Doctoral Programme in Reading and Comprehension

• Summary
• Structure
• Organisation
• Competencies
• Admission
• Research lines
• Quality

• Coordinators and Academic Committee
• Thesis supervisors
• PhD student monitoring
• Resources

MONITORING

Apart from the teaching workload in the doctorate programme specified in the corresponding regulation of each university, the programme will encourage the direction of doctoral theses of the teachers who are part of the programme through the following activities:

· Every year at the beginning of the academic course there will be a public session with students that still do not have assigned any thesis supervisor. There, teachers of the programme will inform the students on their specific research lines and their results so as to students can make suitable decisions regarding the field of their thesis.

· Co-direction of theses between senior and junior researchers will be encouraged so as the latter learn how to supervise. Following this objective, it is recommended that junior researchers start learning how to supervise by co-directing with senior researchers.

· Every two years it will be checked if there are researchers who are not directing or co-directing some doctoral thesis. If it happens to be the case, the director of the programme will analyse the circumstances and will provide the means for redressing the situation in the following period of two years.

It must be said that the activities mentioned have been already implemented in the doctoral programme, which has caused a wide participation of all researchers in the thesis direction.

When it comes to the thesis supervision, students will be subject to the regulation stablished in the Royal Decree 99/2011 28 January, by which official doctorate teaching are regulated.

In addition, since the Doctoral Programme is interuniversity, the corresponding agreement of cooperation will regulate specific conditions of enrolment and doctorate supervision. In that way, the current agreement stablishes that the student will be linked, to academic and administrative effects, to the university in which is enrolled and will be subject of all existing regulation related to it.

In the Universitat de València.

When it comes to the thesis supervision, students will be subject to the regulation stablished under the Royal Decree 99/2011, 28 January, in which official doctorate teachings are regulated.

The Regulation of Doctorate studies, approved by the Government Council of the Universitat de València ACGUV 206/2017, 25 July, amended by ACGUV/2018, 10 July, regarding the thesis supervision stablishes:

Article 3. The Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme

1. The Academic Committee of the Doctoral Programme is responsible for the programming, coordination and academic and teaching supervision of the programme activities.

4. The Academic Committee of the Programme has the following responsibilities:

a) To suggest in the Doctoral School the relation of possible doctors for the supervision and direction of a doctoral thesis, as well as the offered lines of research.

b) To propose the admission in the Doctoral Programme.

c) To allocate to each doctoral student the supervisors and tutors of the doctoral thesis, as well as justifiably approving its modification.

d) To make public the required proceedings so as to ensure the quality of doctoral theses in both, their elaboration and the assessment process, before its deposit.

e) To assess every year the personalised document of activities and the doctoral student’s research plan.

f) For the purpose of awarding the international mention in the doctoral degree, authorising the stay and activities carried out in another State, either in a higher education institution or in a research institution.

g) All of those competences needed for the correct development of their functions.

Article 4. Doctoral Theses tutors

1. Once admitted and enrolled in the doctoral programme, all doctoral students will be assigned by the corresponding Academic Committee a tutor, a doctor with recognised research experience, linked to the unit or School organising the programme, within three months.

2. It is the tutor’s responsibility to ensure the interaction of the doctoral student with the Academic Committee and, specially:

a) taking responsibility on the suitability of the doctoral student’s training and research activity in accordance with the programme;

b) guiding the student in the choice of courses, seminars and other non-formal activities addressed to training research.

Article 5. The supervision of doctoral theses

1. The academic committee responsible for the programme will assign each doctoral student, within a maximum period of three months from enrolment, a doctoral thesis supervisor, who may or may not be the same as the tutor. This assignment may be allocated to any doctor with duly recognised research experience, regardless of the university, centre or institute in which they work. A doctoral thesis can be co-supervised by a maximum of three doctors.

2. No doctor from the Universitat de València may supervise or co-supervise over than 10 theses simultaneously.

3. The supervisor may waive the direction, writing the opinion expressed by the Doctoral Programme Academic Committee that meet the request and shall appoint another supervisor to continue in the doctoral programme.

