History Faculty

H. Academic staff information

H.1 Graduate-related jobs and responsibilities: guidelines, timetables and procedures

See section D for an overview of administrative structures.

H.1.1 Admissions

The overall admissions timetable is controlled by the university, which specifies a series of application deadlines. An admitting body (viz., the History Faculty) may limit the number of deadlines at which it will accept applications. All properly completed applications submitted by these deadlines must be assessed within a time period (roughly six weeks after each application deadline) specified by the university. Applicants may be accepted unconditionally or conditionally, or rejected, or held over to the next deadline – or, at the decision point at the end of the last deadline into which the faculty has opted, placed on a waiting list. Applicants for most history programmes must apply by either November or January deadlines; they can expect to receive notification of the Faculty’s decision either in January/February or March/April. Some history programmes may operate to a distinct set of deadlines; any such exceptions will be noted on the admissions timetable.

It is emphasised that the university Graduate Admissions Office, which receives and processes applications before forwarding them to the Faculty, will not release to the Faculty any application that is missing any compulsory elements at the deadline (including references). If the deadline in question is the last at which the Faculty is considering applications for a given programme, then the application will never reach the Faculty. Any academic in contact with a prospective applicant should emphasise to them that it is essential that their application be complete by the deadline, and must ensure that any reference the academic has been asked to submit is in the university’s hands by the due date. If any special circumstances apply (for example, if a candidate learns that a potential supervisor has been appointed to a post in the university only after the relevant deadline), it is possible to present to the Head of Student Administration or to a member of staff in the Graduate Admissions Office the case for making an exception; however, exceptions will not be made lightly.

History Faculty admissions procedures are administered by the Faculty Graduate Office. Application dossiers are circulated in the first instance to ‘interviewers’ (who are responsible for overseeing the admission and progress of students working in their field), and then by interviewers to those they identify as potential supervisors. Both interviewers and supervisors are asked to assess the candidate’s acceptability; the faculty has designed a standard form for this purpose (though it is open to interviewers to reserve the filling in of this form for themselves). A potential supervisor must also indicate whether he or she is willing and available to supervise. No candidate will be accepted unless a properly qualified supervisor has been identified, even if the candidate is otherwise well qualified. Most of the work of assessing applications falls within two timespans: Christmas vacation and Hilary Term

A candidate who is offered a place by the Faculty is guaranteed a place at some college; the college place is allocated subsequently, taking into account the applicant’s expressed preferences. If a candidate is not admitted to one of their two colleges of choice, the Faculty will try to allocate them to a college in which one of the fellows has some interest in their field of study, but not usually the supervisor’s college, since there is merit in candidate’s having the chance to get to know other academics working in their field; colleges normally nominate a history fellow of the college as a ‘college advisor’.

Applicants who have been offered a place must have completed all conditions of admission (including supplying their college with financial guarantees) by early September. Normally about one third of applicants offered places decline, withdraw or fail to meet conditions. The Graduate Office aims to send out lists of students expected to start in Michaelmas Term to interviewers and course convenors in mid to late September.

H.1.2 Supervisors

Useful links:

For the university’s formal description of the responsibilities of supervisors and students, see Academic responsibilities; the University also publishes a more descriptive Codes of Practice for master’s programmes as well as for the supervision of individual research, enhanced by a Divisional Code of Practice which takes account of the specific setting of research in the Humanities.
For a more detailed account of the way in which the supervisor’s rôle may develop over time in relation to particular degree programmes, see Appendix: planning research.
‘Instructions to Candidates’ for the Faculty’s various master’s programmes, including information on submission deadlines and requirements, can be found on the electronic Graduate noticeboard.

Appointment and change of supervisors: supervisors are appointed by the History Faculty (in effect the DGS, on the recommendation of an interviewer in the first instance, in consultation with the potential supervisor). Sometimes two supervisors are appointed in the first instance; a second supervisor may be added at any time, if there is an academic case for it. Supervisors are normally expected to continue supervising students while on leave, though, if they are the sole supervisor and are working out of the country, a co- or substitute supervisor may be appointed. Supervisors who think that they lack the expertise to deal with a student’s project as that develops, or whose relations with a student break down, should contact either the appropriate interviewer or the Graduate Office to report the situation and ask for the appointment of either a co-supervisor or a replacement. Note however that graduates do not have the right to work on any project they wish, but only on projects for which the Faculty can provide an appropriate supervisor.

