SMCClab Sound, Music, and Creative Computing at ANU

PhD Milestone Expectations

Here’s some information for PhD/MPhil students in the Sound, Music and Creative Computing lab for what is expected for degree milestones.

The ANU explains (briefly) what the research milestones are and when they are due on this page but there is little information about what to put in each one. The following information has been developed by looking at a variety of ANU documents and conversations with colleagues at the School of Computing and HDR students in the SMCClab.

My experience has been that different groups have quite different expectations for these milestones and so I’m setting down the details of how we do things in the SMCClab.

Annual Plans and Reports

Your PhD will likely include four annual plans, three of which will also be an annual report. This is the official way to record your goals for the coming year and record your achievements from the previous year.

First Annual Plan

Your First Annual Plan will be due 3 months after you start your PhD. This means you have three months to:

  • sort out your supervision panel (must have three supervisors)
  • define a main research motivation and objective
  • find and review a reasonable amount of scholarly literature to support and motivate your research direction
  • create a plausible research plan for the next 9 months
  • start the process of applying for ANU Human Ethics approval if this will be needed in your work
  • start obtaining necessary IT or other research equipment for your work
  • gain access to labs or facilities needed for your work including doing required inductions or becoming known to technical staff
  • start developing your research artifacts or pursuing the initial studies in your program!

Your “plan” should be a 2–4 page PDF document created in LaTeX that includes:

  1. The main idea/aim/area of your research (your research problem)
  2. An initial attempt to situate your research problem in the literature
  3. Plans for initial investigations into your research problem
  4. References to other scholarly texts that help contextualise your problem (20 is a good initial goal)

You should send your annual plan to me for feedback before submitting the “official” form.

You first annual plan is likely to be the starting point of your first paper or conference submission, so it’s important articulation work to get started on early.

Later: Annual Report and Plan

Your later annual plans also include a report of your progress over the previous 12 months.

Similarly to your first plan, this should be a 2–4 page PDF document created in LaTeX. At this stage you will be articulating your work in more detail in your Confirmation of Candidature (CoC) and/or publications, so your Report and Plan can be a brief update on the “main idea” and definition of your research problem and lists of your completed and planned projects:

  1. The (updated) main idea/aim/area of your research (your research problem) in brief (elevator pitch)
  2. A brief report on projects, publications, presentations, or studies completed in the previous year
  3. Plans for projects and studies that will take place over the next year.

You should send your annual plan to me for feedback before submitting the “official” form.

Confirmation of Candidature

The “Confirmation of Candidature” (CoC) is the first major milestone for a PhD student and should be completed between 9–12 months into their program. It consists of a written Thesis Proposal and an oral presentation.

Thesis Proposal (written component)

  • Minimum 5,000 words
  • PDF produced in LaTeX with excellent formatting and referencing (APA author-date style referencing preferred)
  • Follow a standard structure: introduction, related work, proposed (and completed) methodology, research results to date, discussion of findings so far and expectations for future studies
  • Your Thesis Proposal should provide a clear and persuasive description of your research problem and how you intend to address it
  • Your plan should be backed by evidence from the literature and your research so far
  • The future work plan should propose specific research projects that will each be likely to become an important publication

The document must include:

  1. A clear articulation of the motivation for your research and research questions that aim to address it.
  2. A description of how this proposed research will make an original contribution to the field
  3. A literature review which situates your research within existing work
  4. The proposed methodology and clear description of progress made so far.
  5. A timeline and project plan demonstrating that the remained of the research can be completed within the program length

You must provide the Thesis Proposal to your CRP at least 10 working days before the oral presentation.

Presentation

The presentation is based on your written Thesis Proposal and should be:

  • 40–60 minutes in length with 20 minutes for discussion
  • Open to all members of the SMCClab, and advertised internally (and optionally the public)
  • Scheduled in a public seminar room and advertised on School/Cluster mailing lists
  • Attended by all supervisors (in-person is expected for ANU staff or affiliated supervisors)
  • The presentation should be 50% situating your research problem, and 50% on your progress so far.
  • The main question to answer: “What is this research problem and why is it worth investigating?”

Hints for your CoC

  • Talk to other PhD students / recent grads about their CoC experience to gauge the expectations.
  • Read completed Thesis Proposals — stored in the Shared Files area on the SMCClab team.
  • Some folks view the CoC as “box ticking”, be warned that this is not the approach within my lab. I expect a real effort to level up your articulation of your research plan.
  • The CoC is one of the few opportunities for supervisors to officially provide negative feedback with consequences. Demonstrate that you are ready for your PhD by engaging seriously with the requirements.

Thesis Completion Presentation

Before you can submit your PhD thesis you need to complete an oral presentation giving your supervisors the chance to agree that you are “ready to submit” your thesis.

Oral presentations are:

  • normally 60 minutes in length plus time for questions
  • advertised within the School of Computing and are public

You will give an exceptionally high quality presentation covering your whole thesis and be ready to answer questions on any part of your research. We want to celebrate this part of your work so you should invite friends and family and we will arrange a morning/afternoon tea reception.

This presentation should be seen as answering the research questions you set up in your CoC, or adjusted questions (yes, things change over a PhD). It’s usually the first attempt to bring the different projects and aspects of PhD into one coherent whole so it can be some hard work to get the structure organised and you should expect some tough questions from your supervisors that (ultimately) will help you sharpen the argument in your thesis.

Before your presentation, you should submit the form including your slides.