YOU AND YOUR SUPERVISOR

The supervisor's role is one of guidance - providing advice and pointing out possible problems that may arise. The supervisor's role is to appraise your ideas and work.  You must take overall responsibility for both the content of your project and its management. This includes selection of an appropriate subject area (with the approval of the supervisor), setting up meetings with the supervisor, devising and keeping to a work schedule (to include contingency planning), and providing the supervisor with samples of your work.

It is your responsibility to make contact with your supervisor and arrange meetings at appropriate times. You should use the time with the supervisors wisely.  The students must meet their supervisors for a minimum of four meetings per semester, over the span of the entire project.

You should spread your workload over the entire time available for carrying out your project. Draw up a realistic work schedule with in-built slack to allow for problems.  Be sure you are aware of your specific hand-in dates.

You must exchange contact details with your supervisor, and make sure that he or she has your relevant contact information. Your supervisor will keep a log of meetings with you. After each meeting with your supervisor, you will both sign a student contact and progression form. Note that if the records show that your contact with your supervisor is not good; your project may not be marked.

Be sure you are clear about the assessment criteria for the project. Note that a significant proportion of the grade is allocated to presentation and style. A high level of communication skills is expected. However, it is not within the role or the duties of your supervisor to correct your grammar and syntax.

Your supervisor will comment upon samples of your work but will not pre-mark the whole document, or substantial portions of it. If asked, you must present a sample of your written work prior to a meeting with your supervisor, at an agreed time.  Under no circumstances will your supervisor give you an indication of your expected final grade.

You must keep hard copies of each version of your work, and save copies of the current version on a main and a backup disk (preferably kept apart from each other). Disks should regularly be virus-checked. Also, make sure to keep printed copies of working documents, and the raw data from any questionnaires or other data collection.