Students commencing their degrees from the 2019/20 academic year onwards are required to create a Data Management Plan, which will be checked at the Confirmation Review.
To support this, the Library has provided access to DMPOnline, which students can use to make their DMP, and which can be checked by the Supervisor. The tool also includes funder and University templates as well as detailed guidance.
Guidance for supervisors is available to the right, and student information is available here.
For further information contact rdm@sheffield.ac.uk
All students should submit their Confirmation Review reports to the PGR Support Officer at 9 months. They will have already been advised of their submission date, and calendar entries have already been created for the Confirmation Review viva. The viva should take place before the 12 month mark, which allows enough time for a second viva or report resubmission before 18 months, which is the final deadline.
The supervisor should appoint the first examiner, and email the PGR Support Officer once this has been organised. Second examiners are selected from a pool. For 2022/23, this pool consists of 27 members of academic staff, and the vivas have been organised in advance to ensure that no one will be the second examiner for more than 2 or 3 Confirmation Reviews over the course of the academic year.
A new Confirmation Review form was released in September 2019, which is available to download here.
It is the supervisor’s responsibility to nominate suitable examiners with appropriate subject expertise and experience well in advance of the student submitting their thesis. Appointment of Examiners should be made at least 8 weeks before the student submits their thesis. There's no limit to how early the Appointment can be made, however. Further details about external examiners is available here.
The Appointment of Examiners form should give contact details of the external and internal examiners, as well as details of previous supervision and examination experience. For example, 'Supervised 8 PhD students to successful completion, examined 4 external PhDs and 22 internal PhDs'. The appointment form will not be sent for approval if this is not included.
In order that the candidate is treated in a fair and equitable manner consistent with the standards and expectations of the University of Sheffield, the examiners should have demonstrable experience of the PhD process beyond their own candidature and should have experience of successfully supervising at least one doctoral candidate and/or significant experience of examining at least three doctoral theses. Should this not be the case, the curriculum vitae of the proposed examiner and a supporting statement as to why they are considered appropriate should be provided. The case will then be assessed by the relevant Faculty Officer.
When you have organised a date for the viva with the external examiner, please complete the viva request form here.