Information for students
Welcome to APTS! If you are a PhD student involved (or who would like to be involved) in APTS then this web page is for you. Below you will hopefully find all the information you should need about what APTS is and what will be expected of you as an APTS student.
Keep an eye on this page throughout the year, as more information will appear here periodically.
Quick Links:
- Information relating to individual APTS weeks such as travel and accommodation details.
- Information relating to particular APTS modules such as preliminary material, lecture notes and assessment sheets.
Included Below:
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Students of the 2014 Warwick APTS Week |
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What is APTS?
APTS is a well established national programme of four intensive training weeks aimed at first-year PhD students in statistics and applied probability. Each training week will incorporate two lectured modules. The intention is to provide courses which will be attractive and relevant to the research preparation and background education of all UK PhD students in statistics and probability. APTS is also open to students from institutions outside the UK.
- The programme for this year's training weeks can be found here
- Information about the eight modules can be found here
Some weeks will also feature some less-intensive sessions, aimed at helping new PhD students get to grips with academic life. These may include, for example: advice on writing and submitting papers for publication; information about professional societies; ethics in statistical research; advice on giving presentations, etc.
How do I register for APTS?
Any student wishing to attend APTS must be registered by their "sending institution" (i.e., their home department): you cannot register yourself. If you are interested in attending APTS then you should speak to your academic supervisor, or to your department's APTS contact. To check whether or not your department has already registered as a sending institution, or to find out who is your APTS contact, click here.
Please note the following:
- You will be emailed within two working days of your sending institution registering you with APTS
- Completion of the registration process does not guarantee that you have been allocated a place on any given APTS week. Soon after the registration deadline above, the APTS contact at each sending institution will be informed of which of their students have been allocated places on APTS weeks. (For a statement of the allocation priorities when an APTS week is over-subscribed, please see the APTS Constitution .)
What is expected of me as an APTS student?
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Before an APTS week: Preliminary material
Associated with each module will be some preliminary web-based material. This will be provided by module leaders to help students get up to speed with any prerequisite material. The following is paraphrased from the APTS module specifications :
The ‘prerequisites’ are of three main types:
(a) background expected from undergraduate or MSc education, or from preliminary PhD training in students’ home departments;
(b) topics from other APTS modules;
(c) other preliminary material specific to the module concerned.
The preliminary web-material for each module will review briefly what is needed from students under (a) and (b), and will provide students with, or point them towards, self-study materials (lecture notes, exercises, reading) to enable them to get to grips with (c).
Please note the following:
- The web-based material will be made available on-line five weeks before the start of the relevant APTS week:
- you can keep track of this using the key dates page
- registered students will also be emailed when new material is made available
- A number of the modules will involve computer lab sessions, and an elementary knowledge of the use of R will be assumed for these.
You are expected to spend up to one week per module working through the preliminary material
- please do this, since otherwise you are likely to be unprepared for the module lectures
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During an APTS week
All students are expected to participate fully in both modules of an APTS week. The time allocated to each of the two modules is 10.5 hours in total: this may be split between lectures, classes, practicals etc. at the discretion of the module leaders. As mentioned above, each week will also include some less-intensive, shorter sessions on a variety of themes. Some material from the training modules will be made available on-line at the end of each APTS week, but you are advised to take your own notes during lectures in preparation for the assessment exercises...
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After an APTS week: Assessment
Following each APTS week, you may be asked to undertake a form of light assessment. This will be provided by the APTS module leader, but will be marked by somebody in your department. The assessment tasks provide the opportunity for your department to fit APTS training into its own framework for monitoring student progress, as well as providing useful feedback for future development of APTS modules. Hopefully the assessment should not take too long, and will enhance both your interest in the area of the module and your ability to find out more for yourself.
Accommodation, food and travel
- Your institution will have told us whether you require accommodation and food, or simply food, for each APTS week which you are attending. A copy of this information will have been emailed to you by APTS when you were registered. If you are unsure of exactly what you have been registered for, please get in touch with your APTS academic contact (see the list here). Arrangements regarding any special requirements you may have (e.g. dietary needs) will be made by the universities hosting each week nearer the time. Please do not contact APTS directly about such issues.
- You will be responsible for making your own travel arrangements to each APTS week you are attending. When making travel arrangements for a typical APTS week, please aim to arrive by midday on the Monday and leave after 2pm on the Friday. If you need to arrive before the day on which the APTS week begins or to stay for an additional night at the end then please be aware that you will need to make your own accommodation arrangements for these additional nights.
How can I access the internet when I'm at an APTS week?
Details will vary between APTS weeks and you're urged to consult the information booklet before travelling for any location-specific information. The local organisers should be able to provide some information about the most convenient mechanism for accessing the internet during any given APTS week, but accessing the internet whilst away from home is made much easier for academics by the Eduroam service which is supported at many of the institutions which host APTS weeks. Familiarising yourself with the procedure for using Eduroam and configuring your computer to make use of it in advance will undoubtedly simplify the process of connecting to the internet whilst at APTS weeks (and other academic events).
Help, I have more questions!
- If your question is specific to one of the APTS weeks, then you should contact the local organisers of that week (their contact details will appear here nearer the time).
- If you have a general APTS enquiry, then hopefully you can find an answer on this web site; if not, then please direct your query to your APTS academic contact (see the list here).