Advance contact with new students: supervisors are not expected to supply students entering taught courses with advance information about those courses or about any preparation the student needs to do for these, other than by directing them to the appropriate section of the Faculty website. In relation to students’ research projects and in the case of research students, supervisors should be ready to answer students’ requests for suggestions for background reading or other preparation. However, in view of relatively high withdrawal rates, supervisors should not feel obliged to initiate or sustain lengthy correspondences with prospective students who may not in the end materialise.

Initial meetings: all students, including students on taught courses, are encouraged to seek meetings with their supervisors before or around the start of term, and are asked to bring to these preliminary meetings a completed version of the training self-assessment checklist (see section A). Supervisors should discuss with students their developmental needs and priorities, and agree with them a programme of seminar or class attendance or other training, and forward the completed and agreed form to the Graduate Office, by mid-term at the latest. Supervisors should also discuss with students at such preliminary meetings a likely pattern of work towards the dissertation for the academic year. It is important to make clear to students that they will be expected to continue to work during vacations, and these cannot be regarded solely as holiday periods or opportunities to take paid work. Supervisors should be prepared to give students as much guidance as they need in bibliographical research (note that the faculty offers a series of induction sessions each Michaelmas Term, which provide general introductions to Oxford libraries and electronic resources, the Public Record Office etc; details of these are usually to be found in the Lecture List and on the electronic Graduate Noticeboard). It is helpful if supervisors can assure themselves at an early date that their students are competent in academic writing – in terms of facility in English, clarity and correctness of style, and mastery of good practice in referencing. Supervisors should be prepared to help students with all forms of academic writing on which the student will be assessed, including written examinations, of which not all students will have prior experience. If the student experiences serious difficulties with academic writing, the supervisor should help to identify possible sources of help or remedial training. Please note that masters students who wish to apply for places in the following year’s doctoral programme will need to submit applications, together with research proposals and samples of written work, by the middle of January at the latest: supervisors should ensure that the initial plan of work will help them to keep to that timetable.

Suggested aims and patterns of contact: in the case of new research students, it is good practice to set up an initial pattern of at least fortnightly meetings, in order to ensure that the student develops regular and effective work habits and is integrating into the Faculty's seminar culture, that the project is evolving satisfactorily, and also so that questions and confusions can be addressed without delay. In the case of students on taught courses, initial meetings may be less frequent, taking into account the demands of the course, but students should nonetheless be encouraged to begin firming up their dissertation projects, with a view to making use of the Christmas vacation to advance their thinking and knowledge further. A consistent pattern of meetings with students should be maintained throughout the student’s degree programme. Supervisors should not only respond to the students’ developing work, but also aim to help them keep to the timetable set by university and faculty requirements on the one hand, their own financial resources on the other. They should regularly review students’ training needs, and should encourage them to plan with an eye to their ambitions beyond as well as within the degree course.

Submission of and response to written work: supervisors should encourage students to submit written work on a fairly regular basis (in the form of a report on research undertaken, if nothing else is possible), and should aim to comment on both the presentation and the substance of this work, and to return it promptly. Responsibility for the standard attained by work formally submitted for examination rests with the student, but supervisors should aim to ensure that students are aware of the chief respects in which their work might be improved, and make suggestions to help them improve it. Supervisors may sometimes wish to annotate written work extensively, so as to alert students to problems in argument or presentation, but it is not appropriate for a supervisor to attempt to rewrite a student’s work; often it may suffice to offer highly detailed comment on an illustrative sample only.

Reports and feedback: the University requires supervisors to submit termly reports. An updated on-line Graduate Supervision System (GSS) has gone live University-wide at the end of Michaelmas Term 2008. Current supervisors will by now have received several invitations to use the system, and it is accessed through the Single Sign On credentials you use for instance for your WebMail and WebLearn accounts. These reports constitute an important form of feedback for the student, and also generate a formal record of the students’ progress. It is important that this record should be accurate and up-to-date (i.e., reports be submitted termly), not least since, if the student encounters serious problems later, the Graduate Office and in some circumstances the Proctors will refer to this record. The Director of Graduate Studies may also refer to reports in deciding how or how strongly to back a student’s funding application.

GSS is designed in such a way that it allows students to comment themselves on their progress, training, and future training needs in advance of the submission of the supervisor's report. We would be grateful if supervisors would encourage their students to make egular use of this opportunity (the Humanities Division has published some guidance for students intended to assist them in making effective use of this reporting tool). Whether in conjunction with self-assessment and report or otherwise, supervisors should plan occasional stock-taking sessions, at which the student’s progress can be more formally reviewed and discussed. Although it can be difficult to combine the supportive role of supervisor with the more dispassionate and perhaps critical role of assessor, supervisors should try to give students realistic feedback so as to help them make informed decisions about whether to apply to continue with research, what their career plans should be, etc.

