A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

174 ❘
Teaching, supervising, learning
• having input into the student’s development needs and ensuring the student has
access to appropriate education and training opportunities;
• reading drafts produced by the student and providing timely, constructive and
effective feedback on the student’s work and overall progress within the programme;
• ensuring that the student is aware of the need to exercise probity and to conduct
research according to ethical principles, and of the implications of research
misconduct;
• helping the student to interact with others working in the field of research, for
example by helping to identify funding;
• providing effective pastoral support and/or referring the student to other sources of
support if relevant;
• maintaining necessary supervisory expertise, including the skills to perform the role
satisfactorily, supported by relevant professional development activities;
• being sensitive to the diverse needs of students.
Apart from these formal requirements, there are some other practices which will help
ensure that the student–supervisor relationship is built on firm foundations.
Agreeing supervisory guidelines
It is important to set out guidelines for the student–supervisor relationship, just as in
other forms of teaching. This means that at the beginning, both parties should agree what
the supervisor will do, what the student is responsible for, what both agree to do and
what the supervisor will not do. These should be documented and signed by both sides.
This sets out clarity over roles, responsibilities and expectations. Also at this time, there
should be some discussion about supervisor accessibility and what the student should
do if there is a problem that cannot be dealt with by the principal and/or secondary
supervisor. When problems develop later in supervisory relationships, it is sometimes
because these discussions have not taken place.
Frequency of supervisory meetings
At the outset, students and supervisors need to set out and agree the intervals at which
they should meet for formal supervisions and dates should be recorded for the next few
months at least. Many universities in their Codes specify the minimum frequency at
which supervisions take place. Thus, for example, the University of York (2006: section
6d) specifies: ‘Formal supervisory meetings at which substantial discussion of research
progress normally takes place, should be held at least twice a term’ and that: ‘A meeting
with the supervisor, if requested by a student, should take place within one week, if
this is practicable’. The purpose of these formal meetings should be discussed with
students and the difference between formal and informal meetings made clear. This type
of clarity may help to prevent any confusion at a later stage.