Attendance, Engagement & Visas¶
Tip
Some History (Redux). In the past, PGRs did not spend the first 4 months of their time in PGR Home and were not required to attend the core hours. This meant that many PGRs were not able to build a cross supervisory peer support group to help them get perspective in the hard times that they will inevitably have. To address this problem we created a common area for all PGRs for their first 4 months and a requirement that they attend every day for the core hours. This is so PGRs can benefit from both giving and receiving peer support and building a Peer Support Network. Please realise your ‘luck’ in being provided with these opportunities and use them well.
With respect to attendance, in general, you are required to be engaged in the programme. Including the compulsary training programme, and the PGR Symposium, in which all research students are required to participate.
PGR follows a Flexible Working model with Core Hours between 10:00 - 16:00 (you are expect to be available between these times unless personal circumstances dictate otherwise)
This does two things - it means that staff should not be organising supervision meetings outside 1000-1600 unless all parties agree (and students should not by default expect to contact their supervisor outside of these hours). In this way we follow Athena Swan 10 and protect staff and students who may have family responsibilities.
Because we run a Flexible Working Model 1 we now expect students to be in Department between 1000-1600 when they are present for the day unless they have made arrangements with their supervisor to work differently. However, PGRs can choose to work a pattern of days from home and days in the Department. This pattern should be fixed and regular so that others know when you’ll be present and know when they can talk with you face-to-face. You should discuss this with your supervisor, but, if you only plan on being present one day a week you will be required to share a desk, and if two days a week you may be required to share a desk if we have space constraints.
Therefore, you can work flexibly at anytime with the consent of your supervisory team.
It is my experience (and that of many other staff) that students who don’t attend, do worse, drop out, or fail because they neither give, nor receive, support.
Engagement¶
Every PGR is expect to remain “engaged” with the programme. That means, being very committed to the research, maintaining contact with their supervisor, and participating in the mandatory elements of the programme. Each month, your supervisor is asked whether they met with you as expected and whether they judge that you are engaging with the research. More details on this are given in section.
eProg¶
eProg is the University-wide progression system and skills training catalogue for PGRs. It is used to document your interactions with your supervisors and other members of your support and assessment teams, so its use will be central. It is located at eProg 8.
*You are required to use eProg*. At various points in your programme, you will record your objectives and progress in eProg. For example, quarterly reports on progress are recorded here. When you have successes, such as publishing a paper, attending a conference, participating in a training programme, etc. you should record this on eProg. It is also used by your supervisors to record any issues which they might have, and to record the attendance. Your supervisors and the Department will record your progress through eProg, including the yearly review process.
Every PGR on eProg is on a pathway. Your pathway will be something like
PhD Comp 3YR FT Sept22
which means you are on a 3-year PhD programme in computer science, studying full time, starting in September 2022. If you click on the Pathway menu item, it will show you the milestones for your pathway. If you click on the Progression menu item, it will show a table of links to the forms you need to fill out, as eProg tracks you as you progress. Most forms are filled out by you, following or leading on to discussions with your supervisor(s). However, there are also forms filled out by your end of year assessors, and the attendance monitoring forms are filled out by your supervisor.
There is a facility to add documents and add meetings, and many supervisors will record every meeting in eProg.
As mentioned in Section, you can also access the training catalogue from eProg.
Home Working¶
The University’s Furniture Store has invested in new supplies of recycled office desks and chairs – please visit the StaffNet site or email simon.atkinson@manchester.ac.uk for more information. If you require an item from the Furniture Store please speak with your supervisor first to gain their approval before contacting the Furniture Store directly. If the Furniture Store can supply the item you will have to arrange collection from campus, taking into consideration the current national restrictions on travel and our coming on to campus guidance. If you are unable to go to the Furniture Store to collect items you should speak to your line manager who may agree to fund delivery of items to your home.
Working Hours¶
I quote here from and advice document for new PhD students written by Dame Professor Nancy Rothwell, who is the President of the University, Doing a PhD 9
These are not fixed — some people start early and leave early, some the other way round, some seem to work long hours but take many breaks. The important thing is that you get things done. A PhD is a very demanding workload and you will need to manage your own working hours. You will need to work flexibly around the demands of your experiments and this may involve work in evenings or weekends.
Your supervisors may have particular reasons for you to work at particular times. The students who succeed well tend to be those who work here and interact with members of their research group(s). It is not a good idea to work from home.
Warning
For this reason in CS we expect you to be available between 1000-1600 when you are in the Department (or elsewhere) and you can negotiate the days you will be physically present in the Department, but, you can discuss this with your supervisors to come to an equitable arrangement based on our Flexible Working Model 1.
Your attendance will be monitored in the following way. Once a month, your main supervisor will be sent a form on your eProg account. This asks two questions: have you been present during the last month, and have you been engaged during the last month. The supervisor can provide free text to support his answers; usually filled in only if the answers to the preceding questions are “No”. If your supervisors know you are away, working in another lab as part of your research for example, this is not a problem. It is indicated in the free text box. However, we expect you and your main supervisor to be seeing each other on a regular basis and certainly more than once per month.
