Welcome to your Research Degree!!¶

Your Research Degree Coordinators¶

  • Dr Carlos Moreno-Garcia (Computing), Office N428
    • c.moreno-garcia@rgu.ac.uk
  • Dr Taimoor Asim (Engineering), Office N428
    • t.asim@rgu.ac.uk
  • Dr Mohamed Amish (MRes), Office Space N447
    • m.amish-e@rgu.ac.uk.ac.uk
  • Shared Mailbox for all RDCs
    • SOCET-RDC@rgu.ac.uk
  • Shared Mailbox for office staff to deal with Research queries
    • SOCET-ResearchAdmin@rgu.ac.uk
    • Managed (mostly) by Lynne Brien

Useful info¶

  • Academic Regulations for Research Degrees (A6)
  • Research Degree Administration
  • SoCET Research Student Handbook
  • SoCET-Research Teams channel
    • Has info on general announcements, funding, seminars & research groups
  • SoCET-ResearchStudents Teams channel
    • Has info exclusive for you!
  • Please send an email ASAP to ResearchAdmin if you cannot see these Teams!
  • Your class reps: Akech Kuanyin Malang & Harini Sampath Kumar

What is a PhD?¶

What is a PhD

What is NOT a PhD?¶

  • A project with a start and an end
  • A project that addresses one particular problem or that can save a lot of money
  • A personal milestone (or for grade inflation)
  • I STRONGLY recommend you to read this paper and this post to see what I mean!

The (typical) PhD journey¶

PhD Timeline

  • MRes is just the first three months, then thesis write up and examination (Month 12-24)

Paperwork!¶

Registration¶

  • All the information on how to do your registration can be found here
    • There are many forms (or a unified one) but still, you need plenty of time for this!
    • You have 3 months to register!

Annual Review Meetings (aka RSR September-November)¶

  • All students $\geq$6 months from registration
  • You need to fill in the Annual RSR form (part 1 and 2) and submit it using this link
  • Then, your supervisor will get a notification to fill in part 3 and notify the RDCs about this
  • After forms have been collected, you can schedule a meeting with your RDC/group lead for your RSR interview
    • Who you do the meeting with and how to schedule it depends on the RDC
    • This will be communicated when the time comes

Interim RSR Meetings (February)¶

  • You only need to fill in the Interim RSR Form and submit it (no meeting unless there's risk)

Other docs¶

All of them available here

  • RDT: To declare yourself ready for the transfer viva
  • RDS: Change of supervisor (hope you never use it!)
    • For some reason it is on the "staff side" but in fact it is only used by the student!
  • RDInterrupt: Break from studies (same!)
  • RDDecl: A declaration which you should add to your thesis when you submit it
  • RDE: Your supervisor uses this to nominate your examination team and viva date

Computing Resources¶

  • We've collated a list with some GPU and LLM providers!
    • Also available in the SOCET-ResearchStudents tabs
    • Feel free to add anything you know!
  • Plus the DGX...
  • Don't use Anaconda!
    • unless you're teaching?!
  • Speaking about LLMs...
    • The Graduate School has a very strict policy on not using them for your PgCert reports and your thesis!
    • Be sure you check the guidance on LLM usage if you are submitting a paper to a journal/conference

Engineering Resources¶

Eng Resources

Communication¶

  • Please check your email and MS Teams messages/announcements at least once a day!
  • Also check your calendar; some times the people send invitations directly, so be sure you know where you have to be!

Attendance¶

  • Full-time students are expected to be on campus AT LEAST 3 days per week
  • We will be checking this, as it is necessary for you to comply with your visa requirements
  • We are aware that some of you have part-time jobs or other commitments
    • Be honest about it!

Supervisory Meetings¶

  • AT LEAST once every two weeks
  • Supervisors have to fill in this form after every meeting, but students are encouraged to send a weekly email to their supervisory team with their "side of the story" and keep a record!

Spaces¶

  • N436 and N536 are open plan hotdesking areas for all PGR students!
  • Students shouldn't go into N447
  • Be respectful in the hubs, no noise!
    • There are plenty of rooms that can be booked for meetings! Email PGRBooking@rgu.ac.uk or SOCET-Timetabling@rgu.ac.uk to find out more about the rooms that can be used (and to reseve them!)
  • You can even go to the Library and the Student Union to work and meet!

Research Culture¶

  • Do you belong to a research group?
  • Do you know which theme(s) is your PhD lined up to?
  • Are you aware of the School Seminars?
  • Do you know if there are any societies in Scotland, the UK or the world, that support your activities? e.g. SICSA, IEEE, SULSA, SINAPSE, SPIE, etc.
  • By the way, the SICSA Conference has just been announced, I encourage all computing-related students to attend!

Exposure¶

  • This will be reviewed during your RSR meeting
  • Worktribe and OpenAir
  • Google Scholar
  • ORCID
  • Other ways to disseminate your research (e.g. personal website, GitHub, Social Media, etc.)

Conferences and Journals¶

  • Your supervisor is usually the one that guides you into which ones should be your go to journals and conferences
  • However, you are free to explore as long as you keep in mind the quality of and the reputation of the outlet
  • You should use ranking systems such as JCR and SCIMAGO (journals) or CORE and ConfRanks (conferences) to inform your decision!
  • For instance, in the Interactive Machine Vision Research Group we have a shared document where we keep track of journals and conferences that are relevant to us!

Templates¶

  • Forget about MS Word (and possibly even PowerPoint!), we have better tools to write
  • Get into LaTeX, we use Overleaf to provide you with a template which you can use for all of your submissions!
  • If you want Premium access, you can transfer the ownership of your project to socet-researchadmin@rgu.ac.uk
  • We also have a Beamer (slides) template

Travel¶

  • Students must disclose their plans during the RSR meeting; these can be reviewed in the interim one (Feb)
    • No record, no travel!

  • Travel must be notified with the following minimum notice:

    • 2–4 weeks for Aberdeen-based or no‑cost/no‑booking travel
    • 4–6 weeks for UK travel
    • 10–12 weeks for Overseas travel (longer if visas are required)
  • Requests submitted one week or less before a conference registration deadline will be automatically declined unless you provide a strong justification for the delay.
  • The admin team has created this comprehensive SharePoint site covering all aspects that you should know
  • Main things to consider:
    • Pre approval first, booking second
      • Bookings MUST be done by the school!
    • Keep in mind the budget limits
      • You have a 1000 GBP/year "budget"!
    • Don't book anything yourselves, otherwise insurance won't cover you and you won't be reinbursed!
  • Your travel budget can be topped up looking for mobility grants
    • Conferences offer them
    • Some funding bodies give you money for that
    • Sometimes there are calls from the aforementioned societies + the fee discounts you can get for being a member and a student
  • Also, consider research stays as a way to move around!
    • Trickier if you need to comply with Visa regulations, but still something to think about!

When/Who/Why to Contact¶

  • Director of Studies (i.e. your principal supervisor):
    • Your PhD work
    • Annual leave (then inform ResearchAdmin)
    • Activity Report (your side of the story)
  • Grad School:
    • Forms
    • PgCert
    • Viva (cc'ing RDC and ResearchAdmin)
  • RDC:
    • Problems!
    • Transfer Viva
      • cc'ing assessor & ResearchAdmin
      • once DoS agrees and docs have been submitted to the Grad School

Questions?¶