Reviews of Progress will be submitted online. Before you log onto your student portal and complete your Review of Progress you will need to meet with your supervisors and discuss your progress.
To help you plan six months ahead and work towards your final thesis submission, the University has a twice-yearly planning and review cycle to monitor the progress of each student's research project. This regular cycle assists students, supervisors and Research Degree Coordinator (or equivalent) to identify and discuss any issues or problems that arise.
Therefore, students are required to undertake at least two Reviews of Progress each year, no more than six months apart. Reviews must be completed by the student, the supervisor and the appropriate Research Degree Coordinator (or equivalent).
Reviews of progress are an opportunity to have an open and honest conversation about progress. It’s important to identify anything that is impeding progress, or anything that you are concerned about. This may include any personal, academic or technical issues that may impact your completion time. Identifying concerns or issues now will assist your supervisory panel, and the University, to support you, and may be useful to support any future applications for extension.
The review is also an opportunity to identify and document your research goals, and any development needs for the upcoming period.
You must make satisfactory progress during candidature to obtain approval for continued enrolment in the program (see the AB-58 Research Degrees Policy and Procedures relevant to your degree). All research degree students must undertake their Reviews of Progress, including students who are on leave. Students that fail to participate in the Reviews of Progress may be administratively withdrawn (refer clause H in AB-58 P3 Research Degrees Student Progression Procedure).
The planning and review cycle also helps you identify how you will develop and achieve the Research Degree Graduate Qualities (RDGQs). The RDGQs define what a research degree student achieves through undertaking a research thesis. They identify competencies that are transferable to the workplace and attractive to future employers.
Note: Students enrolled in a Professional Doctorate that is recognised as a research degree program will undertake this planning and review process in the research phase of their degree. Re-enrolment information will be sent separately to research professional doctorate students in their coursework phase.
The information below is important for meeting the requirements of this milestone.
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Further information about this milestone is available below.
Reviews of Progress are submitted online, via your MyResearch portal.
Before you log onto and complete your review of progress you need to meet with your supervisors and discuss your progress.
AB-58 Research Degrees Policy and Procedures governing research degrees specify that at least two documented planning and review sessions must occur in each calendar year, no more than six months apart. The dates that the reviews are due will depend on the Research Period enrolment pattern determined at the time of initial enrolment. You will be advised of you Research Period enrolment pattern in your enrolment letter and will be sent email reminders when your reviews are due to be completed.
Note: Students will either be enrolled in a Research Period 1 and Research Period 3 enrolment pattern, or a Research Period 2 and Research Period 4 enrolment pattern. This will depend upon their initial enrolment date.
| Research Period | Due Date for Major Review of Progress | Date Review of Progress is applied |
| Research Period 1 | May 31st | March 31st |
| Research Period 2 | August 31st | June 30th |
| Research Period 3 | October 31st | August 31th |
| Research Period 4 | February 28th | December 21st |
The purpose of a Review of Progress discussion is to review the student's progress over the previous six months and to discuss a plan of work for the coming six months. You should meet with your supervisor approximately 1-2 months before your Review of Progress is due to be submitted
AB-58 Research Degrees Policy and Procedures specify the procedures to be followed if the outcome of a student's review report is unsatisfactory or if there are problems impeding progress.
You will receive an email to your MyMail account approximately 2 months prior to the date your Review of Progress is due as a reminder that you should make an appointment with your supervisor to discuss your progress.
You need to ensure that the planning and review takes place on time by making appointments with your supervisor/s and your Research Degree Coordinator (or equivalent), if required.
You should, at a minimum, discuss the following with your supervisors:
Your supervisor/s should provide you with feedback on your progress and, if necessary, discuss any concerns they may have.
If there are concerns then together you must develop a strategy for getting back on track. This needs to be documented and discussed with your Research Degree Coordinator (or equivalent). The supervisor will also include it when completing their section of the online review of progress.
Sometimes research projects change direction. For example, information that your research uncovers may not be what you expected when you wrote your research proposal, and may have implications for the entire direction of your project. This is not a bad thing, but it may mean you have to alter your proposed activities for the following months.
For example, you may need to plan additional field or laboratory work, or arrange to visit an interstate or overseas library or gallery to examine other works you have discovered. If you are adding new research activities to your planning, you may need to delete others so that you can keep to your time commitment.
Refer to your approved Research Proposal and Statement of Agreement. Do you need to:
Maintaining your proposal as a working document will help it function as an early draft of the thesis.
Due to changes to your project, or for other reasons, you may also need to change your program.
If you need to branch out in a different direction, you may be moving into areas outside your supervisor's area of expertise. If so, it may be useful to seek guidance from experts in other fields, even with different methodological approaches. Your supervisor may be able to suggest people to approach, or you might need to tap into research networks to find academic staff elsewhere in the University or other universities (local, interstate or international).
Networking acts as a useful progress check because your contacts may be the ones who examine your thesis. If you establish good networking contacts, these people can give you informal feedback on the depth of your work and appropriateness of your methodology.
Once you have have met with your supervisors, and your Research Degree Coordinator (or equivalent) if required, you will need to log into your myResearch portal and update your current outstanding review under the Student Reviews tile with the details discussed in the meeting with your supervisor.
You may then submit the review online to your Principal Supervisor for assessment and approval. The Review of Progress will then be submitted online to your REPL (or equivalent) for assessment and approval. Once the review process has been completed you will receive notification and may view the final outcome in your portal.
Before you start your Review process it is important to read through the Procedures and Timelines document and the User Guide.
You can then login to your Student Portal and access the Student Reviews tile via the myResearch link
In exceptional and compelling circumstances, where you are unable to complete a review of progress, an exemption can be made by your supervisor and Research Degree Coordinator. The following are not valid reasons for exemption:
If an exemption from a Review of Progress has been approved, your Research Degree Coordinator(or equivalent) will need to complete an Exemption from Review of Progress template and submit it to Graduate Research to be recorded on your student file.
Should the outcome of your review be considered unsatisfactory, you will notified by your Supervisor and Research Degree Coordinator in writing, outlining the reasons that have been identified. The notification will include an intervention strategy designed to help improve your performance in your research program.
Please refer to clause C in AB-58 P3 Research Degrees Student Progression Procedure for additional information about the procedure for managing Unsatisfactory Progress.
Following your Review of Progress, if you continue to make unsatisfactory progress the Principal Supervisor and REPL will review your progress, considering the intervention strategies and activities that you have undertaken. The Dean of Research (or delegate) may make the decision that your candidature is to be suspended. Your enrolment in the program will be discontinued as a result of the suspension.
You will have the opportunity to appeal to the Dean of Graduate Studies’ decision to suspend your candidature, in which case the Dean of Graduate Studies will establish a Panel and you will be able to present your case against suspension.
Please refer to clause F in AB-58 P3 Research Degrees Student Progression Procedure for additional information about the procedure for the Formal Review of Progress.