4. For justified reasons, the Academic Committee may amend, hearing the doctoral student and supervisors, the appointment of the supervisor of doctoral thesis at any time of the completion of the thesis.

5. University regulations involving the activities of the research staff will establish the credit equivalence of mentoring and supervision of doctoral theses.

Likewise, the Article 9 states that “The Universitat de València may formalise agreements with foreign universities to develop doctoral theses in co-supervision regime. In this case, the doctoral students will carry out their thesis work under the control and responsibility of at least one thesis supervisor from each of the universities signatories of the agreement Universities.

www.uv.es/escoladoct/REGLAMENTOS/Reglamento%20de%20Estudios%20de%20Doctorado_cas.pdf

The Universitat de València has a “Doctoral Commitment Document” approved by the Doctoral Sub-commission on 17 October 2011, in which rights and respective commitments and mutual obligations of members are defined. This has the aim to ensure the achievement of objectives defined in the Programme during the period for doing the doctoral thesis, and the signatory of the document of doctoral commitment. In summary, in this document there are stablished:

- Mutual commitments in the establishment of a mutual collaboration.

- Obligations and commitment of the thesis supervisor are defined: regulatory commitment, motivation of autonomous initiative, original and innovative nature of the project, as well as coherent with the line of research.

- Obligations and commitment of the doctoral student: Informing the supervisor regularly on the work evolution, its results and commitment to follow the instructions made by the supervisor.

- Confidentiality with provided data and information and commitment for using that information on the corresponding purposes, Intellectual Property Regime, recognising the corresponding copyright according with the current law to the doctoral student.

- Conflict resolution, in which the Coordinator of the Doctoral Programme should act as a mediator.

In addition, thesis presentation with international mention will be promoted, since students of the programme will carry out 4-months-duration-stays, at least, in foreign centres in which exists a close relationship. The work carried out in these stays will be a starting point for the development of theses with international mention. It will also be promoted that doctoral student’s supervisors in international centres take part as supervisors of thesis reports and that participate in its evaluation boards.

The Guide to Good Practices of the UVEG stablishes, as a summary, the following advices: (Check the following link for seeing the full document:

https://www.uv.es/escoladoct/NORMATIVA/CODIGO_DE_BUENAS%20_PRACTICAS_ED-UV.pdf

Psychology of the thesis supervisor

The supervisor must provide encouragement, personal support and guidance in every stage, act as a mentor and teaching the doctoral student the learning process. Furthermore, the supervisor must teach the doctoral student to grow professionally and personally and to be responsible regarding professional ethics. The supervisor has also to be a good research model.

Responsibilities of the thesis supervisor

It is responsibility of the supervisor helping the student to choose the field of the research, showing him/she which are the expected results, planning a coherent research programme with reasonable objectives, monitoring the research progress and offering technical support and help in the problems resolution, in the search for information and in the application of research techniques.

The supervisor must guide the doctoral student for understanding the nature of the research and in the main aspects it should cover. The supervisor must prepare an individualised research programme including the targets that must be accomplished, the bibliography and other additional sources of information, research methodologies that will be applied and a description on other courses and seminars regarding the academic background of the doctoral student.

What’s more, the supervisor must be certain on the fact that the programme can be completed successfully within the stablished deadline and monitoring closely the doctoral students work. If the research task does not progress properly, the supervisor must inform the student immediately.

It is recommended to discuss the progresses that the doctoral student has made, at least, twice a year. During the monitoring, the supervisor must correct the doctoral student’s written material on the research and guide the student for carrying out the research report, as well as help to plan the thesis defence. This guide recommends some books for learning to write better so as to the supervisors can inform the students about them.

The supervisor must inform the student on the doctorate regulations and help he/she in the administrative tasks. In addition, the supervisor must introduce the doctoral student in the dissemination tasks of scientific knowledge, starting on the presentation in seminars of the department itself and continuing with the attendance to external congresses.

How to ensure the supervisor’s quality?

