Goal
The purpose of the Annual Review is to offer students structured feedback between their candidacy exam and their dissertation defense. This will allow the committee to become more familiar with the student’s work over time, and will allow the student to receive constructive feedback while their research is in progress.
Process
Students will meet with their committee in the fall no sooner than 1 year after passing candidacy. The graduate office will communicate a calendar of staggered deadlines to serve as the timeline for completing the submission of all paperwork for the Annual Review process.
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Annual Review forms will be sent out over DocuSign by the Graduate Coordinator shortly after the 4th class dayin early June. The forms linked to this handbook page are for your information only. The student will complete an Executive Summary that includes an Individual Development Plan as well as the Annual Review Update Form. The Graduate Office encourages students to share drafts of these materials with their advisor prior to completing the forms in DocuSign. The advisor will approve of the materials and then the materials will automatically route to the rest of the committee. The committee will review these documents and submit feedback, viewable only to the advisor. The advisor will collect the feedback and discuss it with the student. The student will then schedule meetings with the committee and send a follow up email to the committee summarizing the discussion. The student will then submit all documents to the graduate coordinator, who will file the annual review in the student’s file.
Process Summary
- The student will complete an Executive Summary and the Annual Review Update Form. This will be submitted via DocuSign and will automatically route to the Advisor.
- The committee will review these documents and submit feedback via DocuSign, which will automatically route back to the Advisor once complete.
- The advisor will collect the feedback and discuss it with the student.
- The student will then schedule meetings with the committee and each committee member will sign the signature form to indicate that the student’s work and future plans are satisfactory.
- The student will send a summary of the discussions held with the committee to each member.
Individual Items (Forms)
Executive Summary
Students will be required to prepare a 1-page, single spaced executive summary of research progress to date since the last examination. Beyond research, this document should also include an “Individual Development Plan” discussing future plans and strategies for personal and career development (approximately ¼ of the page). The graduate office has provided numerous resources below for completing the Executive Summary. The Executive Summary and Annual Review Update Form should be sent to the committee 6 weeks prior to the deadline given by the Graduate Office. You will be prompted to upload a PDF of your executive summary to the Annual Review update form through DocuSign (see the final bullet point in the next section for more information).
Annual Review Update Form through DocuSign
The Annual Review Update Form will be sent to the Graduate student at the beginning of the fall semester after the 4th class day summer through DocuSign. The student should complete this form as quickly as possible so their committee can begin reviewing it.
A few helpful tips for filling out the form in DocuSign:
- Use the yellow Auto-Navigate prompt button rather than the tab key to complete the form. You will be required to click through each step of the Auto-Navigate system regardless of whether the field has been completed.
- The Auto-Navigate will also require you to click through each radio button (round button) even though you should select only one radio button for each question.
- When filling out information about courses, insert the word "transfer" in the year and semester field if you took a course or its equivalent at a different institution. If you took more than 10 courses, only list the three required courses (Thermo, Transport, Kinetics) and 7 others that are relevant to your research.
- If a committee member prefers to sign on paper, they can read the simple instructions of how to complete a paper signature on the DocuSign support page. The signed form should then be re-uploaded to DocuSign, following these instructions.
- If you have more presentations or papers to report than space allows in the form, type these achievements up in a separate document. Save the additional information as as PDF and combine this document with the Executive Summary. Upload any additional information like this in a single document with the Executive summary when prompted by DocuSign.
Initial Feedback from Committee
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The committee will submit feedback to the student’s advisor, based on the materials contained in the Executive Summary and the Annual Review Form. The committee is asked to rank the student’s progress as “excellent,” “satisfactory,” or “needs improvement.” It is expected that most students’ progress will be ranked as “satisfactory.” If, however, a student is ranked as “needs improvement,” the committee Committee members should offer feedback on how a student can improve. Concrete and measurable feedback will help the student improve their performance in the program. In fact, 64% of current graduate students in the department prefer corrective feedback to praise or recognition according to a 2019 survey conducted by the CHE Graduate Office.
Each member of the committee should include their preferred meeting type in their feedback. In order to accommodate faculty member’s schedules, meetings can be conducted individually with the student. If a student is ranked “needs improvement,” 's work has serious deficiencies, it is recommended that the entire committee meet together with the student. The student or advisor may also prefer a group meeting to elicit more structured feedback.
The advisor will collect and synthesize feedback from the committee and discuss this with the student. This will help the student notice trends in feedback. This will also encourage the committee members to be very honest in their feedback. Feedback from the committee should be submitted at least 4 weeks prior to the deadline given by the Graduate Office.
Action Plan to Improve Performance
If the committee finds that a student’s work is ranked “needs improvement,” has serious deficiencies, the student should design an Action Plan with the help of their advisor. The Action Plan should have concrete and measurable tasks within a manageable timeline and clear deadlines. It should also address all deficiencies recognized by the committee. The graduate office has provided numerous resources for creating Action Plans.
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Deadline | Student | Advisor | Committee |
Create Executive Summary and complete Annual Review Update Form | |||
Approve the Executive Summary and Annual Review Form | |||
6 weeks before given deadline | Send Executive Summary and Annual Review Form to Committee | ||
4 weeks before given deadline | Submit feedback of student’s work to advisor via electronic form sent by Graduate Coordinator | ||
Discuss feedback | Discuss feedback | ||
If feedback is “needs improvement,” create Improvement Action Plan | |||
If feedback is “needs improvement,” approve Improvement Action Plan | |||
2 weeks before given deadline | Schedule meeting(s) with Committee | ||
Completed by given deadline | Meet to discuss student’s progress. Individual meetings should last approximately 15 minutes. Committee member signs the Annual Review Signature Page. If initial feedback was that the student needs improvement, a group meeting lasting no more than 45 minutes should be held. In the group meeting the student presents their Improvement Action Plan with concrete metrics and clear timeline for 10-15 minutes. The committee then provides feedback on the Improvement Action Plan. After all comments, the committee signs twice on the Annual Review Signature Page, once to confirm meeting with the student and again to approve the Improvement Action Plan. Committee members should rank the student’s work as “exceeds expectations,” “meets expectations,” or “needs improvement,” based on the original review of the Executive Summary and Annual Review Form. That is, the committee should rank the student’s work consistently with the feedback originally submitted to the advisor. | ||
Send a single summary email of meeting discussion to committee. If meetings were individual, email should contain a summary of all meetings. If student created Improvement Action Plan, email should summarize discussion and any additions to Plan. | |||
Submit all paperwork (listed below) to Graduate Program Coordinator | |||
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