This section specifies the activities foreseen in the Doctoral programme to enable supervision of Doctoral Theses and also includes a guide to best practices for monitoring and supervision of training activities of the doctorate and the Doctoral thesis.
5.1 ACTIVITIES FOR PROMOTING AND SUPERVISING THE THESIS:
Among the activities that will be used to enable supervision of the doctoral thesis are the following:
- The doctoral programme coordinator will keep lecturers permanently informed about new students joining the programme and their allocation to the different lines of research, and the tutors to which the new doctoral students are assigned.
- Information meeting for new students, lecturers and tutors of the doctoral programme. Within three months of the first enrolment of a new student, the newly admitted students, their tutors and programme lecturers will meet. The meeting will deal with the following matters:
- They will be informed of the process of assigning the supervisor and of the development and presentation of the research plan.
- New students will introduce themselves and present their preferences vis-a-vis subject matters within their line of research from among those which they are most interested.
- The lecturers will be informed of the incentives for supervising the thesis, including the outstanding credits assigned to them for this purpose, and the possibilities for publication of each thesis.
- Meeting of tutors and lecturers. At this meeting, the programme tutors and lecturers will discuss who will be the most suitable thesis supervisors, depending on the line of research and the possible subject of the thesis for each new student. Based on this meeting, each new doctoral student’s tutor will draw up a list of possible candidates, considering the possibility of including foreign or national co-supervisors from outside the programme.
- Subsequently, and within three months of the first enrolment of the students, the tutors will contact doctors outside the programme (national or foreign) who, because of their specialised expertise and curricula, are potential co-supervisors of the thesis, to secure their agreement for the purpose.
- The result of this process is that the tutors will prepare a proposal document about the candidates to supervise each thesis for their students. They will also contact these candidates to secure their agreement to supervise the doctoral thesis.
The appointment of one or several co-supervisors of the thesis may be authorised when the circumstances merit and this is approved by the programme’s Academic Committee. The possibility of co-supervision will be suggested to the Academic Committee by the tutor and/or the supervisor in the following cases:
- When the subject matter of the thesis is multi-disciplinary, and a specialised co-supervisor is advisable.
- When the degree of specificity of the methodology to be used in the thesis makes this advisable.
- It will be advisable to incorporate a foreign co-supervisor in thesis projects with the international mention.
- In other cases when the tutor and supervisor deem this advisable.
5.2 GOOD PRACTICES GUIDE:
https://www.doctorado.us.es/impresos/verificacion/C%C3%93DIGO_BUENAS_PRACTICAS_web.pdf
5.3 MONITORING THE DOCTORATE:
Document 7 Monitoring the doctorate
Royal Decree 99/2011, of 28 January, regulating official doctoral studies establishes that universities will develop supervisory and monitoring functions of the doctorate by means of a documentary agreement signed by the university, the doctoral student, the tutor and the supervisor (Article 11.8). This agreement must be signed immediately after the doctoral student is admitted and must include a procedure for resolving disputes, also clarifying aspects of intellectual property rights that may arise within the scope of the Doctoral programme.
In development of the aforementioned decree, the University of Seville establishes those functions by means of this documentary agreement which will be signed at the moment of the first enrolment for the academic tutelage. The agreement will set out the procedure for resolving disputes, intellectual property rights and the assignment of the intellectual property exploitation rights scheme (Article 11.12, Resolution 7.2/CG 17-6-11 establishing the Doctoral Studies Regulation).
The procedure for signature of this agreement by the supervisor, tutor and doctorate will be as follows:
- Once the doctoral student is admitted to the programme, the documentary agreement form will be handed to the student when completing the enrolment for academic tutelage.
- Within six months of enrolment, the documentary agreement must be returned and included in the document of activities (DAD) duly signed by the supervisor and the tutor of the thesis. This document will be filed in the record.
The documentary agreement prepared by the University of Seville is available at:
https://www.doctorado.us.es/impresos/verificacion/Anexo13.COMRPROMISO_DOCUMENTAL_Y_APROBACION.pdf
All information regarding intellectual and industrial property generated during the development and reading of the doctoral thesis as part of the Doctoral programme framework is available at the following address:
https://www.doctorado.us.es/impresos/verificacion/propiedad_intelectual_industrial_web.pdf
The following describes the procedures carried out in the Doctoral programme proposed for monitoring the doctorate during the doctoral training.
5.3.1 Procedure for assigning the tutor:
When students are admitted, they are assigned a tutor who will be responsible for adapting the training and the research activity at the start of the programme. The Academic Committee of the Doctoral programme will assign the student admitted to one of the lines of research of the programme, considering, as far as possible, the preferences expressed by the student in his or her application. At the same meeting, the Academic Committee will assign a tutor to the doctoral student, distributing the workload evenly among the lecturers in the programme. It is recommended that no more than two tutelages be assigned to a tutor at any time to ensure adequate supervision of the doctoral students.
Acceptance of the admission application and assignment of the tutor will be notified by the programme coordinator to the applicant, the tutor and the unit responsible for managing the doctorate students at the University of Seville within 30 business days of the deadline established for the admission application. The tutor must be a doctor with certified experience in research and must be a lecturer participating in the programme.