Students encountering problems: GSS offers both student and supervisor the facility to alert each other as well as the student's college advisor and the relevant Director of Graduate Studies to any serious concern about a students’ lack of progress, or unforeseen difficulties they encounter with their research. This will at the very least ensure that all parties within the support network are aware of such problems at an early stage, and that appropriate advice and help can be put in place without unnecessary delay.

Progression: for a table setting out the overall timetable within which research students entering through different routes will be expected to proceed, see section A.2, and for further detail, section B.2. Students are responsible for completing, and where appropriate submitting to supervisors for signature, the various forms they need to submit at the several stages of their degree programmes: e.g. exam entry forms, transfer or confirmation of status forms, applications for extension or suspension of status, applications for the appointment of examiners (for copies of such forms, see Useful forms). When students apply for transfer or confirmation of status, supervisors should write reasonably detailed and not merely formulaic accounts of their progress. It may be possible to write such reports on the standard form (where it is likely also to be seen by the student), but often it will be helpful for the supervisor to write separately to the Graduate Office at or about the time when they sign the form; the Graduate Office will ensure that such letters are included when dossiers are sent to interviewers. Feedback from the assessors’ reports on transfer and confirmation is routinely sent to both supervisor and student.

Submission of M.Litt. and D.Phil. theses: students are responsible for supplying the supervisor with the form for the appointment of examiners (a copy of this form can be found in Useful forms). Supervisors are required to consult students about suitable nominees, but are not required to submit names the student suggests if the supervisor thinks the student’s preferences inappropriate. The final decision as to who to appoint lies with the Director of Graduate Studies.

Assessors’ feedback on dissertations and theses: supervisors are sent copies of examiners’ reports on their research students’ theses; in the case of taught course dissertations, a scheme to supply some form of written feedback is under consideration. In the event that the thesis is referred (or, in the case of a taught course, failed, but the student chooses to take up the option to resubmit or re-enter the examination), the supervisor is expected to work with the student to attempt to remedy the deficiencies identified. Responsibility for the standard attained by formally submitted work however always lies with the student.

H.1.3 Interviewers, and other faculty members performing certain interviewing tasks

Interviewers are appointed by the Director of Graduate Studies. Interviewers are not expected to continue as interviewers while on leave.

Interviewers are responsible for overseeing the admission and progress of students working within a particular field, defined by time period, region and or theme. Interviewers may not conduct transfer or confirmation of status interviews for their own students. When the student in question has the normal interviewer as a supervisor, the Graduate Office will approach another appropriate member of academic staff and ask them to take responsibility for leading the interview. All transfer of status interviews are (and, in problematic cases, confirmation of status interviews may be) conducted by two academics, the second being invited to act by the interviewer or interviewer’s deputy.

Interviewers’ main responsibilities are as follows:

assessing applications, circulating dossiers to potential supervisors, and returning assessed dossiers to the Graduate Office within the time frame indicated (this work largely falls within the Christmas Vacation and Hilary Term, except in the case of any programmes operating to a distinct set of deadlines; see the year’s timetable on the Graduate Noticeboard);
acquainting themselves with new students in their interview group, at induction events or seminar meetings, or via specially arranged meetings (start of Michaelmas Term);
conducting transfer of status interviews: these should normally be arranged before or in the early part of Trinity Term (in the case of students already in possession of masters degrees);
conducting confirmation of status interviews: usually in the second half of Hilary Term, except in the case of students who are granted postponements.

For the object and nature of transfer and confirmation of status, see section B)

receiving, reading and filing supervisors’ termly reports on students, and contacting the supervisor to discuss any problem cases.

Interviewers are encouraged to contact the Graduate Office or Director of Graduate Studies directly if they have any serious concerns relating to students that will not be relayed by ordinary reporting processes.

H.1.4 Training Advisors

The faculty aims to maintain a series of ‘core seminars’ which between them cover almost all fields of study within which the faculty’s graduate students work. In practice, these roughly but imperfectly correspond to interview groups. For these seminars, see D.2.

It is the responsibility of the Training Advisor to see that some such seminar (or perhaps in some cases, some set of seminars) exists for students in each interviewing group each term.

