Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development
Open educational resources (OERs)

Week 1: the supervisor's roles and responsibilities

Underlying themes/principles

Welcome to the course. This is a four week online programme that aims to help you clarify your thoughts about supervising at a distance and to consider a range of ways in which you can develop your role as a supervisor to improve the student learning experience. The course provides activities and discussion about distance learning in general and the specific skills of supervising at a distance.

To get started, you will need to become familiar with the Brookes Virtual environment we will be using on this course. You also need to introduce yourself to your colleagues who you will be working with.

Tasks

Task 1: Familiarising yourself with Brookes Virtual (30 minutes)

The welcome e-mail described how to login to Brookes Virtual and you clearly have done this because you are reading this. Please read the introductory message from a course tutor in the 'arrivals lounge' and click reply to announce your safe arrival.

We will introduce ourselves more thoroughly in Task 3: Introductions.

Task 2: Time management quiz (30 mins)

Taking part in a distance learning course makes all sorts of demands on your working and home life. If online learning is new to you, these demands are likely to be even more so. Based on the experiences of many previous course members, we have created a lighthearted look at some of the issues we think it will be helpful to think about before the course start.

Task 3: Introductions (1 hour)

Reflect on your own experiences of supervising and/or being supervised. Identify things that have helped and things that have got in the way. Note what you think you do well already, what you'd like to develop further. Use these notes to compose your introduction and post to the Introductions discussion. Find one other person you have something in common with and reply to their message

Task 4: Expectations (2 hours)

Read Chapter 4 of the set text. As you read, complete the quadrants template:

• what students expect from me
• what I expect from students
• my responsibilities to my students
• what students consider their responsibilities

Looking at your completed template:

• Is there anything you are unsure about?
• Check your lists against the guidelines for students undertaking a project issued by your course (see Resources). Are there differences between your completed quadrant and the student guidelines in e.g. your expected time commitment, ethical good practice, risk assessment or intellectual property?

Post your completed template and reflections to the Expectations discussion topic. Respond to the posts from two other participants.

Key readings

• Chapter 2 of the set text: supervision differences
• Chapter 4 of the set text: establishing and maintaining good supervisory practices.
• Guidelines for Project supervisors are available to download for Public Health (PH - Project Supervision Guidelines_2010-11.pdf), Epidemiology (Epi - Guidelines for Project supervision 2010-11.pdf) and Infectious Diseases (ID - Tutor hbook project chapter 2010.pdf)