Once notified of the acceptance, the doctoral students will be enrolled on an annual basis. Students will be enrolled by the unit responsible for doctoral studies at the University of Seville for “academic tutelage of the doctorate” within the deadlines established. Doctoral students enrolled in a programme who fail to enrol within two years will be deemed to have abandoned the programme.
The tutor’s duties are as follows:
- Oversight of the training process of the doctorate.
- Ensure that resources and procedures are suitable for training the doctoral student while producing the doctoral thesis.
- Perform regular reviews of the doctoral activities document. It is considered appropriate that this document be revised at least three times during the academic year.
- Issue a report for the annual evaluation of the Research Plan and the doctoral activities document. When the doctoral work is adequate, a favourable report will be issued. If the work is inadequate, sufficient notice will be given during the development of the course to enable the doctoral student to take opportune measures with the tutor’s agreement.
- Complete the administrative document required by the doctoral student for due processing 15 days before the delivery date.
- Coordinate with the thesis supervisor, if this is another lecturer.
- Any other duties that may apply.
5.3.2: Procedure for assigning the supervisor of the thesis:
Within three months, the Academic Committee of the programme will appoint the supervisor/s of the thesis and will inform the doctoral student, the tutor, the supervisor and the unit responsible for doctoral studies at the University of Seville. Any Spanish or foreign doctor may be appointed, who may or may not be the tutor, with accredited research experience and who is a renowned expert in the line of research assigned to the doctoral student.
The doctoral student’s tutor will propose a list of potential supervisors and/or co-supervisors of the thesis to the Academic Committee, who will be renowned experts in the line of research assigned to the doctoral student. The Academic Committee will appoint the supervisor and/or co-supervisors from the list of potential candidates proposed by the tutor, and may, if appropriate, add to the candidates on the list, if they see fit, provided that the supervisor and/or co-supervisors chosen fulfil the legal requirements and are renowned experts in the line of research assigned to the doctoral student.
The following are duties of the supervisor of the thesis:
- ultimate responsibility for the coherence and suitability of the training activities.
- responsibility for the impact and novelty in their field of the subject matter and the thesis
- guiding and planning the work of the doctoral student
- ensuring the suitability of the projects and activities of the group where the doctoral student is enrolled
Any doctor without accredited research experience can serve as co-supervisor, provided the other co-supervisor is a doctor with accredited research experience. The Academic Committee of the programme may change the tutor or the doctoral thesis supervisor of a doctoral student at any time during the doctoral period, provided that there are justified grounds for doing so. To do this, a positive report from the Doctorate Committee of the University of Seville must be obtained.
The appointment of one or several co-supervisors of the thesis may be authorised when the circumstances merit and this is approved by the programme’s Academic Committee. This may be revoked if the Academic Committee of the programme considers that co-supervision will not benefit the development of thesis, based on a positive report from the Doctoral Committee of the University of Seville.
The possibility of co-supervision will be suggested to the Academic Committee by the tutor and/or the supervisor in the following cases:
- When the subject matter of the thesis is multi-disciplinary, and a specialised co-supervisor is advisable.
- When the degree of specificity of the methodology to be used in the thesis makes this advisable.
- It will be advisable to incorporate a foreign co-supervisor in thesis projects with the international mention..
- In other cases when the tutor and supervisor deem this advisable.
To foster supervision of the doctoral thesis, the University of Seville recognises supervision and tutelage of doctoral theses as part of a tutor’s duties. If the doctoral thesis is co-supervised, the supervisory tasks will be shared between the co-supervisors.
5.3.3 Research Plan:
Within six months of the first enrolment for full-time students enrolled and within twelve months for part-time students enrolled, the doctoral student will prepare and present a research plan to the Academic Committee which may be improved and specified during their permanence in the programme. This plan will include at least the following sections:
- Provisional title of the thesis
- Background of the work
- General objectives to achieve
- Methodology to use
- Main hypothesis
- Plan and work schedule
The project must be backed by the tutor and the supervisor. Before it is submitted to the Academic Committee, they will request a report from two renowned national or foreign experts on the subject of the thesis with respect to the research plan and will propose the appropriate changes or improvements to the doctoral student after considering these two reports. The purpose of these reports is to improve the proposal of the doctoral student and may suggest the aptness and suitability of the co-supervisors.
When the tutor and supervisor have reviewed the research plan, it will be submitted to the Academic Committee of the programme with the expert reports for approval, which must be issued within one month. Once approved by the Academic Committee of the programme, it will be submitted to the Doctoral Committee of the University of Seville for final approval. If the Academic Committee of the programme does not approve the research plan, which must be duly justified, the doctoral student must submit a new research plan following the suggestions and changes provided by the Academic Committee within three months, calculated from the publication of the latter’s decision.
