Postgraduate Orientation Seminar Dr. Christopher Staff Chair, Faculty Postgraduate Subcommittee Faculty of ICT

2 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff Overview Introductions What’s expected of a research degree? Significant Information from Regulations Maintaining contact with your supervisor What to do if you don’t get on with your supervisor What to do if you have problems with your research Access to Digital Libraries Workshop in ICT Other resources

3 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff Introductions Who are you? Who’s your supervisor? What’s your area of research?

4 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff Expectations MSc/MPhil/PhD have slightly different expectations: All require originality PhD in addition, requires significance But remember “Ideas do not have to be correct in order to be good; it’s only necessary that, if they do fail, they do so in an interesting way” - Robert Rosen

5 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff Regulations - MSc 52. (1) Dissertations presented for a Master ’ s Degree shall: (a) be work of an advanced or original nature in the area of study; (b) satisfy the Board of Examiners as regards content and presentation; and (c) fulfil the requirements as provided by relevant bye-laws and guidelines as regards format and length. (2) Prior to submission, the student shall seek the written permission of the Principal Supervisor, which shall be attached to the thesis, provided that a student may opt to submit his thesis notwithstanding any negative advice from the Principal Supervisor. (3) No dissertation shall be accepted which is identical in substance to a document already submitted for a degree in this or any other university or to any other published material. No students shall, however, be precluded from incorporating such previous work as may be necessary to the presentation and fuller understanding of their exposition, provided that the nature and extent of such incorporation are clearly indicated in the dissertation itself.

6 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff Regulations - MSc 53. (1) After examining the dissertation, the Board of Examiners may approve it unconditionally or subject to correction of minor errors to the satisfaction of the Principal Supervisor and admit the student to an oral examination. (2) If the Board of Examiners is not satisfied with the quality of the dissertation, it shall not admit the student to an oral examination and shall either: (a) refer the dissertation back to the student for major revision and resubmission within six months in revised form to the satisfaction of the Board of Examiners; or (b) not grant permission to resubmit and state that the degree be not awarded. (3) Students who fail to satisfy the Board of Examiners in the oral examination may be given permission to re-submit the dissertation after making changes as necessary and be re-examined orally within a period of six months. Such permission shall be granted once only.

7 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff Regulations - MSc 55. (1) Students registered for a Master ’ s degree by research may be required to support the Faculty ’ s teaching activities and/or provide laboratory demonstration service for up to a maximum of 100 hours a year, provided that these duties do not conflict with their research work and that students may be exempted from this requirement for a good and valid reason.

8 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff Regulations - MSc Dissertation - 84 ECTS Study-unit - 6 ECTS Length of dissertation - 45,000 words Must pass both study-units to be awarded degree

9 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff Regulations - MPhil/PhD You are initially registered to MPhil You will be eligible to upgrade to PhD after 12 months (FT) or 24 months (PT), following presentation of work completed and to be done to a board

10 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff Regulations - MPhil/PhD 7. Further to regulation 9 of the Regulations, the student shall submit a written application requesting the transfer to the Ph.D. degree, together with a summary of the work carried out by him/her, preferably in the form of a technical report. The Board would give favourable consideration to work published or accepted for publication in refereed technical journals and conferences. The report shall also include a research proposal for the Ph.D. degree which shall indicate clearly the research questions in the field to be addressed, the hypotheses to be tested, and the methodology to be adopted in dealing with the research issues. Where necessary, the student may be required to demonstrate competence in those skills required by the nature of the investigation.

11 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff Regulations - MPhil/PhD Thesis length MPhil: 50,000 words PhD: 60,000 words

12 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff Regulations - MPhil/PhD 41. (1) The examination of doctoral theses shall take place in two stages: (a) submission by the student and preliminary assessment by the Board of Examiners; and (b) oral defence of the thesis. (2) In assessing a thesis, the Board of Examiners shall require: (a) evidence that it represents a significant contribution to knowledge in a particular field of study; (b) evidence of originality; (c) evidence of the ability of the student to relate the subject matter of the thesis to the existing body of knowledge; (d) evidence of the ability of the student to apply research methods appropriate to the subject; and (e) a satisfactory level of literary presentation.

13 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff You and your supervisor It is your responsibility to keep in touch with your supervisor You should make arrangements to meet as often as you and your supervisor require, at a time agreed between you Don’t wait for next meeting if you have a problem! Supervisor will normally try to contact you if you haven’t been in touch for a while

14 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff Regulations Postgraduate Harmonised Regulations (Masters) Postgraduate Harmonised Regulations (Masters) MSc Bye-Laws Doctor of Philosophy Regulations MPhil/PhD Bye-Laws

15 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff You and your supervisor MSc students have Panel of Supervision that meets at least twice per year MPhil/PhD students have Progress Report once per year

16 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff You and your supervisor What to do if you don’t get on with your supervisor Talk to supervisor Talk to Head of Department Talk to me, or your departmental rep on the PG subcommittee Talk to Faculty Officer/s Talk to Student Advisory Services

17 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff You and your research We hope that you’ll have an event-free research experience But do expect the unexpected - things can and usually do happen to throw your research off the rails for a while Sometimes, this may take a long time to resolve It’s important we know early!

18 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff Access to Digital Libraries University has agreements with ACM, IEEE, Springer-VerlagACM IEEESpringer-Verlag You normally need to create an account or register (free) with the DL provider Currently, you need to access the DLs from the campus network

19 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff Workshop in ICT National conference on ICT organised by Faculty of ICT November

20 of 20 University of Malta Postgraduate Orientation Seminar © Chris Staff Other Resources Plagiarism… and How to Avoid it How to Write a Literature Review