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"How far should I, as a PhD supervisor*, allow my students' work to stray outside my own area of expertise?" |
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Since research necessarily involves venturing into the unknown, it is not at all
uncommon, particularly in exploratory rather than goal-driven research, for the
next stages of students' work to require expertise outside that of their
supervisors. Where only a relatively small amount of reading or consultation
with other academics is required, supervisors may be happy to let students get
on with it, provided that they are kept informed, and to learn from or with the
students. Where the new expertise is considerable, however, a common solution is
to bring in additional supervisor. Joint supervision can have more than its fair share of problems. Neither supervisor is an expert in the other's field and students can all too easily find themselves pulled between conflicting advice. So a balance needs to be struck between constraining the research to stay within the expertise of the main supervisor and allowing full rein to students’ enthusiasm and independence. There is a lot to be said for this balance being as far towards the former as seems reasonable. Students generally agree, once they understand the reasons. It must be stressed that problems with joint supervision do not apply to backup supervision, where the main supervisor retains the overall responsibility while the backup supervisor provides support where necessary and if the main supervisor is temporarily absent. Neither do the problems apply where an experienced supervisor oversees the main supervisor while he or she is new to the job. Neither do they apply to panel or committee supervision where the roles and responsibilities of each supervisory member are negotiated and agreed at the outset of the programme of work and then reconsidered at defined points, ideally through a chairperson. edited extract from no 2 in the Guides series |
* This term is a shorthand for "research degree supervisor", and applies to varying extents to all research degrees: PhD, DPhil. MPhil and even undergraduate and masters' projects.
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