All’s well that ends well
We need to be good at supervising, detecting plagiarism and recruiting new PhD students. However, not all needs to be dead serious; a bit of humour goes a long way.
I have a few summer holiday hits before we all shift into summer vacation mode:
Supervisor course
The date for the next supervisor course is 15-16 September 2016 and the deadline for registration is 18 August 2016. If you have not yet attended a supervisor course, then you have the chance now. All supervisors and co-supervisors for PhD students must have followed this course.
Plagiarism
The IT program Urkund, which checks for plagiarism, will soon be introduced in all of Aarhus University in connection with written exams and theses on the bachelor and master levels. The program does not work so well with PhD theses, though. For the past year, Health has instead used the IT program iThenticate. This is a program that AU Library has access to. Read more about plagiarism, Urkund and iThenticate at AU here.
GSST will introduce a check of theses and progress reports (Qualifying exams) using iThenticate for a trial period of one year from about 1 September 2016 – and with evaluation after one year. If it possible for AU Library, the process will be as follows: AU Library will check all PhD theses within three work days. In case there is something to remark, the thesis will be further investigated by a committee appointed by GSST. The check will be run simultaneously to the sending of the thesis to the evaluation committee based on the presumption that there will only be problems in a few cases. The main supervisor will check the progress reports.
The GSST committee that will check the theses that AU Library sends on will consist of the relevant programme chariman, who will be supplemented by the PhD school leader in case of problems or ambiguities. The programme chairmen will substitute for each other in case of absence or disqualification.
After the summer holiday, the AGRO programme committee will try and screen a large number of the latest year’s reports and theses (anonymously) in order to get a picture of what is the natural level of plagiarism.
Recruitment of PhD students
AGRO has four PhD students registered in 2016. I would therefore encourage you to work actively to recruit young talents from your network. The next deadline for registration is 1 August 2016. Do not forget the option of screening grants if you are in doubt about a candidate.
At the end of the day
Finally, here at the end, is a bit of entertainment for everybody and especially our staff from other countries: a short journey through the strange and charming Danish language brought to you courtesy of Copenhagen Language Center. Have a wonderful summer!
