Long Distance Supervision for MSc students

Author: Mario Martinez Martinez

Created: 2021-09-20 07:21am

Edited: 2021-09-27 12:23am

Description:

This learning design supports the supervision of MSc students that do part of their practical laboratory work at a research institute or industry (host institution) different from Aarhus University. This is relevant for all MSc students at AU-TECH. The learning design also outlines a strategy for writing a shared manuscript (either research paper or review paper) with a MSc student that can be published in a scientific journal. This LDT follows the stream model, leaving room for extensive dialogue between the supervisors and the students.

Intended Learning Outcomes:

Understand the principles behind the experiments performed at the foreign intitution
Relate the different research concepts so that a novel idea takes central stage of the MSc thesis
Write in a correct and scientifically correct manner with the aim of communicating the MSc thesis outcomes in the form of a research or review paper

Resources	Tasks		Supports
Conceptualization phase
Research papers and books	Preparation for the intial discusion with host and AU supervisors ↓	←	AU supervisor
Zoom	Set up an inital discussion via zoom with both host and AU supervisors present ↓	←	Host and AU supervisors
Experimental phase
Laboratory and chemical suppliers, research papers and books	Perform and redesign experiments based on results ↓	←	Host supervisors or technical support
OriginPro Software and Microsoft Office	Student plot results and analize data, and prepare a PowerPoint presentation for both supervisors ↓	←	No support
Writing phase
Microsoft Office, Zoom	Students presents the results of a first block of experiemnts (working package) to the supervisors ↓	←	Host and AU supervisors
OriginPro, Microsoft Office	Students prepares a first draft of the manuscript ↓	←	Host supervisors or technical support
Zoom, Microsoft office	AU supervisor reads manuscript and provides feedback using Zoom sharing video tool ↓	←	No support
Zoom, Microsoft office	Student absorbs feedback from supervisor and improves the manuscript accordingly ↓	←	Host and AU supervisors
Zoom, Microsoft office, OriginPro	Student finalizes writing and submitt manuscript to journal	←	Host and AU supervisors

Additional information

Typically, shared manuscript writing in the discipline of Food Science relies on MS word with track changes to provide comments and corrections. This works fine with a student author if combined with meetings where the manuscript is discussed in person. However, my experience with LDS showed that the meta-communication is rather poor. In this regard, using zoom as desktop capturing software can have a have much better educational value as it can teach the student not only which changes to make , but also why they should be made.