EEE PhD Milestones Guidelines

Please read the IRP Guidelines (PDF) or full guidance.

Full time students need to submit in the first 0-3 months.

Part time students need to submit in the first 0-6 months.

IRP Form (Word)

• Students must complete plagiarism awareness online course
• RAFT Course
• Recommended length <6 pages
• Non-native speakers take DACR Assessment

Other useful pages for you to explore:

• Graduate School - provides a number of courses for Doctoral Students, including professional development programmes and Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTA) training.
• Center for Academic English - they offer academic writing support for researchers; native speakers might also benefit from their courses on advanced academic writing, writing a research paper and global postgraduate retreat for thesis writing.
• Working as a GTA - please follow the guidelines on this page if you intend to take paid work as a GTA in the department

Please read the ESA Guidelines (PDF) for full guidance.

Full-time students need to submit by month 9 - assessment by month 10 to allow 1 opportunity for re-assessment by month 12.

Part-time students need to submit by month 19 – assessment by month 20 to allow 1 opportunity for re-assessment by month 24.

Students must have completed:

• The Postgraduate Plagiarism awareness online course. Please note, the undergraduate/MEng plagiarism course does not apply at postgraduate and will need to to be retaken in order to pass your milestones.
• At least 2 Graduate School Professional Development courses

• Non-native speakers who scored below Level 2 in DACR A1 must take DACR A2 around the time of their ESA.

Submitting your ESA Form

The college now requires you to submit a copy of your ESA report to Turnitin (via Blackboard), for an originality check before your ESA assessment. The ESA assessors will check your report on Turnitin before the ESA assessment takes place. If this is applicable to you, please:

1. Login to Blackboard through the course name 'ESA Assignment Submission - Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering'
2. Submit your ESA report on Blackboard via the 'ESA Assignment Submission area'.  See the 'Student Guidance' tab on the left hand panel of the Blackboard page, for step by step instructions to submit your ESA report on Blackboard via Turnitin.
3. Once you have submitted your ESA report on Blackboard via Turnitin, you will need to save your ESA report (with your originality report) as a pdf file, and then email it to your ESA supervisor and assessors together with the .

ESA Form (Word)

Useful information on the ESA:

• Literature Search Guide
• ‌Search Tools and Databases Guide
• Graduate School - provides a number of courses for Doctoral Students, including professional development programmes and Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTA) training.
• Centre for Academic English - they offer academic writing support for researchers; native speakers might also benefit from their courses on advanced academic writing, writing a research paper and global postgraduate retreat for thesis writing.

Please read the EEE LSR - Guidelines (PDF) for full guidance.‌

Full-time students need to submit by month 21 - assessment by month 24

Part-time students need to submit by month 42 – assessment by month 48

• There is no recommended length for the LSR
• Students must have completed any missing Graduate School Professional Development courses (altogether 4: 2 by ESA + 2 by LSR)
• Students must have completed the Doctoral Plagiarism course. 

Other useful pages for you to explore:

• Graduate School - provides a number of courses for Doctoral Students, including professional development programmes and Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTA) training.
• Center for Academic English - they offer academic writing support for researchers; native speakers might also benefit from their courses on advanced academic writing, writing a research paper and global postgraduate retreat for thesis writing.
• Working as a GTA - please follow the guidelines on this page if you intend to take paid work as a GTA in the department

LSR Form (Word)

The Initial registration period for PhDs is three years (36 months) for full-time students and six years (72 months) for part-timers. By that point, students must review their progress with their supervisor and plan their final year.

• Progress review will be conducted with your supervisor, and, providing all experimental work and collection of material relating to your thesis is complete, you will be able to enter the writing up period.  Students in the writing up stage will no longer be required to pay tuition fees. 
• You must have completed both ESA and LSR in order to enter the writing up period
• Writing up period is capped at a maximum of twelve months in duration for full-time students, and twenty-four months for part-time students. At the end of the writing up stage, you are required to submit your thesis. If you go over the maximum duration, you will be required to submit a Thesis Extension Request.
• A student who still has experimental or data collection work to perform at this stage cannot move in to writing up status. Students in this position will have their active research period extended and will be liable for full fees for the additional period. An extension to the active research period will not result in an extension to the thesis submission deadline; in such cases, the writing up allowance will be reduced.
• Progress review form (Word)
• You can read the full writing-up policy by downloading the PDF available Governance webpages
• Many funding schemes end at 3 or 3.5 years. If not sure, please speak with the PGR Officer (Annie Murphy).

