Minutes/20120821
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Minutes from the computer science PhD programme council meeting August 21, 13.15-15
Present
- Dilian Gurov
- Magnus Burenius
- Erik Fransén
- David House
- Raveesh Meena
- Erwin Laure
- Michael Schliphake
1. Agenda and minutes
Dilian announced that a new group in the CSC school, HPCViz (High Performance Computing and Visualization), has become part of the PhD program, with two representatives in the council. Karl was assigned to writing minutes.
The program website was briefly discussed. It was advised that all listed courses should be extended with information on when it is given next, if this information is available.
Quality of Courses
It was emphasized that the main instrument for ensuring quality is inspection and approval of course plans, which is currently done by Dilian and Erik. Dilian also mentioned that he currently recommends to school staff that all Masters level courses that are interesting to PhD students should be able to be taken at the research level, which can increase the number of quality courses over time. However, no specific funding is generally granted for admitting PhD students to such courses, or to adapt examination for such students. Erik considered this lack of funding a problem, but hoped that the problem could be solved if a proposition for revised course funding currently being discussed at the university level is adopted. No timeline for when this could happen was known, however.
Dilian mentioned that it has become difficult to get a website set up for courses. Michael agreed that the new system is problematic to use. Erik suggested that KTH Social could be used, and that problems should be discussed with website administrators.
Dilian stated that 1000 kSEK is available for course funding in 2012. One current proposed course from TCS is "Pearls in Theoretical Computer Science", which will cover many well-known results from several subfields.
Erwin asked if it was possible to make it obligatory for students to answer a course evaluation form in order to obtain credits. Erik saw no problems with doing so. Erwin then asked if there was a standardized evaluation form, which Erik did not know of. David mentioned that he had a set of five questions he often used that he would be willing to share. Karl mentioned that one important thing to ask students about is the time they spent doing homeworks and other examination.
Dilian stated that he wanted to rework the existing text on quality in the program description. Specifically, a separate and more detailed description on the improvement process would be the goal.
Quality of Work
The core suggestion for improving quality of work that were previously discussed were reiterated:
- presentation of thesis proposals
- yearly revision of study plans
- progress declarations by students and subsequent dicussion with staff
Erik suggested that a thesis proposal, or midterm seminar, could be colocated with a licentiate defense, after two years of studies. Dilian mentioned that his former university had a committee approve of a thesis proposal. David suggested that there are both upsides and downsides to having more people closely involved in the process - while they can give advice and ensure quality, they can become too invested in the results. Erik mentioned that in some fields, measurable progress is hard to get until late in the studies, perhaps even fourth year.
Erik suggested that students could give seminars each year for their groups, synchronized with conference presentations. Dilian recommended that the first such seminar would be given midterm, with a seminar one year after that, and the defense following one year after that. Defenses could also be set up so that the candidate is tested more, as opposed to having the opponent present the work.
Erik mentioned that he will soon announce that using plagiarism-checking tools on theses will be required. David said he would prefer to also have a requirement saying that theses should be checked by researchers in each group.
Erik asked if any present researchers would be interested in a seminar on research application rhethorics.
Dilian concluded the discussion on quality by setting the goal of producing a document with policies and rules related to quality.
Other items, incl schedule for next meeting
Dilian had no further information on program workshop funding. Karl highlighted that a new person to be responsible for the program website had to be found, since he was stepping down.
Next meeting is planned to Tuesday November 6 13:15 in the TMH library
