated with the project but would qualify as a supervisor (normally an ITEE academic).

Project database

Projects are administered exclusively using the project database - a web-based tool developed by Peter Sutton. It is essential that supervisors and examiners are familiar with the project database and make timely use of it for the projects to run.

ITEE academics (internal academics) are provided with access to the project database by default. Other ITEE staff (including some research staff) and ITEE affiliated academics (with ITEE user accounts) may need to request access to the project database by contacting the course coordinator (send request to Engineering project coordinator or IT/Computer Science project coordinator).

ACTION: Use the internal project database interface.

Non-ITEE academics (external academics), research staff and industry collaborators will need to request access to the project database by contacting the course coordinator (send request to Engineering project coordinator or IT/Computer Science project coordinator). Requests should include name, email, phone and office location. External users can only access the external interface of the project database.

ACTION: Use the external interface to the project database.

The interface to the project database differ depending on the user status. Please follow instructions carefully to carry out tasks as indicated below.

Links to project database and other relevant information

Links to both project database interfaces (internal and external), assessment documents, deadlines and other information you may need are available from the relevant project course page (see above).

Steps to consider and their timing

The project courses start in each semester and usually last for two semesters.

Supervisors should take note that projects often come from project proposals of supervisors and that students may be looking for project ideas in their third year.

ACTION: In the preceding semester, insert project proposals/descriptions into the project database to advertise your project ideas and to attract interest amongst students.

Internal users (both supervisors and examiners) can access a resource page for the project database here.

Students will approach prospective supervisors and initiate discussions about project work.

ACTION: Use the project database to sign up a student to a project before the end of the first week of commencing the project. If an applicable project description does not exist, insert a matching project description and sign up the student. All students will need to be signed up through the project database. If a project is not inserted into the project database, it does not exist from the School's point of view.

The successful project results in several deliverables and involves several pieces of assessment throughout the duration of the project. Each component is listed and described in the assessment document.

ACTION: Read the assessment document to understand expectations on the student to understand how you as a supervisor can help and what should be considered when examining the deliverables (as both supervisor and examiner). The assessment document is available from the course pages above.

In accordance with UQ Policy 3.30.6 (http://www.uq.edu.au/hupp/index.html?page=25114) courses with progressive assessment must be marked in a timely manner and made available to the student. Continuing feedback needs to be provided to the student throughout the project. In particular, all deadlines of deliverables need to be strictly adhered to.

Deliverables must be assessed in a timely manner. Results will need to be inserted by the supervisor and the examiner into the project database shortly after the assessment deadline (within two weeks, except for the thesis which may take up to three weeks).

ACTION: Provide timely feedback to the student and insert marks into the project database.

Some planning of various events will be required, including regular meetings with the student. More specifically, amongst the project components there is a seminar which require attendance of at least the supervisor but the examiner should also try to attend. At the end of the project, an expo is usually held with a poster presentation and a demonstration (if applicable) which should be attended by both the supervisor and the examiner. Course-specific schedules for each of these events will be posted by course coordinators to all concerned, but students, supervisors and examiners will need to agree on a mutual time within these schedules.

ACTION: Plan mutually convenient times for assessment within schedules provided.

Course coordinators attempt to post reminders of important project events but a detailed schedule for the project is available at all times on the course pages. All other necessary information is made available using these pages.

ACTION: As a supervisor and examiner, keep yourself informed of project events and other project related information using the course pages.