Also to ensure that, either in one or more of these seminars or another venue (e.g., a presentation day), all first-year research students have the chance to give seminar presentations, and that in each case one or two appropriate people are present to assess the presentation. For probation requirements, see section B; for forms to provide feedback to students and on which to assess presentations, see Useful forms. Training advisors may obtain from the Graduate Office a list of those required to give presentations in any given year. Note that compulsory presentations must normally be scheduled either in Hilary Term or in the first half of Trinity Term, to ensure that graduates have a chance to complete the requirement in good time (always allowing for the possibility that, because of illness or for some other reason, a graduate may be unable to give a presentation at the date initially scheduled).

The training advisor should also ensure that there are opportunities for advanced graduates to give at least one further paper before submission.

The Graduate Office will communicate to training advisors information about training opportunities. The training advisor should identify forms of training particularly appropriate for students in his or her field, and, either through the seminars or by other means, encourage students to take up these opportunities. Advisors are also asked to identify forms of training that are wanted or needed, whether potentially of interest to graduates in general or to a given group only, so as to be able to draw unmet training needs to the attention of the Director of Graduate Studies.

Training advisors are also encouraged to organise and attend a welcome event for new and old graduates in the first few weeks of each year, possibly in the form of a first meeting of the core seminar, which should also include some social dimension, and at which the interviewer (if a different person) should if possible also be present. At this welcome event, initial steps should be taken to try to foster a culture in which graduates see attendance both at research seminars and at appropriate training events as normal and indeed expected.

H.1.5 Convenors of taught programmes

Each taught course has a convenor, who is responsible for overseeing the development and implementation of the course programme. In the case of the MSt in History, strands in medieval, Commonwealth and Imperial and American history are usually coordinated by the relevant professor: the convenor has special responsibility for the modern British and European strand, as well as general responsibility for the conduct of the course as a whole.

Convenors usually meet with the new intake of students at induction meetings at the start of the academic year, and may have other contact with students in relation to e.g. option choices, monitoring progress or eliciting feedback. Convenors are encouraged to check with or refer to the Graduate Office any non-routine questions about regulations or procedures raised by students, in case there are relevant technicalities of which the convenor is unaware.

Some convenors work with formal committees who share responsibility for course management: thus the management committee of the Modern European History Research Centre in the case of the MPhil in Modern European History, the interdisciplinary management committee in the case of taught courses in Economic and Social history, and the Committee for Taught Courses in the History of Art in the case of the MSt in the History of Art and Visual Culture; others rely on informal interactions with course tutors. Convenors may receive some administrative support from local staff (see Section D.1 for an overview of current provision).

It is in the first instance the convenor’s responsibility to maintain a good selection of course options, and to negotiate with potential teachers about the devising of new options. Proposals for new options, or other substantial changes in the content of introductory or methodological courses, should be made on a standard form for new and modified graduate papers. Whenever possible, proposals for new options should be sent to the Graduate Office by the first week of Hilary Term of the preceding year, so that they may be laid before Graduate Studies Committee, and any feedback acted upon in time to publicise details in course information sent to students during the summer vacation.

Changes to the structure of the course requiring a change to course regulations (e.g., changes in the number or character of papers students must take, in the mode of assessment, or in submission dates) should be notified to the Director of Graduate Studies by Michaelmas Term if the object is that they should take effect for those commencing the course the following year. See detailed guidelines for changes in programme structure and assessment.

The course convenor is not responsible for the course examination, which is managed by a separate board of examiners.

H.1.6 Class leaders or convenors

Teaching for particular courses or options within taught graduate programmes is provided by members of the faculty or other appropriate specialists acting as class leaders (or class convenors, coordinating panels of teachers), working under the general supervision of course convenors.

Although classes are sometimes available to students following more than one degree course, all classes have a single parent degree course, and all students who wish to be assessed on their work for the class must conform to the regulations of the parent degree course in so far as the nature of assessed work is concerned, the conditions under which it is produced and submission deadlines. Tutors should refer to course regulations set out in section B, and satisfy themselves that they are familiar with assessment requirements for their option. These should be clearly stated to all students at any preliminary or initial course meeting, so that there is no danger that students imagine themselves to be operating under some non-applicable set of rules.

Class leaders should expect to be asked to act as assessors of their students’ work in formal examinations, and should not compromise their ability to act in that capacity by providing highly detailed comments on drafts late in the composition process; having made general or exemplary comments on early drafts is not considered to disqualify a tutor from acting as an assessor.

Research students or taught-course students who are completing their assessment requirements in other ways may (and are indeed encouraged to) attend taught-course classes, if the class tutor agrees that they may attend. It is perfectly acceptable (and arguably in the interest of other students) that such students should be allowed to attend only on condition that they participate fully: committing themselves to attending throughout the term, completing all compulsory assigned reading, and making presentations to the class if requested to take their turn at doing so.

