PhD Completion Reviews

The PhD completion review process has always been administratively complex for doctoral researchers, supervisors and administrative staff alike, with scheduling of reviews constrained by strict regulations, conventions as well as staff and PhD availability. A three-fold expansion of the completion review had to be achieved without additional administrative resource so it was urgent to eliminate all non-value adding aspects.

Improvement Champion
Andrew Sturdy, Associate Dean of the Doctoral Programme, WBS

Project Champion
Farat Ara, Administrative Director of the Doctoral Programme, WBS

Facilitator
Trixie Gadd, Administrative Director of the Undergraduate Programme, WBS

This new process was launched in January 2010 and will be reviewed in July.

Below is a summary of why we needed to improve this process and progress to date. More details are available from the project progress report (PDF Document)

PhD COMPLETION PROCESS IMPROVEMENT	DESCRIPTION
Process Issue(s)	The process around scheduling Upgrading and Completion Review panels for students on the Doctoral Programme is extremely time-consuming for those involved (i.e. faculty, doctoral researchers and DPO staff). For DPO staff there is a requirement to adhere to strict rules governing the constitution of panels and to liaise individually with panel members and doctoral researchers each of whom will have congested diaries. This is time-consuming for the latter as well. Moreover, the number of such panels has recently increased three-fold (from 30 p.a. to 90 p.a.) in order to provide better performance monitoring and improve doctoral outcomes. The DPO needs to find a way of improving the process so as to absorb the increased number of panels without increasing administrative resource. The variables within the process which can be flexed in order to provide improvement include: length of panel, membership of panel, timing and nature of panel documentation.
Planned Improvement	Streamline membership and scheduling of panels and improve documentation. Standardize decision-making of panels and provide more timely feedback to doctoral researchers.
Benefits	v Release of administrative capacity thus avoiding need to for additional staffing resource (est. at 0.5 FA3 i.e. £12.5k p.a.) v Release of academic staff time (by 20%) through reducing panel membership requirement from 5 to 4 faculty members. v Improved customer service through simpler, better understood panel process involving: standardized deadlines for documentation submission, early scheduling (with minimal re-scheduling); pro-forma for decisions allowing timely and consistent feedback to students.
Key process changes	v Agree blocks of dates for panels by start of academic year v Use my.wbs for document submission and for automated reminders to students re submission deadlines v Develop decision proforma for use by panels v Improve MIS to enable panel data requirements to be logged and monitored v Seek dedicated meeting space for panels to avoid time-consuming set-up of room for each panel.
Progress	New process launched by start of Spring term 2010, review in July 2010.
Successes	To be notified.
Improvement Team	Farat Ara (Project Manager), Jane Bennett, Paul Dawson, Trixie Gadd (Facilitator), Andrew Sturdy (Improvement Champion), Verity Tiff, Jane Varley, Nick Webber.