Hi Dave,
We ask our students to discuss their dissertation ideas with relevant members of staff in advance of submitting a proposal. This gives them some initial feedback on the viability of their ideas and should mean that the proposal they submit is more than just a first stab/set of vague thoughts. On the proposal form they have to specify which members of staff they have met with. This helps with allocating a relevant supervisor (and should also help to avoid the kinds of misunderstandings you are worried about, especially as the proposed supervisor is already aware of the topic and has had some input).
Best of luck!
Julia
Sent from my iPhone
> On 6 Sep 2016, at 22:31, Dave Sayers <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Hi TeachLingers,
>
> (And a big hello to all you new members joining us during the annual recruitment drive!)
>
> In this year's card shuffle of departmental teaching responsibilities, I've been given overall responsibility for managing the undergraduate dissertations. This includes such excitements as:
> - deciding which students should be allocated to which members of staff;
> - hoping that neither the students nor my colleagues are offended that I fundamentally misunderstood their research interests;
> - cleaning up the mess if I did!
>
> I've supervised plenty of dissertations before, but never managed the whole process. And it seems an unusually tricky responsibility, with plenty of uniquely electrifying potential for disaster. Does anyone have any advice about the varied and intricate politics of this predicament?
>
> By way of adding something vaguely constructive here (in addition to just bleating), I've at least decided on a novel way to gather the students' initial research interests. In previous years I've seen colleagues do this by asking students to specify their interests at the end of the academic year before their final year, then allocating supervisees in the autumn on that basis. The inevitable result is a lot of students changing their mind! So I've decided to poll students afresh now. And to do this... (long-standing list members will know where I'm going with this...) I'm using Google Drive! Specifically I've designed a Google Form asking them the following questions:
>
> ==============================================
> 1. First of all, as briefly as you can, what topic do you think you'd like to do your dissertation on?
> [Paragraph text answers slot]
>
> 2. Was any member of staff's teaching particularly influential on your choice of dissertation topic?
> [Checkboxes against every potential supervisor's name.]
>
> 3. Which FIRST year topic(s) most closely matches your chosen dissertation topic?
> [Checkboxes against all our first year offerings.]
>
> 4. Which SECOND year topic(s) most closely matches your chosen dissertation topic?
> [Checkboxes against all our second year offerings.]
>
> 5. Are there other curricular or extra-curricular influences on your topic choice you think it would be helpful for us to know about?
> [Paragraph text answers slot]
>
> 6. Finally, do you think your research will involve human participants, or would your research be entirely based on documentary sources?
> Multiple choice:
> My research could potentially involve human participants.
> My research definitely will not involve human participants.
> ==============================================
>
> This is designed to help me work out who might make the best supervisor for them now, in a more informed way than just going on whatever was top of their mind in the spring.
>
> And the final question, number 6, is so that I can work out how many of them to enrol on my research ethics workshops! Last year these went well for those who attended, but not enough attended because they hadn't thought through whether they might (even possibly) involve human participants.
>
> Once I've got their responses I'll make a spreadsheet, also in Google Drive, so that all my colleagues can always see the latest version and I'm not stuck sending endless revised spreadsheets round by email (and dealing with old versions floating around confusing the whole process).
>
> (I have told this email list before, and I'll repeat again, I'm not on the Google payroll... honest.)
>
> Any advice much appreciated!
>
> Dave
>
> --
> Dr. Dave Sayers, ORCID no. 0000-0003-1124-7132
> Senior Lecturer, Dept Humanities, Sheffield Hallam University | www.shu.ac.uk
> Honorary Research Fellow, Cardiff University & WISERD | www.wiserd.ac.uk
> [log in to unmask] | http://shu.academia.edu/DaveSayers
>
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