Tier 4 Visa Attendance Monitoring Census¶
The University operates attendance monitoring Census Points within the academic year in order to confirm the attendance of students holding a Student Visa. This is to ensure the University meets the UKVI statutory requirements as a sponsor of visa students and its responsibilities in accordance with its Highly Trusted Sponsor status.
If you are a visa holder, you must attend these attendance monitoring census points, in addition to complying with the School’s own programme attendance requirements.
The attendance monitoring census points and further information are accessible via the Immigration and Visas 4 site.
Please note: registration is your first point to confirm your attendance at the University and you will not be required to attend a further census point in October, if you registered in September.
You will receive an e-mail from the Department to confirm when and where you should attend to have your attendance confirmed. You must check your University e-mail account regularly. Failure to check your e-mail account is not a valid reason to be absent from a census point.
UKVI Attendance and Engagement (Tier 4)¶
Student visa holders in the UK are not permitted by the UKVI to study wholly remotely and must attend face-to-face teaching on campus with a minimum attendance requirement of two face-to-face teaching interactions in any rolling 4-week period. The UKVI does not specify the timing of the two interactions in the 4-week period beyond that they should be during the standard working day.
Teaching interactions may include in-person meetings with the supervisor or other members of the supervisory team, attending labs or in-person research skills development training sessions. The Student Immigration Team can advise as necessary on the suitability of any other interactions to meet this requirement.
There is no requirement for attendance during University closure periods, where the student is taking their annual leave, or where the student is ill.
In cases where the supervisor is working remotely, the student is still required to meet the in-person attendance requirement, drawing on other teaching interactions as noted above. There is no provision in the concession guidance for the teaching interaction to take place by video-conferencing call; in situations where there is no possibility for an in-person teaching interaction and a video conference call is used on an exceptional basis, the reasons should be documented together with confirmation that the student was on campus for the meeting. Should a situation arise where no teaching interactions are possible within the rolling 4-week period, for whatever reason, please contact the Student Immigration Team (Visas Team 3) for advice.
Visa Status During Submission Pending¶
If you are a student with a Tier 4 or Student visa who is entering or already in submission pending, there are some things that you need to know about your visa status during this period. When we issued your CAS, we included the submission pending period so that your visa should run through to your viva examination. This means that from a visa perspective, your submission pending period is ‘term-time’ and we need to confirm that you are academically engaging during this period. It also means that if you are working in the UK during submission pending, you are still limited to 20 hours a week work unless it is during your 8 weeks annual leave during which time you are able to work full-time.
Danger
Please note that information to do with visas discussed here is informative (not normative) you should always double check with the Visa Team as things change faster than this handbook.
A Tier 4 visa holder should complete submission pending in the UK; an absence of more than 60 days will affect their student visa status which in turn will mean that they are not eligible for the Graduate Route (post study work) visa when they successfully complete their degree.
Note
PGR visa holders can work full-time from their thesis submission until the day before their viva, and again after they have submitted their final corrected thesis via eScholar after their corrections are approved. They are still restricted to only working up to 20-hours-a-week during their writing up period and from the day of their VIVA until they submit their corrected thesis in full. – Manchester Visa Team - Sept 2022
PGRs who are not interested in retaining their visa status, or being eligible for the Graduate Route visa, may choose to give up their visa (we would withdraw visa sponsorship) so that they can write up from anywhere in the world. In this case, if they would need to obtain a visitor visa to return to the UK for any in-person viva.
What if a Tier 4 PGR cannot attend a census point?¶
If you cannot attend in person due to a valid reason which includes: illness; placement; field studies; research work; or any other reason connected to your course of study, you must email Faculty Doctoral Academy Support 2 to inform us of your absence and your inability to attend in person. In the case of illness, you must provide a copy of a medical certificate. If you are in this position you should report in person to the Student Support Office as soon as possible after you return to campus.
Students who are recorded as interrupting their studies are not expected to attend during their period of interruption.
What happens if a PGR does not attend a census point?¶
The Department must be able to confirm your presence to the UKVI by the end of each census point in the academic year. If you do not attend a census point when required by your Department and you do not provide a valid explanation for your absence you will be deemed to be not in attendance.
Those students identified as not in attendance will be reported to the UKVI and the University will cease to sponsor the student’s Tier 4 visa. The Tier 4 visa will then be curtailed and the student must leave the UK within 60 days.
Keeping your ATAS clearance up to date¶
If you are studying on a course that requires ATAS clearance, you must make sure that your ATAS clearance is up to date by applying for new clearance if your area of research changes at any point after you obtained your ATAS clearance. Apply for your new clearance as soon as you know that your course details have changed. ATAS applications take approximately 20 working days to be processed, but may take longer at peak times including July-September. You do not need to obtain new ATAS clearance if you obtain a new passport, get a part-time job, or if your contact details change. You can perform at ATAS Certificate Check 6 to see if you need a new Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS) 7 certificate.
Further information¶
If you have any concerns about the attendance monitoring census points, or your Tier 4 5 visa status, please contact the Faculty Doctoral Academy Support 2 Office.
The University has a very comprehensive website which will answer many of your visa queries at Immigration and Visas 4