Your supervisor

Your department will allocate you an academic supervisor who offers support and advice throughout your degree programme.

You will meet your supervisor two times per semester, plus three times in the summer semester period, to discuss your academic progress and to check that all is well with you and your studies. This is an important point of academic contact for all students and it is important that any discussions and actions are recorded on e:Vision. Your supervisor will encourage you to develop your academic and personal skills and can also act as a referee for any applications you might make in the future. They can advise what to do if things go wrong and refer you to the right people in the University for help with more personal matters.

If you are a full-time student your supervisor will be a member of the programme team during Semester 1. However, once you have been allocated a dissertation supervisor then the dissertation supervisor will take on the role as your overall supervisor. There may be a handover between the two supervisors outlining your progress to date.

If you are a part-time student, your programme leader (or deputy programme leader) will act as your supervisor until your dissertation supervisor is allocated.

Contacting your supervisor

It is primarily your responsibility to book appointments with your personal supervisor for supervisory meetings via telephone or video-conference (e.g. Skype), and it is better to arrange these in advance by email. This is an important point of academic contact for all students. If you are unable to attend a supervisory telephone/video-conference meeting with your personal supervisor, you should make reasonable attempts to contact your supervisor and to re-arrange the meeting. However, if you persistently fail to make contact with your supervisor and/or you fail to attend scheduled supervisory meetings then this will be reported to your programme leader and Chair of the Postgraduate Teaching Committee.

Records of your meeting will be kept by your supervisor – these may be accessed by other staff, if necessary, for example, for continuity purposes if you change supervisor. You can access notes from supervision meetings via your e:Vision record.

Dissertation supervision

Once you have selected and been allocated your dissertation topic you will be assigned a dissertation supervisor who will take over all aspects of your supervision. It is your responsibility to ensure that records of your meeting are promptly completed and confirmed by your supervisor in your e:Vision record. When you wish to request that your supervisor provides feedback on your dissertation please ensure you give them adequate notice to do so and negotiate this date with them. Generally your supervisor will acknowledge receipt of draft work by email, indicating when they will be able to provide comments.

Information relating to the frequency of supervision meetings and timelines for providing feedback can be found on the Information for Dissertations VLE site.

Procedure for changing your supervisor

Occasionally, the supportive relationship that we hope will develop fails to do so. You are encouraged to discuss any difficulties with your supervisor to try to resolve these. However, if you find that you cannot communicate well with your supervisor, for whatever reason, then talk to your programme leader, the Chair of the Postgraduate Teaching Committee, or if you prefer, contact one of the other support services staff.