Staff Guide: Examining Committee Nomination

Sections

• Creating an Examining Committee Nomination Form
• Viewing a Saved Examining Committee Nomination Form
• Compleating a nomination
• Deleting an Examining Committee Nomination Form
• Frequently asked questions

Creating an Examining Committee Nomination

Examining Committee Nominations are created and managed in MMS on the Examining Committee Nomination tab in the Postgraduate administration tool in the PGR Research module.

To create a new examining committee nomination:

1. From MySaint, or directly within MMS, locate the RESEARCH module for your unit/school (this module will have be prefixed with a code representing the school followed by ‘-RESEARCH’ e.g. IRL-RESEARCH)
2. Access the Postgraduate Administration tool
3. Select the Examining Committee Nomination tab (for some users this may be the default)
4. Scroll down to the Create Examining Committee Nomination section
5. Select the student from the drop down list
6. Click the Enter Details of Examining Committee Nomination button.

MMS will then generate the nomination form.

Figure 1: An example of the Examining Committee Nomination tab in the Postgraduate Administration tool

Viewing Saved Nominations

Saved nominations are displayed on the Examining Committee Nomination tab.

To view a saved committee nomination

1. Access the Postgraduate Administration tool
2. Select the Examining Committee Nomination tab (for some users this may be the default)
3. All active Examining Committee Nominations will be listed in the table
4. Select the Student Name to view the nomination for that student
   • If the nomination has not been submitted to registry the nomination will open within MMS and can be edited, nominated and/or approved depending on its current state.
   • If a nomination has been approved the nomination will download as a PDF to your Downloads folder. Nominations cannot be edited after being approved.

Completing the Examining Committee Nomination

Once the examining committee nomination form has been generated the form can be completed. MMS will have auto-populated some of the fields and at any time the form may be saved and returned to at a later date. The completion state (shown at the top right of the form) will be updated every time the nomination is saved.

To complete the examining committee nomination form:

1. Enter a Title of Thesis by typing the title into the text box provided
2. Select an Internal Examiner from within the school by selecting the user from the drop down list, or click the ‘Search‘ link to search for a user outside the school using their username.
3. If the Internal Examiner is the same user as the convener select the (Same as Internal) option from the Convener drop down list. If the user Select a Convener from within the school by selecting the user from the drop down list, or click the ‘Search‘ link to search for a user outside the school using their username.
4. Check the tick box under the Convener drop down list to indicate if the proposed convener has acted as a convener previously.
5. Add any additional details regarding the independence of Internal Examiner and Convener in the provided text box.
6. Complete the Contact Details section using the text boxes provided.
7. Complete the ‘Brief Academic Profile’ and ‘Examining Experience’ sections by typing into the provided text boxes, or by pasting in text from an external source into the text boxes.
8. In the Potential Conflict of Interest section, indicate if there is a potential conflict of interest using the radio buttons. Add additional details by typing or pasting details into the text box provided.
9. Select the Save Nomination button to save.
10. Check the form status at the top of the form and complete any uncompleted sections and select the Save Nomination button.
11. Select the Notify PG Director of Form Ready for Approval button to submit the form to the DoPG for approval

Deleting an Examining Committee Nomination Form

Users with PGR administration roles, such as PG Secretary and Director of Postgraduate Studies, can delete examining committee nominations:

1. Access the Postgraduate Administration tool from the Modules page or the module overview
2. Select the Examining Committee Nomination tab
3. Select the form to delete by selecting the checkbox in the Select column
4. Click the Delete Nomination button

Frequently asked questions

Internal examiner/Convener not appearing in drop down?

The Internal examiner / Convener drop down list is populated with a list of users who have been added to the school in MMS. In most cases where a member of staff is not appearing, it is because they are not listed as staff at the school level in MMS.

• Internal examiner / Convener is a member of the school

  If the Internal examiner / Convener should be listed as a member of school staff, but isn’t, they can be added to the school in MMS by any school administrator. This is done by:

  1. Log into MMS.
  2. Select the name of the school from the drop down list on the Modules page.
  3. Select the View School button.
  4. In the People section, select the Assign Staff Roles link.
  5. In the Search MMS section, enter the staff members username (the MMS search funcations works best with username, not full name).
  6. Select the Search button.
  7. Select the user by ticking the checkbox to the left of their name.
  8. Select the Import External Users button.

  Once the user has been added to the school, they will appear in the drop down list for both Internal examiner and Convener.

• Internal examiner / Convener is a member of another school

  In the Internal examiner / Convener is not a member of the school, but still a University of St Andrews employee, they can be added to the form using the Search function in the form.

  To search for a user:

  1. Open the Examining Committee Nomination form.
  2. Select the Search link to the right of the Internal Examiner or Convener drop-down lists.
  3. Enter the staff member’s username into the text field provided – do not press Return.
  4. Select the Search for Internal Examiner button.
  5. Locate the user in the table at the top of the nomination.
  6. Select the staff member using the radio buttons in the Select column.
  7. Select the Set Internal Examiner or Set Convener button, as appropriate.

  The user will now appear as selected in the appropriate drop-down list.

• Internal examiner / Convener is not a member of St Andrews staff

  In the rare cases where either the Internal Examiner or Convener is not a member of staff at St Andrews, Registry should be informed. When completing the form in MMS, two forms should be created:

  1. External Examiner Nomination – The Internal Examiner or Convener can be set to the user who created the form. Use the Independence of Internal Examiner and Convener field to explain the situation.
  2. A second External Examiner Nomination should then be created. Again, the Internal Examiner and Convener section can be set to the user who created the form, with the Independence text box used to explain the arrangement. The External Examiner section should then be populated with the details of the external “Internal” Examiner or external Convener.