A minimum time of supervision must be stablished, reducing the maximum number of students by supervisor, implementing training courses for directors, organising regular meetings for exchanging the views on the project between thesis supervisors, making joint decisions on the suitability of the doctoral student’s continuity, the suitability of doctoral students regarding their abilities, their thesis subject, their experience as researchers and the similarity of the supervisor with its proposed fields.

Level of satisfaction of the doctoral student and the supervisor

The main needs of doctoral students are related with the search of literature, choose of research field, advice and support in plans for the future and integration in the academic community. In this way, supervisors must ensure that those are fulfilled, taking into account the personality of the doctoral student and changing the course of action depending on the thesis development. This is why many times the direction process is improvised depending on the doubts or concerns. It is therefore usual that at some point during the research and the guiding process there are disagreements. At this moment, the given advice is that the supervisor will not always have to achieve the doctoral student’s satisfaction or fulfilling accurately the objectives set up by the institution.

Guide for choosing the thesis supervisor

Choosing a “compatible” supervisor will always be one of the keys for success for the doctoral student. The first step is choosing a topic that you find interesting and, then, looking for a supervisor who works in this line of research. An advice will be to ask to other doctoral students the relationship they have with their supervisor.

What is more, choosing the supervisor involves the inclusion of his/her work group, and it is important feeling supported by the people around you.

Other advices that must be taken into consideration when working in a research group is not avoiding foreign supervisors, not comparing yourself to other workmates and prove your value as soon as possible. If, once having choose the supervisor you are not satisfied with his/her work, it is advisable to talk to him/her for trying to solve the problem, and if it cannot be solved, talking to the coordinator of the doctoral programme so as to the doctorate committee covers t.

Quality assessment of the supervisor’s work

The doctoral programme will try to ensure its excellence. What is more important is being sure that the proper time has been dedicated to the student. In addition, an assessment plan of supervisors based on interviews to programme students who have completed the doctorate, regular meetings between coordinators and students, the inclusion in the annual report of each director of the quality of its supervision, making confidential reports and doing work groups on specific topics for ensuring the anonymity or confidentiality of the obtained information.

MONITORING OF PHD STUDENTS

The monitoring of doctoral students will be done following the regulation of the universities of Valencia and Salamanca for their corresponding students that are mentioned below: The procedures of the academic committee for assigning a tutor and supervisor will always be ruled by the following criteria:

· Having been the supervisor of the master’s degree final project of the student.

· Being grant holder in a research project with funding in which the tutor and supervisor are members of the research team.

· Student’s research interest in common with the research experience of the programme lecturers.

The control of the doctoral student’s Activities document, as well as the data certification will be executed by the tutor or supervisor of the thesis, if has already been assigned. The tutor or supervisor will inform the academic committee of the plan degree of fulfilment. The academic committee will annually assess the plan’s execution, taking into consideration the level of commitment of the student, total or partial, issuing a report in which achievements and improvable aspects are expressed in the next assessment period. For those students enjoying some grant which funds his or her doctoral studies it will be a requirement that the plan of activities includes stays in other foreign research centres from the moment the grant allows to request mobility grants. All of the programme grant holders must stay, at least, 4 months in foreign research centres. In any case, the researcher in charge of the foreign centre will issue an inform on the stay that will be part of the student assessment.

Besides, the applicable regulations to each student will be the one ruling the university in which he or she is enrolled. In the Universitat de València it is:

www.uv.es/escoladoct/REGLAMENTOS/Reglamento%20de%20Estudios%20de%20Doctorado_cas.pdf

When it comes to stays in foreign centres, all full-time students who have obtained any type of external funding (such as a research grant or another type of funding) will have to stay at least 4 months in foreign research centres (at least 3 months in European countries). Stays will be voluntary (regarding both, a national or international destination and duration) for full-time students without external funding, as well as to part-time students, so as to have into consideration their labour and economic circumstances.

Since all full-time students with external funding must stay at least 3 months in a country of centre of Europe, which is the minimum required for obtaining the title of doctor with International/European mention, it is expected that all full-time students obtain this mention. The regulation concerning this aspect appears in the point 5.3 of this application dossier.