5.3.4 Doctoral Activities Documents:
As stated in article 2.5 of Royal Decree 99/2011, which governs official doctoral studies, the Doctoral Activities Document (hereinafter DAD) is an individual record of the doctoral student’s activities in a format that is reviewed regularly by the thesis tutor and supervisor and is evaluated by the Academic Committee of the Doctoral programme. This document is delivered when the doctoral student enrols for academic tutelage (article 11.5).
The University of Seville establishes in its own regulations that the DAD contains the activities (training, specific, mobility, etc.) carried out by the doctoral student (article 15, Resolution 7.2/CG 17-6-11 which approves the Doctoral Studies Regulation) and the research plan (article 9, Resolution 9.1/CG 19-4-2012) that approves the laws governing the doctoral thesis scheme.
As part of this duty and to optimise the resources available to the teaching staff at the University of Seville and to doctoral students, the DAD is managed by means of a virtual platform. To achieve this, it has been proposed that this will be supervised through the Virtual Secretariat of the University of Seville (Sevius). The purposes of incorporating this new field in Sevius are:
- To streamline the process of completing this document given the training of the users (doctoral students, tutors and supervisors) in the management of this application.
- Issue reports on activities carried out by the thesis supervisors.
- Permit easy access, monitoring and validation of the activities carried out by the student by tutors, supervisors and the academic committee of the programme.
- Guarantee control by the University of the activities performed that enable certification of all the training activities specified in the DAD through the doctoral committee and the negotiated supervisor of the doctoral studies.
This system enables monitoring of the DAD to certify the doctoral student’s information and evaluate the research programme and the DAD.
The document management programme starts at the moment when the doctoral student enrols for the academic tutelage, when a space will be provided in the Virtual Secretariat for the DAD, housing the activities carried out and the research plan. From then on, the doctoral student will have access to the document to be able to enter the activities performed.
The same operation will be performed for the supervisor of the thesis who, at regular intervals, will validate the information entered by the doctoral student. Annually, from Sevius, the supervisor must approve the research plan and the DAD, issuing a report that must be approved by the Academic Committee of the Doctoral programme.
When the DAD is approved by the supervisor of the thesis and the Academic Committee, it will be the Doctoral Committee, in the final instance, that will issue the positive or negative report for further enrolment of the doctoral student, the application allowing this step. The positive report is a prerequisite to the student remaining in the programme, as specified in RD 99/2011.
All these formalities are logged in Sevius, which centralises the information and encourages data flow throughout the academic year. This management method ensures recording and institutional control of the doctoral student’s activities and validations and reports on those activities as part of the doctoral training.
The following link leads to the supervision procedure of the doctoral student’s activity established by the University of Seville.
https://www.doctorado.us.es/impresos/verificacion/gestion_del_DAD.pdf
5.3.5 Annual evaluation:
To comply with the obligation to evaluate students every year, the Academic Committee will hold at least two ordinary meetings per year (one every six months). All meetings will be suitably convened at least one month in advance and must specify that the purpose is the annual evaluation of student activity.
The student must present an application addressed to the Academic Committee to the pertinent administrative services requesting the corresponding annual evaluation. Applications must be submitted between the date on which the call to the meeting is published and seven calendar days before the meeting called takes place. This application must be approved by the tutor and the supervisor or co-supervisors of the thesis. Regarding the choice of the annual evaluation date, in order to enrol for the next academic year in the Doctoral programme, students must receive a favourable decision from the annual evaluation.
At these meetings, the Academic Committee of the programme will be supported by at least one expert in the subject of the thesis, national or foreign, from outside the Doctoral programme, who, in collaboration with the other members of the Committee, will evaluate the progress made with the development and compliance with the doctorate research plan. This expert may take part in the meetings of the Academic Committee with a right to be heard but not to vote. The Academic Committee may require, if advisable, the presence of the doctoral student, the supervisor or co-supervisors, or the tutor, to justify the activities of the student or to answer the Committee’s questions. At the end of the meeting, and behind closed doors, the Committee will deliberate and then issue its decision regarding the student’s evaluation. The student, tutor, supervisor or co-supervisors and the unit responsible for the doctoral studies of the University of Seville will be notified of this decision.
The Academic Committee of the programme will evaluate:
- The Research Plan
- The record of activities or individual directory document
- The reports issued by the tutor and the supervisor for these purposes
A positive evaluation will be an essential requirement for continuing in the programme. In case of a negative evaluation, which must be duly justified, the doctoral student must be re-evaluated within six months, for which he or she will prepare a new Research Plan which must reflect the changes and modifications proposed by the academic committee. In case of another negative evaluation, the doctoral student will be expelled permanently from the programme, which may be appealed against to the University Doctoral Committee.
5.3.6 Research stays in other centres
The Academic Committee of the programme, at the suggestion of the tutor and the supervisor, will encourage and highly value research stays of doctoral students at other universities or at national or international research centres, which may make a significant contribution to the development of the doctoral thesis and to the internationalisation of the Doctoral programme. This measure aims to foster the international doctorate mention of the thesis. In this regard, it will receive support from the University of Seville through its international agreements with other universities and research centres, and its internationalisation activities.
The research projects linked to the Doctoral programme may accept some doctoral students as researchers in training to facilitate funding of these stays.