Directors of Studies are responsible for organising supervisions for IA and IB students from their College. There are no supervisions for the Easter Term courses in IB. Third year supervisions are organised by Module Leaders. There are no fourth year module supervisions; students receive supervision only on their projects. Colleges pay for supervisions for their students, such payments being authorised by Directors of Studies.

Supervision reports and payments are made through CamCORS. Any queries (e.g. student doesn't appear on CamCORS) should be addressed to the College concerned.

Part I Supervisions

Supervisors will be given access to the examples papers and cribs on the relevant supervisions pages.

IA examples paper page
IB examples paper page

Please use the supervisor databases on the DoS Moodle page to declare your supervisors to the teaching office.

If you are Director of Studies and do not have access to the page, please get in touch with the Teaching Office.

The Teaching Office should also be notified of any additions or changes that occur throughout the term.

Hard copy of each examples paper is handed out to students at the start of the (normally four) lecture block which that paper accompanies, enabling them to work through examples papers in synchronisation with lectures. Supervisors are e-mailed papers and solutions (cribs) at the same time. Cribs are made available to students via their College libraries, normally after the Department's Examples Class has taken place.

In arranging supervisions for their students, Directors of Studies should include consideration of the following:

Students have some afternoon lectures in Michaelmas, and afternoon lab sessions in all terms detailed on the termly lab rotas. These take priority over supervisions. Note particularly that the intensive IA Structural Design Workshop sessions include Wednesday afternoons (not a usual 1A lab day). Language classes (for students who choose to take them) are arranged part way through the first term and take priority over supervisions. Directors of Studies may need to alter their supervision timetables to accommodate classes for these students.

The expectation is that Part I supervisions will take place in Colleges whenever possible. No rooms may be booked for supervisions in the Department.

Students tend to use supervisions as deadlines to drive their work schedules, rather than distributing the work more rationally. Recognising this, a good supervision timetable will aim to spread supervisions evenly through calendar weeks (Mon-Fri). Supervisions in each paper tend to be fortnightly, so try to balance the load in the alternating weeks.

Supervisor Marketplace

A new facility is now available at         http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/teaching/apps/supervisormarket/

for module leaders and Directors of Studies to advertise for supervisors, and for potential supervisors to advertise their availability.

Use of Meeting Rooms for Supervisions

We are very short of space at Trumpington Street and it is becoming very challenging to find appropriate venues for Department meetings.  It was, therefore, agreed that meeting rooms should not be booked for supervisions.  Supervisors may, at the discretion of the room manager, use unbooked rooms for supervisions, but meetings will always take precedence over supervisions.

The Department policy on the use of lecture rooms for supervisions is unchanged: lecture rooms may not be booked for supervisions, but may be used for this purpose if unoccupied.

We are working on identifying spaces in the Department which can be used for supervisions: creative solutions are welcome.

Directors of Studies are asked to assist supervisors in using College facilities whenever possible.

Tripos Papers

Working though past Tripos papers is a valuable learning tool as well as providing preparation for exams. Students have on-line access to five years of papers, and should be encouraged to work through questions without looking at cribs.  Part IA and IB Tripos papers and cribs for the last available year will be uploaded in the January of the following year after the Progress tests have taken place.

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