Supervision practices and supervision plan

• Writing a doctoral dissertation is a major project requiring long-term commitment. During your doctoral studies you have the right to receive guidance and supervision, but ultimately you are responsible for completing your degree.
• Maintaining a good supervision relationship requires that agreed deadlines are kept and the supervisor is kept up to date with the progress of your research. Always discuss any issues with the supervisor that may delay the completion of the doctoral dissertation, whether they be personal or setbacks in the implementation of the study. The supervisors must be able to plan their schedules without having to guess at the reasons behind or duration of the delay.
• Be active in asking for feedback and advice, and take the comments you receive into account in your research and studies.
• Adopt responsible conduct of research practices and general ethical rules as well as those specific to your discipline.
• At the onset of your studies, acquaint yourself with the degree requirements of your doctoral programme and make sure that you will complete your studies within the deadline provided. In most doctoral programmes this means that the studies required for the degree must be completed by the time you submit your dissertation for preliminary examination. You can, for example, record your completed studies in Thessa to keep constantly up to date on what you have done and what remains to be done.
• The supervisor plays a major role in ensuring that you will become a part of the community within your discipline as well as the more extensive academic community. However, this also requires that you are active in this regard. Participate in conferences, workshops and other events in your discipline. Find out what kinds of courses and events your doctoral programme and the doctoral school organise and be an active participant in the activities. Being active will help you build important networks for the future as well as receive peer support in your dissertation work.
• Annual registration is every student's responsibility. If you fail to register during the annual registration period, you will lose your study right.
• If thesis committees are in use in your doctoral programme, your responsibility is to arrange a thesis committee meeting at least once a year. If you are writing your dissertation as a part of a research group, you are also responsible for ensuring that you do your part in the research group.

All doctoral researchers are to complete a supervision plan with their supervisors at the onset of their studies. The supervision plan defines the rights and responsibilities of all parties and determines, for example, the division of responsibilities between the supervisors and the number of meetings. It is also recommended that the supervision plan be regularly updated according to changes in the circumstances. The supervision plans are drawn up in the electronic Thessa system used for the planning and monitoring of doctoral studies. Further information on the use of Thessa is available here.

In addition to the supervision plan, the doctoral student draws up a personal study plan in Sisu during the first year. The study plan must follow the degree structure of the student’s doctoral programme, and the exact content of the plan is agreed on with the supervisors. Especially the main supervisor is excepted to offer the doctoral student support in planning their studies. Go over the study plan with your doctoral student in the same meeting where you draw up the supervision plan.

In addition to making a Sisu study plan, it's recommendable to plant the entire research project in the My Thesis Project -section of Thessa. In the My Thesis Project -section, the doctora student can include information for example on the preliminary timetable of the doctoral research, planned conferences and publications, as well as any grants, scholarships or salaried periods received to fund the research project. Information on completed studies transfers automatically from Sisu to Thessa, so that the progress of studies can also be followed through a student's Thessa profile.

Study plans made at the start of studies are preliminary, and they can always be updated as studies progress and plans develop.

In addition to supervisors, each new doctoral researcher will be assigned a coordinating academic (sometimes also called responsible person, responsible professor or responsible teacher). The coordinating academic is either a professor at your home faculty or a docent employed by the faculty well-versed in the rules and practices related to doctoral education at the University of Helsinki.

It is the coordinating academic’s role to ensure the continuity of the supervision arrangements and assist you, for example, in finding a new supervisor, should your current supervisor, for one reason or another, have to give up the supervision duties. If necessary, the coordinating academic will also assist you in acquainting yourself with the rules of doctoral education and the dissertation examination process. In some doctoral programmes, the coordinating academic approves the studies to be included in your degree. When it's time to start the examination process, the coordinating academic makes the faculty a formal proposal on the pre-examiners and opponent to be named.

The coordinating academic’s duties do not include actual supervision responsibilities, but one of your supervisors may be assigned to be your coordinating academic, if they meet the requirements of the coordinator’s position. In this case, the person assigned will act in a double role as both your supervisor and your coordinating academic.

The doctoral programme, the discipline and the academic community partake comprehensively in the supervision of dissertations. The responsibilities are divided as follows:

• The doctoral researchers are expected to be active with regard to supervision.
• Each doctoral researcher must have at least one supervisor to assist them with the scientific content of research and to support them in their growth as independent researchers. 
• Other possible supervisors will be responsible for the supervision of the dissertation, especially from the perspective of the content.
• The staff and the steering group of the doctoral programme provide support in solving issues related to the supervision relationship when needed.
• Support services: The staff of doctoral student services will support and advise the students and, if necessary, also supervisors in the practical arrangements of the doctoral studies and the public examination of the dissertation.

The supervision can also be arranged so that some of the supervisors represent various disciplines, faculties or universities, or are from expert organisations outside the University. Outside supervisors should follow the practices of the doctoral programme and reach an agreement about the practical matters pertaining to the supervision relationship before they are assigned as supervisors.

The doctoral dissertation is the core of the doctoral studies, but they also include studies developing the student’s competence and expert skills in their own discipline. When considering doctoral education as a whole, the doctoral school, the doctoral programme, the faculty and the academic community all have a role to play. The doctoral school and doctoral programmes organise teaching suited to be included in the doctoral degree and communicate on it. When necessary, the advisors at the doctoral programme and the faculty instruct doctoral students in problems with supervision and other issues related to the students’ rights.

Both the supervisors and doctoral students are expected to acquaint themselves with the guidelines on the responsible conduct of research of the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK.

Often only one-on-one discussions with the supervisors are considered supervision. However, doctoral researchers should seek a wide variety of supervision for their independent study. Supervision and guidance alternatives include:

• Conferences, congresses, seminars and symposiums: It is a good idea to draw up the presentation in such a way that it is easy to comment on.
• Peer support from other doctoral researchers: Study groups, groups dedicated to commenting on each other’s work and other low-threshold forms of peer support are well suited to independent work.
• Doctoral student’s thesis committee: You will receive feedback from the thesis committee members on the progress of your studies at least once a year.
• Studies included in the degree: Feedback on the studies also determines the course the dissertation work will take.
• Students of other fields or friends: It is good to receive feedback on the intelligibility of the text also from individuals who are not versed in the subject of the research.

Due to the nature of research activities, it is important to set a timetable for the progress and completion of the doctoral dissertation at the very onset of the studies. It is also vital to monitor the student's adherence to the schedule, especially at the early stages of the work.