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Notes for Supervisors

1 Background

Each academic staff member is expected to supervise projects for MIT students enrolled in ITEC810.

Being an ITEC project unit supervisor means that you provide specifications for projects that you'd like to see students carry out, and you supervise the students as they carry out their projects. Both of these tasks are further described below.

• Specifying Projects
• Supervising Projects

2 Specifying Projects

Since there are typically around 30 students requiring projects each semester, all academic members of staff are asked to develop two (or more) short project specifications. It is in your interests to propose projects that are both attractive to you and likely to be attractive to students; otherwise, you might be asked to supervise a project defined by someone else. MIT students will be asked to select a project from amongst those on offer; alternatively, they may approach or be assigned to an appropriate member of staff with their own idea for a project.

A call for project specifications will be issued several weeks in advance of the commencement of each semester, so that we have a full complement of project specifications for students to peruse before the semester begins.

2.1 Project Size

ITEC810 projects are much smaller than honours projects: they take place over one semester, and are worth four credit points, accounting for 12.5% of the student's degree (in contrast, for example, with the 40% of an honours degree that an honours project represents).

ITEC810 is a four credit point unit, so the student is expected to spend 12 hours on the unit for each of the 15 weeks in the semester (the two-week recess is included in these calculations). When we subtract class time and time for other non-project-related items, this means that an ITEC810 project is something the student should be able to achieve working full-time on it for 4 weeks: see here for a more detailed discussion of the workload in the unit. It's very important that, when you specify your projects, you take appropriate account of what's feasible in this kind of time frame.

2.2 Project Type

It's important to recognise that the vast majority of the students who undertake ITEC810 are not going on to a research career, and this unit is not supposed to represent a research project in the conventional sense of that term. Please try to propose projects that are suitable in this regard. Suitable projects can include software development subtasks which are not themselves research tasks, but may serve as useful infrastructural contributions to your own research program.

When you propose a project, you should indicate whether it is an analysis project or a development project. The former typically do not require programming; the latter typically do. In the past, some of the students who did development projects have felt that those doing analysis projects have gotten off lightly, so it's important to ensure that analysis projects are not just an easy option; in particular, an analysis project must be more than simply a literature review or a review of the state of the art, and should involve a serious intellectual contribution beyond rote cataloguing.

2.3 Project Specifications

Each project outline should be no more than one page in length. It should consist of:

• the project title;
• the supervisor's name and email address;
• a clear statement of the aim of the project in around 100 words;
• a short description of any programming or knowledge prerequisites;
• the motivation for the project: why the project is important, in around 50 words;
• a very clear statement of the specific deliverable outcomes expected.

Note that, in particular, the specification should not say much about how to approach the project, since this is something the students will be required to write up in their own words as part of an assignment.

The information you provide in your project specification is available to students on the projects list web page, so it would be particularly appreciated if you would use this simple HTML template to provide the above information.

3 Supervising Projects

Supervising a project mainly involves providing guidance to the student via a one-hour weekly meeting or, alternatively, a 2-hour fortnightly meeting, and assessing a number of pieces of work by the student. This activity counts towards your workload: supervising two projects is deemed equivalent to one tutorial.

3.1 Workload

Here's a summary of the work expected of supervisors, with more detail on some elements of this further below.

• weekly supervisory meetings of 1 hour;
• helping the student develop an initial project plan;
• reading and commenting on the student's project proposal;
• reading and commenting on the student's report outline, and that of two other students;
• reading and mark the student's final report, and that of one other student; and
• attending the end-of-semester workshop.

Face to Face Meetings

You are expected to meet with your student for around 1 hour each week. Many of our students work full time and so are only able to be on campus outside normal business hours, so finding a mutually convenient time can be challenging. Please try to be as accommodating as possible; in most cases your schedule will be more flexible than the student's.

Formal Assessments

Students hand in a number of items of work for assessment during the semester; some are assessed by the unit convenor and some are assessed by the supervisor. The table below indicates who is responsible for assessing each assessable item, and also gives an estimate of the amount of work required of supervisors to carry out their assessments tasks.

 

Item	Length	Assessment Load	Submission Due	Assessment Due	Assessor
Weekly Progress Reports	Half a page	--	Friday every week	Same day	Convenor
Initial Project Plan	5 slides	--	Week 2	Week 3	Convenor
Project Proposal	5-6 pages	2 hours	Week 4	Week 5	Convenor
Ethics Assignment	5-6 pages	--	Week 8	Week 9	Convenor
Report Outline	5-6 pages x 3	6 hours	Week 10	Week 11	Supervisor
Final Project Report	40 pages x 2	10 hours	Week 13	Week later	Supervisor
Final Project Presentation	20-minute presentation	--	Week 13	Week 15	Session Chair
Class and Web Participation	--	--	--	Week 15	Convenor

Each time you are asked to assess a piece of work, you will be provided with an assessment rubric; rather than provide numerical scores, you are asked to indicate the level of the work by selecting one of a number of descriptive categories (Unsatisfactory, Functional, Proficient, Advanced) for a number of specific dimensions of assessment.

Note that, for the Report Outline, you are asked to assess the work of two students in addition to that of your own student; and in the case of the Final Report, you are asked to assess the work of one student in addition to that of your own. This is an attempt to achieve some calibration in marking.

Other Activities

You are also asked, if at all possible, to attend the end of semester workshop, and if so, possibly to chair a session. Currently the workshop is scheduled to take place the evening of Friday 4th June, so your student will be most appreciative if you schedule that into your diary at the beginning of semester to ensure that you can attend.

3.2 Timeline

Please note that students are asked to present a statement of the objectives of their agreed project at the first ITEC810 class, so it is essential that they meet with you during Week 1.

3.3 Responsibilities

Responsibilities of the Student

I will be asking students to take responsibility for all of the following:

1. Making initial contact with their potential supervisor.
2. Arranging a time to meet to discuss doing a project under your supervision.
3. Providing you with enough information to enable you to determine whether they have the necessary prerequisites to carry out the project.
4. Ensuring that you are comfortable that they can achieve the intended outcomes of the proposed project with what amounts to about four person-weeks of effort.

Responsibilities of the Supervisor

Let me know by email when you have formally agreed to take on a particular student for a particular project by emailing me the student name and project title.

Respond to student enquiries promptly, especially at key times such as when projects are being decided, and when assignment deadlines are approaching.