[Academic] PH450 Projects Information Sessions for Students Week 0

[Daniel Oi]

Dear All,

If you have been experiencing high levels of enquiries from students about your projects and are having trouble responding to all of them individually, then I can schedule a series of Zoom information sessions for students to attend en masse. I propose to schedule them first half of Week 0 (w/c 14/9/2020) as this would correspond to the period where they officially are to decide their preferences.

If you would like to run such an information session for students about your projects, please let me know and I can draw up a schedule (to avoid clashes) with preferred times, durations, and days (several options preferred to help with scheduling). I suggest that sessions not be too long, 30 mins or less, unless you need to cover many offered projects.

Please send this information to me by the 10/9/2020 to allow me time to collate and organise the schedule.

Thanks,
Daniel


From: Daniel Oi
Sent: 31 August 2020 19:01
To: 'academic at phys.strath.ac.uk' <academic at phys.strath.ac.uk>; research at phys.strath.ac.uk
Subject: PH450 Project DRAFT List for Students

The first draft list of projects (attached) will be sent to 4th year students so that they can start deciding on project preferences. There are some blank listings for projects that I have been told should be coming. Please send me amendments.

We are still a bit light on project places so I still encourage people (PI/groups) who have offered 1 or fewer project places to consider sending me (at least notification of) projects you can offer and the number of students you can take.

Thanks,
Daniel, PH450 Project Coordinator

From: Academic <academic-bounces at phys.strath.ac.uk<mailto:academic-bounces at phys.strath.ac.uk>> On Behalf Of Daniel Oi
Sent: 27 August 2020 15:24
To: 'academic at phys.strath.ac.uk' <academic at phys.strath.ac.uk<mailto:academic at phys.strath.ac.uk>>; research at phys.strath.ac.uk<mailto:research at phys.strath.ac.uk>
Subject: [Academic] PH450 Projects DRAFT List + Urgent Requests (Also PH550 request)

Dear All,

Thanks to all who have responded to the call for projects. We still do not have sufficient places for the number of students anticipated based on the number of students people have offered to supervise and have provided projects for.

The following is mainly addressed to academics and senior researchers:

  *   Please check the attached list of draft projects for corrections or omissions. Apologies if I've missed a project you've sent me (in the Excel template format).
  *   I have not automatically brought forward previous years' projects. If you have not sent me projects on the Excel template, then it would not have been listed.
  *   The Teaching Committee expects that Academic and senior research staff are expected to offer (or arrange for their own group) to supervise an equitable share of the students. Given student-staff ratio, this is between 2 to 3 per academic/senior researcher [1].
  *   The number of projects and places that you list may be greater than what is actually allocated to a staff member, e.g. if you offer three projects, each open to more than one student, this does not mean you will be allocated 6 students. I am trying to restrict the number of students to 3 per supervisor/group, unless they want and can handle more than that. Some staff have informed me of circumstances, e.g. taking on a new course from scratch or restricted RA/PhD support, and these will be taken into account.
  *   If you or your group have not yet offered to take on any students (or sent me projects), then I strongly encourage that you send me projects descriptors and an indication of the number of students you are able to take on.
  *   If you have so far only either provided project capacity for only 1 student, or only indicated you can take on a single student, please do consider whether you (or your group) can take on more.
  *   If you have already offered to take on 3 or more  students, you do not need to offer to take more on.

It is understood that experimental projects are difficult to offer. If your previous projects have been affected, please consider how you may be able to offer projects that can be run under the circumstances, even if it quite different to what you may have run before. Take a look at the already proposed projects for ideas as to what activities or tasks could be set. For projects with more than one student, the first semester tasks could be mostly the same, but then the project can diverge in second semester.

Thanks,
Daniel, PH450 Project Coordinator

[1] Chancellor Fellows' are expected to offer 2 projects, established academics are expected to offer at least 2, preferably 3 (unless particular circumstances makes this infeasible). If you are able to enlist the help of a post-doc (of suitable experience) in your group to supervise, this counts towards these. Larger groups should consider offering more projects as some others may not have the numbers of post-docs to offer more than 2 projects per academic/senior researcher, hence the load may need to be shifted to where there is more capacity. The Teaching Committee is monitoring the Project availability situation.

PS If you are supervising a PH550 student in Sem 1, please drop me a line so that I can take this into account when allocating PH450 projects. This is especially the case if a 5th year student wants to change projects (as they will need to select from the PH450 pool, further straining our capacity). For the record, I am not in charge of PH550 but require the information for coordination with PH450.
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