Download Guidance for Supervisors: Expectations and Procedures at the University of Cambridge and more Study notes Organization and Business Administration in PDF only on Docsity! Last reviewed: 25/02/22 Page 1 of 5 Guidance for Supervisors The Colleges are immensely grateful to supervisors for their contribution in teaching their students and helping them realise their full academic potential, and for the care taken over end-of-term reports on their progress. Except in those cases where supervisions are arranged on a departmental or Faculty basis, supervisors will already be in direct contact with a student's Director of Studies, who is responsible for overseeing supervision arrangements and authorising payment for them. The Colleges have collectively agreed the following guidance for supervisors, but any queries about individual students or individual College policy should be addressed to the student's Director of Studies or the Senior Tutor, or by using the 'supervisions@' address set up by each College. This document is in two parts. • Part I offers a general summary of what is expected of supervisors and of the students they supervise. • Part II deals with practicalities. Part I General summary of expectations The number and frequency of supervisions to be given, and the size of the group, must be agreed with the relevant Director of Studies (or other designated person in the case of departmentally arranged supervisions). Supervisions should be held in a suitable, accessible location which is not liable to be seen as too intimate: a bed-sitting-room, for example, is not an appropriate venue. Teaching space is available in individual Colleges and in some Faculties and Departments: if you have any problem over finding an appropriate place in which to supervise contact the Director of Studies of the student or students you are supervising. Supervisions are the core of the educational provision of the Cambridge Colleges, as a medium through which students learn to work autonomously, to learn with and from others, to argue and to present arguments, to handle problems, to learn from others, to question their own assumptions, and to meet deadlines. They rely on mutual respect between supervisors and students. Your commitment as a supervisor If a student engages with the spirit of supervisions set out above, they may generally expect the following from you as a supervisor: • To be taught in an appropriately sized group in which they have the opportunity to participate fully • Supervisions will be scheduled with a good and appropriate length (typically one hour) and will normally last the full scheduled time • You will be aware of the content of the course and will provide teaching that is relevant to it • You will set sufficient work, of a challenging but reasonable nature, within an appropriate time-frame • If work has been handed in on time, you will mark it within a reasonable time frame (ordinarily in advance of the supervision) • You will give constructive feedback Last reviewed: 25/02/22 Page 2 of 5 • You will respond to questions that they raise during the supervision • You will show consideration and respect • They will have the opportunity to discuss in private with you any problems with the supervisions if they request it • You will respond in a reasonable timescale to all of their correspondence Your supervisee’s commitment to you as a supervisor For supervision teaching to work effectively as a key part of the Cambridge experience, a student is normally expected to: • Hand in all set work, completed to the best of their ability within the time-frame available, by the agreed deadlines • Attend supervisions promptly, and give as much notice as possible to you of any unavoidable absence or delay • Note and respond to the advice and guidance given by you on their work • Engage pro-actively with questions and discussion during supervisions • Show consideration and respect for the opinions of both you as their supervisor and other students • Respond promptly to all correspondence from you Sources of further advice on supervising Supervisors are naturally expected to familiarise themselves with the current requirements of the course or paper for which they are supervising and with the nature of the relevant examination papers or other forms of assessment. Faculties and Departments should provide, as appropriate, the following resources for their supervisors. These might be provided either on paper or electronically, for example via Moodle or on the web: • course handbooks and/or lecture handouts • marking criteria and classing schemes • plagiarism statement and subject-specific guidance on referencing • agreed norms for numbers of supervisions and numbers of students per supervision • feedback from examiners’ reports, as appropriate • problem sheets and answers if available • reading lists • past Tripos papers • the name and contact details of the Course Organisers and Departmental/Faculty teaching administrator These resources should also be made available to students. An online training package which provides foundation (generic) information about the Cambridge Supervision System is available at: https://www.vle.cam.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=122541