Class leaders should contact convenors to discuss any issues or concerns that they have relating to their own options or the conduct of the degree course more generally.

H.1.7 Examining and assessing

Master's programmes:

Examinations for graduate taught courses are conducted by boards of examiners appointed by the Vice Chancellor and Proctors on the basis of nominations by the Faculty’s Examinations Committee.

Six boards of examiners oversee History master's examinations: one for the MSt and the MPhil in Modern British and European History; a second for the MSts in Global and Imperial History and in US History; a third for the MScs and MPhils in the History of Science, Medicine and Technology and in Economic and Social History; others for the MSt in the History of Art and Visual Culture, the MSt in Medieval History, the MSt in Medieval Studies, and the MSt and MPhil in Late Antique and Byzantine Studies.

Each board of examiners has a chair who is not normally the course convenor, and includes one or more external members. Chairs now normally serve for two successive years. Each chair will be supplied by the History Graduate Office with a ‘chairman’s book’, outlining main action points. Chairs should update this book, incorporating any advice they think it useful to pass on to their successors, and return an updated copy to the History Graduate Office at the end of their term of office.

Members of the faculty not appointed as examiners may nonetheless be asked to serve as assessors, grading particular pieces of work and reporting to the examiners. All examination elements have to be processed on a tight timetable, and it is vital that assessors complete the tasks assigned to them by the dates specified.

Administrative support for boards of examiners is provided by the Graduate Office, and sometimes also by local administrative staff. Internal and external members report annually to the university on the conduct and outcomes of examinations; these reports are reviewed by the Faculty’s Examinations and Graduate Studies Committees, as well as by the University’s Educational Policy and Standards Committee. They also go to Group meetings, and to the Faculty meeting. Anonymised versions of the reports are also presented to and discussed with members of the Graduate Joint Consultative Committee; from 2006-2007, it is intended to mount these also on the Graduate noticeboard.

Research theses:

M.Litt. and D.Phil. theses are examined by pairs of examiners, one internal, one external to the university, appointed by the Faculty on the basis of recommendations by the candidate’s supervisor, in turn reflecting consultation with the candidate. Examiners who agree to act are sent full instructions by the Examination Schools.

H.2 Payment, equity and relief

The faculty is committed to do what it can to ensure that the opportunities and burdens associated with graduate teaching are equitably distributed, and that, when some postholders carry relatively heavy responsibilities, this is taken into account in the allocation of other duties. Some graduate-related work is separately remunerated.

On average, postholders currently contribute to university teaching beyond their contractual obligations in order to maintain the faculty’s programme of graduate seminars and classes. The faculty continues to try to develop means of monitoring and regulating net undergraduate and graduate teaching burdens, and aims to work with central university bodies to find better means of distributing and limiting teaching commitments.

Payment:

The following graduate-related forms of work are remunerated at standard university rates:

supervising
examining and assessing

In relation to teaching and training provision: some divisional and faculty funding is available to pay for the teaching of certain graduate classes, and for graduate ‘training’, whether in the form of classes or individualised ‘special tuition’. Any faculty member who wishes to apply for payments of this kind, or to organise paid provision for a supervisee, should contact the History Graduate Office to establish what funds are available and which are best used for this purpose before any arrangements are made which presume the availability of funding. It is hoped that it will be possible in the near future to develop more systematic arrangements, which will then be clearly set out. – Until then we have provided forms for reporting on 'special tuition' and for claiming payment for any approved tuition.

Equity:

Supervision: interviewers are asked to try to ensure that supervision loads are reasonably equitably distributed (the assumption being that professors and readers should expect to carry greater supervision loads). Ideally, no CUF should be responsible for supervising more than six graduate students, no professor more than ten. It is understood that faculty members may also be supervising students from other faculties; they are encouraged to report their external loads to interviewers, if they feel that they are being asked to take on too much.

Examining: the work involved in assessing all forms of examined work for taught courses (except seminar presentations), and in conducting transfer and confirmation of status interviews, is taken into account in assessing the total examining burden carried each year by each postholder. Examinations Committee attempts to ensure that these are roughly equal.

Posts carrying faculty ‘relief of burdens’:

The faculty offers buy-outs from teaching, or money to be used for research support, to the following:

Director of Graduate Studies
Graduate Coordinator
interviewers (in respect of the work they do in connection with the admissions process, and in general oversight of their interviewing constituencies – work involved in conducting transfer and confirmation of status interviews being taken into account within their share of examining burdens)