The times they are a changing - Postgraduate completion times
The times they are a changing - Postgraduate completion times
This next academic year brings a major change for The University of Hong Kong, with the introduction of a semester system (and modular units) and the VC's laptop initiative. These changes will have a huge impact on teaching in the University at the undergraduate level, but there are also changes afoot at the Postgraduate level. A recent review of UHK's postgraduate education by the University Grants Committee (UGC) has forced UHK to evaluate it's postgraduate teaching. One area which has been highlighted is the poor completion times of our postgraduate students, particularly M.Phil The concerns about poor completion rates raised by the UGC have led to two major changes: URK's postgraduate quota has been reduced and our departmental budget is now affected by the completion rates of our postgraduates in that "extended" M.Phil and Ph.D. degrees are now heavily penalised! This will impact greatly on our Department, as at present we have 80 postgraduates on our books and only 55 (69%) are within their minimum period. (The minimum period is now the MAXIMUM period as far as the UGC are concerned and M.Phil. Degrees are therefore 2 years maximum and Ph.D.s 3 years!). To scare you even further - our average completion time is 48.8 months for a M.Phil. and 47.3 for a Ph.D. (yes, M.Phil.s take longer!!) - when compared to the Faculty this looks pretty sad, particularly for M.Phil.s, since the Faculty means are 37.5 and 45 respectively.
To try to improve completion rates we have a new Postgraduate Research Booklet (ask Flora for a copy if you don't have one) and a monthly reporting scheme to help monitor progress. Prof. Felix Wu (PVC, Research) has also outlined some changes which he thinks would benefit higher degree students, one of which would be the introduction of a taught first year at the M.Phil. (initially) level. Perhaps postgrads would like to comment on these ideas (and ways of improving Postgraduate education at UHK) in Feedback!
After all this, there needs to be some sort of "deliverable". Which brings us onto the subjects of seminars and publications. ATTENDANCE and GIVING postgraduate seminars are COMPULSORY for ALL postgrads in DEB! We have a new set of organizers (Michelle Wong and Richard Huang - thanks for volunteering and Good Luck!) - and thanks very much to Neil and Vicky for their sterling work in the previous year in what is a thankless task. The new incumbents give their ideas about the ALL NEW seminar series in this issue (page 3). On the subject of publications, we are now assessed on your output in terms of publications as well - which means "papers =$s" - so get publishing guys and girls!
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Department of Ecology & Biodiversity Visiting Professor Scheme
In April we saw the first in what the Department hopes will be a series of Visiting Professors Roger Kitching, Professor of Ecology at Griffith University, Australia, visited the Department for a period of 8 days to generally meet with people to discuss research and also give a series of presentations. Professor Kitching gave a public seminar entitled "Biodiversity: what is it and why is it important?" to an audience of ~100 people. Roger also gave a more informal workshop (Biodiversity assessment - "rapid", "not-so-rapid" and "downright slow") which generated a great deal of interest with regard to just "how" to sample biodiversity, and a postgraduate seminar on his own research work ("Pattern and process in selected Old-World rainforests - the generation and maintenance of Biodiversity") Both these talks raised a great deal of debate about the mechanics of biodiversity assessment. The overall message, however, of the importance of research scientists getting involved in such exercises was a recurrent theme, after all if we don't do this -who will? Roger's visit provided a good focus for the Department but also for people outside to interact and discuss these themes with the Department as well. Such exchanges are the whole idea behind the Visiting Professor scheme and thanks to Roger for doing a great job! We shall be arranging a second Visiting Professor, hopefully for the next semester; if anyone has any suggestions for appropriate recipients, please let us know.
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New links and developments
The Department now has a Memorandum of Understanding with the National University of Oceanography, Goa and the Centre for Advanced Studies in Botany at the University of Madras to undertake collaborative research in prioritized areas of mutual interest. At present "marine mycology" is the only area identified, but the MOU can be expanded to cover other fields in the future.