A useful free-service for you to explore:

• Center for Academic English - they offer academic writing support for researchers; native speakers might also benefit from their courses on advanced academic writing, writing a research paper and global postgraduate retreat for thesis writing.

CRS (writing up) form (Word)

Full time students have a maximum of 48 months to submit their PhD thesis (part-timers: 72 months).

• Roughly, four months before the submission, a completed Examination Entry form must be submitted to Registry.
• You are now required to upload and submit your Exam Entry electronically, via the Research Degree Milestones tile in My Imperial.
• Please make sure you complete your part of the Examination Entry Form well in advance through the My.Imperial.ac.uk tile, so that your supervisor can complete the appointment of examiners.
• You will receive confirmation via email after you have completed your section of the Exam Entry Form. You will also be emailed to confirm once the milestone is complete

Steps to follow:

1. Student: Login to My Imperial and click on the postgraduate research milestones tile. Click on the Examination Entry milestone under 'My milestones.'

• Enter the required information including your research topic, thesis title and expected thesis submission date. Once you've finished, click on 'Submit to Supervisor'.

2. Supervisor: The supervisor is then notified by email that they need to action the next stage of the process.

• Login to My Imperial and click on the postgraduate research milestones tile. Click on the Exam Entry link under 'My actions.'
• The supervisor reviews the student's input information, and then adds their proposed internal and external examiners. 
• Once finished, the supervisor clicks the ‘Submit to Director of Postgraduate Studies’ box.
• If the supervisor feels any information provided by the student is incorrect, they will click on 'reject thesis details.' The student will be emailed and asked to make the necessary changes. 

3. Director of Postgraduate Studies (DPS):

• The DPS reviews all of the information already input by the student and supervisor on My Imperial. If the DPS is happy with everything, they will confirm this on the system and press 'Submit to Registry.'
• If the DPS does not support the proposed examiners, they will click 'reject nominated examiners.' The supervisor will then be emailed and asked to amend their proposed examiners, for the DPS to review again.

4. Assessment Records: The Assessment Records team then login to My Imperial and check and approve the Exam Entry submission. Once approved, the student will see 'completed' against the Examination Entry milestone, under 'My milestones.'

Please note: you are required to submit your thesis by your submission deadline, regardless of whether you have been contacted by Registry or not at that stage.

A useful free-service for you to explore:

• Center for Academic English - they offer academic writing support for researchers; native speakers might also benefit from their courses on advanced academic writing, writing a research paper and global postgraduate retreat for thesis writing.

It is College policy that no full-time student registered for research degree study will be permitted to submit their thesis for examination later than 48 months after initial registration for full-time students (96 for part-timers). The Thesis Deadline Extension procedure is available to students whose progress towards the final thesis submission deadline has been affected by circumstances beyond their control. The Late case request form shoudl be submitted before the thesis submission deadline. Please contact the Postgraduate Manager for advice. 

Please see detailed information relating to the College's thesis submission and viva examination procedures.

You are required to upload and submit your Thesis submission electronically, via the Research Degree Milestones tile in My Imperial. You will receive confirmation via email after you have completed your section of the Thesis submission.

Steps to follow:

1. Student: Login to My Imperial and click on the postgraduate research milestones tile. Click on the Thesis Submission milestone under 'My milestones.'

• Complete the thesis declaration submission. You'll be asked if you want an embargo period. This should be discussed with your supervisor. 
• Once you've finished, click on 'submit to supervisor.' 

2. Supervisor: The supervisor is then notified by email that they need to action the next stage of the process.

• Login to My Imperial. The supervisor will see a request to ‘Fill in your section for your thesis declaration.' 
• The supervisor clicks this link and review's the student's details and embargo information.
• The supervisor clicks submit if all the information is correct.

3. Student: The student can then upload the thesis.

• Login to My Imperial, click into the thesis submission and click the 'thesis upload' section. 
• Upload your thesis and press submit thesis. 

 * If at step 2 the supervisor feels any information provided by the student is incorrect, they can reject it. The student will be emailed and asked to make the necessary changes to the thesis declaration.