POLICY for research students.

PLEASE NOTICE that - unless you are yourself a relic of times gone by - this page is a FOSSIL. I do not intend to take on any more research students, but I preserve the page and its descendants because others have found the material useful. I've left the text unchanged, because it's easy, but some of its implications are no longer significant

History.

As you might have inferred from the lists of topics which appear here and there in my WWW material, I have interests in a variety of fields. That's because I've been doing things for quite a long time, and have difficulty in curbing my natural interest in almost everything.

As well as topics connected with my main interests, I have quite often supervised a student who is investigating something else. Each such topic was initiated by someone who had some special interest in a field connected with my interests, but wasn't very keen to follow my ideas, and who has approached me with a proposal for ( usually ) a M.Sc. thesis topic. Provided that the proposals made academic sense ( not all have ), I have in the past accepted them. That's because I am not overwhelmed with students clamouring to work on topics of my choosing, and I thought that I'd rather work on some related topic than none at all. Further, the M.Sc. thesis topic is a small-scale species of research activity, and a student who is already interested in a field is likely to be better motivated and may need to spend less time finding out about it.

The consequence of this policy has been to leave me with a lot of unfinished business. The students - reasonably enough - concentrate on the computing aspects of their problems, because that's what ( usually ) gets them their M.Sc.s. The bits needed to finish off the work and produce something useful are almost invariably left undone. As typically there isn't enough of any project left to warrant another M.Sc., these projects are never finished, and rarely even get as far as publication.

Now.

Perhaps I learn slowly, but I do learn : the policy has now changed. I expect to, and usually do, put in a lot of work on my research students, and by accepting a wide variety of topics I've ended up by spending a great deal of time with very little to show for it. I wouldn't mind that too much if I thought that the students had got a lot out of it, but I don't think that I've been able to give them as much as I could if they'd been working in a field with which I was already reasonably well acquainted. One reason for this view is that if I start a new field every time, I can't judge whether the topic is worth spending time on ( and not all of them have been ), and I can't recommend useful literature and other resources; we all start from scratch. Another is that, because we start from scratch, we never get very far, and never get a useful piece of work finished. That's not satisfactory for the student, and it isn't my idea of doing useful work.

Therefore, from now on I'll expect people wishing to work with me on research topics of any sort ( project, M.Sc., or Ph.D. ) to fit in with my topics. I've tried to specify a reasonable set of topics without being too restrictive. If you really think you have some world-beating idea which can be done within the usual time for the level concerned, you're welcome to talk, but you will have to be very persuasive to get anywhere.

I shall also expect that students engaged on M.Sc. or Ph.D. work will write up their findings for publication as a part of the exercise. ( That doesn't mean that project students can't - only that it's a bit unreasonable to expect that a project will be sufficiently novel to justify a publication. ) You don't have to do it alone; I expect to collaborate with you ( something for you to look forward to ), but I do expect that you will put a good proportion of the effort. For my part, I shall try to make sure that the topics are likely to lead to publishable results, ideally in a journal but at least as a department technical report. Notice that this is in addition to writing the thesis - though you can use the same material in both, provided that I'm satisfied that the bit in the thesis is essentially your work.

Further exciting information :

How to drive your supervisor : smoothing the path of student-supervisor relationships. ( The text assumes that I am your supervisor; bear that in mind as you read it if I'm not. ).
On writing things down : wise ( ? ) words on documentation ( like, say, reports and theses ).
Expectations for projects and theses : how the tiny project differs from the majestic Ph.D., and points between.

Alan Creak,
2001, February.

Go to me ( Alan Creak, in case you've forgotten );
Go to Computer Science.