PostGraduate Research

Information for Year 3 PhD Students

The most important thing for you to do during the third year is to continue your PhD research and write your thesis.

Your PhD is supported by Liverpool Doctoral College which provides a focus and oversees all doctoral training and development in the University. The Liverpool Doctoral College provides a range of personal and professional development opportunities to support your PhD. Please see the Liverpool Doctoral College Intranet webpages.

IPAP Members and Supervisors

Here is a list of students, their supervisors and IPAP members.

Training and Progress Monitoring Requirements

The expected training and progress monitoring for the year includes completing your Annual Progression Requirements, attending the Postgraduate Workshop and completing the following. Additionally, attending Departmental Seminars and your research group seminars is expected/strongly encouraged. Seminar attendance helps develop transferable skills such as oral communication skills, presentation skills, persuading skills, analytical/logical thinking skills, critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, decision making skills, research skills.

Careers Development. Participate in a variety of events to suit your career interests and aspirations such as the Computer Science Ignite Your Future, EEE Thursday seminars, Career Development from the PGR Development team, the School organised career seminars and one off events pertaining to particular research careers etc. The Liverpool Doctoral College also provides Placement Opportunities to help you prepare for a career.

You should give a technical presentation about your work to a specialist audience. If you have the opportunity to speak at a conference or workshop, or at a seminar at another institution, that is very good experience. Otherwise, ask your supervisor to arrange for you to give a seminar in the seminar series of your research group. The DDPR will ask your supervisor to complete a form confirming that such a presentation has been done or that it will be arranged. This helps develop transferable skills such as communication skills, in particular writing, listening and presentation skills, interpersonal skills, critical thinking skills, and working to deadlines.

Attendance at the School Seminar Finishing Your PhD: Thesis, Viva, Training is strongly encouraged. This is aimed at year three and four students but year two are also welcome. It will be presented annually. This reminds students of the expected training in years three and four; describes the University requirements and standards for a PhD and how they are examined; gives advice on writing a PhD thesis and how to prepare for a viva; and outlines the forms to be completed.

You should attend the Department of Computer Science Postgraduate Workshop. This helps develop transferable skills such as communication skills, in particular listening and presentation skills, interpersonal skills, and critical thinking skills.

If your thesis is under preparation (about half finished) then your supervisor can request that you be exempt from the Third-year progress report and progress interview. Otherwise please send your report directly to your two IPAP members with copies to your supervisor and Alison by the end of May (for students who started in September/October/November). The report should consist of

• a time-tabled plan for the writing of the thesis,
• a draft Table of Contents for the thesis, and
• any papers that you have written during the course of your PhD.

Note that the report might well be quite short (if you haven't written any papers, then it will probably only be a page or two).

Sample year three progress reports from previous years for Abdulbasit Ahmed and Andrew Collins are available. Along with the End of Year Report please update and re-submit your Development Needs Analysis (see below). Dates for students starting at other times can be found here. This helps develop transferable skills such as communication skills in particular writing skills, analytical/logical thinking skills, organisational, project management and planning skills.

Update your Development Needs Analysis (DNA) in conjunction with your supervisors to help you and your supervisory team identify your training and development requirements. This will allow you to create your own programme of personal and professional development training alongside the core training. More details and the latest version of the form can be found on the Liverpool Doctoral College intranet site. Here are the development opportunities from the LDC. This helps develop transferable skills by analysing your current skill level and identifying development opportunities to improve weaker areas. Please update this and submit it to Alison and your IPAP members along with your End of Year Report.

Following the submission of your report and before the end of June you will have a progress interview. Your supervisor will schedule the interview and will arrange a panel of two to three academics to conduct the interview. Usually this will be your two IPAP members (or their substitute) one of whom will chair the panel. Your supervisor is encouraged also to attend. Alison know when this is scheduled. At the progress interview, you will discuss your report, the research completed, your progress, future research plans and your progress towards your thesis. The completion of training and DNA may also be discussed during the interview. A presentation is not normally expected but you can do one with the agreement of the interview panel. The members of the panel will fill out this feedback form, which should be returned to Alison. Once these are collected they will be returned to you. This helps develop transferable skills such as communication skills, interpersonal skills, the ability to learn and adapt, and critical thinking skills.

In June, you will be asked to complete an Annual Progress Report (APR) via Liverpool Life. This should be completed by all students regardless of start date. Your completed training, picked up by the system, is listed in a box on the report. Following this is a box entitled "any other training courses that are not mentioned above". If you have done all of the relevant things for your year but they are not listed in the box please give details. If you haven't completed the expected training, explain why and say when you will complete it otherwise your form will be returned to you. When you have completed the form, it will be passed electronically to your supervisor, the DDPR, and the graduate school. This helps develop transferable skills such as working to deadlines.

You must submit an Intent to Submit form at least two months before submission of your thesis. The form is available on the PGR Forms and Procedures web page.

When you have completed your primary research, normally at the end of 3 years full time study, you can transfer to "submission pending" status. The form is available on the PGR Forms and Procedures web page. Please check that this will not affect your funding before you do this.

Please see the Year 4 pages for information and advice about PhD thesis and viva, submitting your thesis etc

Training for Year 3

Successful completion of the training and progression tasks outlined above will result in the following training credits being added to your profile on Liverpool Life. (You don't have to worry about how to add these credits - we add them for you.) This is a expected part of your PhD.

• Departmental Training
• Computer Science Research Presentation CSCR016
• Computer Science Research Seminars
• Attend Postgraduate Workshop
• School Training
• Third-Year Report and Interview CSCR017
• Careers Development
• University Training
• Annual Progression Requirements PDRR003

University regulations regarding PhDs: Postgraduate Research Code of Practice