Most readers will know by now that SWIMS has been incorporated into the Department of Ecology & Biodiversity from 1 July 1998 and so from now on this Departmental "report" will include mention of activities there also. At present there is no further news concerning the possible extension of research facilities at the Institute (yes, we know its crowded!), but hopefully by the next issue there may be.
Research Assessment
Finally, as most of our readers know, research in the Department of Ecology & Biodiversity has a high profile. Recently we were assessed on our research output by both external and internal assessors. The external assessment gave the "biological sciences" at UHK a score of 82%, the second highest score in UHK and the highest score in "biology" in Hong Kong. The grading system for internal assessment ranged from 5 (= godlike) to 1 (= Mickey Mouse Science Kit for Beginners). The Zoology Department scored a 3, Botany Department a 3 and the Department of Ecology & Biodiversity a 4 (with "potential for 5"). This is on a UK scale and so directly comparable to Universities / Institutions in the UK. Well done to all those publishing good stuff out there, the message is - we are pretty good - BUT we could be better - so in the next year - lets go get that 5!
Gray Williams (Postgraduate Tutor) & John Hodgkiss (Head)
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The new Seminar series
DEB staff and students must have noticed that we have not been able to hold a regular series of seminars for some time. This is a very strange problem as, judging by the number of students in our department, we should be able to run seminars for almost 2 years! At present, however, we cannot guarantee enough seminars for even one month!
Previous experience has shown that many students are not eager to give a seminar although they know they are obliged to do so at least once a year (as stated in the student regulations). Although this regulation exists, many students ignore it or simply do not know about it (check your annual review form!). As time goes by, it eventually becomes the job of the seminar organizers to find and persuade someone to give a seminar.
Life is tough; willing students are not easy to find! Sometimes, however, they accept our request, but often students change their minds and withdraw at short notice. This not only causes trouble to the organizers, but it is a poor advertisement for our department, since seminars are not only of interest to our departmental students and staff but also OTHER departments, OTHER universities and OTHER bodies such as AFD, EPD and green groups as well which rely on our timetables.
In response to these problems we plan to introduce a new system, the details of which are now being drafted and we hope to launch the new scheme in the coming September. In brief, the new system is as follows:
1. Students will be TOLD the date of their seminar (with a limited choice of dates within one month). This will allow us to draw up reliable monthly timetables which we will then circulate (and be able to put in Porcupine! as well).
2. The order of appearance will be sorted by two criteria: firstly date of registration and secondly by how many departmental (and no other seminar is accepted!) postgraduate seminars have been given. Thus, the longer you have been here and still not given any seminar, then the closer you will be to being the first target!
3. As you know, we have a lot of students and to avoid all the 'old' students filling up the seminar slots for months we will arrange 'old' and new' students to alternate (e.g., week one would be a final year student, week two a new student and week three another 'old' student etc.)
4. The new students will be selected according to the same criteria as the old students. As the idea behind the new student seminars is to present an outline of their projects it is envisaged that two new students could give seminars on the same day (say 15-20 mins each).
5. The same "double billing" could also apply for students wanting to practice conference (~15 mins) presentations. Year II and III students (and staff!) will obviously have lots to talk about/present and together with visiting speakers we will retain the normal 45-50 mins slots for these seminars. The present flexibility with dates for visiting speakers will be maintained to ensure all visitors have the chance to speak when they are in Hong Kong.
6 To prevent students dropping out days before the seminar, any student who withdraws from their designated seminar slot has to present an acceptable explanation to the Head of Department (Prof Hodgkiss).
We know many students may think this is harsh, but seminars are important and they are a departmental duty of all students. Our aim is to continue with an effective postgraduate-run seminar series. We hope this scheme will ensure regular seminars and in time people will volunteer for seminars when they have something they want to discuss, as opposed to waiting for their 'turn'. If you have any comments please contact either of us (Richard and Michelle) or write to Feedback!
Thanks!
Richard Huang
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