Form for annual review

The annual progress meeting should take place before the end of each complete year of studies. The purpose of the progress meeting is to help make sure your research is on track and to help you complete within the recommended timescale. It is a good opportunity for you to get feedback on your progress and to obtain ideas for your research. Although it is an assessment, and the examiners will be asked to complete a form recommending your progression to the next year of studies, you should not panic about the progress meeting as it is intended to be a constructive exercise.

The progress meeting is private and will consist of your supervisor(s) and at least one member of academic staff who is familiar with the general subject area of your research degree. You will be informed of the committee before the progress meeting takes place. Your supervisor will arrange the committee, you are expected to negiotiate a suitable time for the viva. The committee will discuss your progress so far and ask questions about the work you have done and the work you intend to do in the remaining timescale. The members of the committee will be asked to fill in the form shown below. This will be returned to the department and you will receive a copy.

Before the progress meeting you will be asked to write a report which you will send to the members of the committee at least 2 weeks before the defense. The report should be around 6 pages in length. Your supervisor(s) will give explicit advice on what to include in your report. As a minimum the report should include:

• the context of your research - what is the general area in which you are researching, what are the research questions you are investigating within this area and why is your research important (who will benefit from your research)
• a summary of the research you have completed in the previous year,
• what you intend to do in the remaining time,
• a detailed workplan for the next year of studies.

Separately you should also prepare a short report on what steps you have taken to completing the instructional training component of your research degree. This report can be compiled from the reports/activities you have completed in the previous year and should discuss what instructional training activities you wish to pursue in the next year.

Below are the questions the committee will be asked to answer on the report form that is completed after your annual progress meeting. A copy of this report will be returned to you and a copy will be included in your Departmental file. For each question I have given a brief explanation of what information the committee are looking for to answer the questions. Use this as a checklist to think about when preparing report.

1. Is there a clear problem statement?
   context - problem - proposed solution
By the end of your first year you should have established the main focus of your research, be able to demonstrate why this research needs done and why your solution is an appropriate one. Appropriate can mean different things depending on your particular field of research, e.g. a new theory, a new investigation, a new series of experiments, etc. By the end of your second year (for PhD students) you should have already made substantial progress on the research. The emphasis on new is important: research means doing something that no-one else has done. An important part of your first year report is motivating your research. At this stage you should be able to demonstrate that you understand the related research in your area, that you have identified a research question(s), that you have identified a possible solution to this problem and gone at least some way to achieving this solution.

From your report it should be clear:
i. What is the research problem you are tackling? What is the research you are tackling in general terms (what is the broad area of your research) and what is the specific research question(s) you are tackling?
ii. Why is this problem important? It is useful to think about why your research is important. In particular, who will benefit from your researcher (other researchers, the general public, information managers)? How will people benefit: what difference will your research make?
iii. What solution do you propose? At the end of your first year you should have at least identified a solution to your research question. Preferably you will have already developed part of the solution. You can demonstrate this in many ways: have developed an outline theory, run a small experiment, developed an initial methodology, developed a small prototype, etc. It is important, however, that the committee can understand what solution you are proposing as they will be able to give you feedback on how to progress the solution in your second and third year.
iv. How will you evaluate your solution? It is generally a good idea to think early on about how you will evaluate your solution (theoretically?, empirically?, qualitatively?). Depending on the nature of your research degree (there are many different ways of doing research) there may be different ways to evaluate your research aims but evaluation may take longer than you think. Feedback on this aspect may save time later.

2. Are the research issues clearly identified?
As noted above, it should be clear what are the research issues in your research degree. What is new, what is to be discovered, what we will learn from your research?

3. Is the foundational work clearly described?
        work that will be reused This is work that you have done that will form some part of your final thesis, e.g. the results of an experiment, a literature review that led to a particular approach, an outline of a theory etc.
        work that is related but will not be reused Research does not always follow a straight line and sometimes you need to try different approaches to get one that is suitable. You should outline work that will not form part of your final thesis or your ongoing research, e.g. maybe you tried using a software package that turned out to be unsuitable or tried an elicitation technique that did not give you the data you needed. This is useful to include in the report as it shows how you approached your research and that you have investigated different solutions.

4. Is the methodology clearly described?
Is it clear how you are carrying out the research? Having a clear methodology makes it easier to analyse your research, will save time because you will make fewer mistakes, and will make it easier to evaluate your research. Whatever your topic of research the methodology will be one of the main criteria for assessment in your final viva. It is therefore important that the overall methodology is established early on. If your work contains an empirical component you should try to establish clear hypotheses that can be tested.

5. Is there a clear workplan?
You should provide a workplan for the next year of study (and an outline for any subsequent years if appropriate). The workplan should be sufficiently detailed so that the committee can assess
   What you plan to do next month. What is the immediate next task that you intend to work on?
   How to reach closure. You cannot solve all problems in three years study. This is why all theses have a future work section. However, you should be able to outline the scope of your research: what targets you have set for the end of the period of study and how will you reach these? It is worth reading 'It's a PhD, not a Nobel Prize' on what examiners expect when reading a thesis.

6. Are there any unacceptable risks?
All research has some component of risk (otherwise it would not be interesting), the examiners here will be interested in what are the areas of risk in your research and to what extent you have considered these risks and tried to tackle the risks. For example does your thesis need the cooperation of external people (have they committed? what will you do if they back out?), does it need specialist data (can you get it? will it cost? what if you cannot get it?), are you relying on specialist technology (is it available? will it do what you want? what if it doesn't?). Unacceptable risks are those that would make it difficult to complete your research within three years or complete at all. It may be that your research goals are too big to be achieved within three years or that they are overly complex. The committee can advise on whether you need to reassess the risks and advise on possible solutions.

7. Is there a clear summary of the expected contribution to knowledge?
As before, you should state explicitly what will be the impact of your research. This can be at different levels: what is the immediate impact on your specific research community, what is the impact on computing science or information science, what is the impact of your research on the wider community. It is valuable to think this way to make sure you are tackling useful problems.

8. Can the candidate reasonably be expected to submit a high-quality PhD thesis within two years (or MPhil within one more year)?
The big question. Ideally, if you have convinced the committee on the questions above then the answer to this question will be 'yes'.

9. General feedback: have any opportunities been missed?
Any other feedback that the committee think may be useful. This can be to other reading, other research or ideas that you may not have considered. These are not intended to be criticisms; they are pointers to make sure you do not miss anything while you still have time to incorporate them into your research.

10. Comments on instructional training.
Each student is asked to update the panel on their progress in gaining instructional training credits. This final section allows the panel to comment on their progress so far. They should, by the end of their period of studies, have carried out sufficient instructional training activities to fulfil the university's requirements. Some of these training activities can be carried out as part of their annual progress meeting. If any student wishes to gain credit for activities related to their annual progress meeting then they should make this clear in the supporting documentation, e.g. I wish to be assessed on my ability to do..... This section allows you to comment on these specific activities, e.g. writing a literature review, demonstrating an understanding of appropriate research methodologies, etc.