Why you need to record your professional development?
It is an expectation that doctoral students engage in their professional development. Your engagement with professional development will be reviewed periodically by your supervisor and faculty and in particular is recorded at key milestones such as candidature and confirmation. Having an up-to-date record is important as it evidences your continuous professional development.
What do I need to record?
You are responsible for recording your own learning, professional development and training. You must keep a record of your training and development using SAMIS.
Remember to include all development activities, rather than just training courses. These could include (but not limited to):
- Any teaching you have delivered
- Auditing taught modules
- Undertaking self-directed learning modules on Moodle or other providers
- Attended conferences, events and seminars related to your discipline or field
- Networking with others and applying key learning
- Undertaking self-assessments and taking part in development activities
Recording activities in SAMIS
To record your training and professional development activities you will need to log in to 'SAMIS on the Web'.
You will need to go to the section labelled 'student tasks' and click on the link 'record additional PGR training'. This should take you to a new window for you to record your professional development activities.
Use the free text boxes to complete your record. You are advised to group activities together, e.g. teaching activities - you can record the start and end date, rather than every session you taught.
When you save your record, it will appear at the bottom of the table. You can full your full training certificate within the Doctoral Skills section on the student SAMIS homepage.
We would recommend you add activities after you complete them, rather than waiting for a formal assessment point, as this way you are keeping a continuous record and makes it easier to remember what you have done.
Example training record
This is an example PGR training record, highlighting how you might group things together and evidencing a range of different development activities.
| Period covered - Start date | Period covered - End date | Description of training and development activities and brief description of skills developed |
|---|---|---|
| 23/09/2021 | 03/10/2021 | Induction activities: departmental induction, central induction, e-learning module |
| 11/11/2021 | 11/11/2021 | Literature searching workshop (Library) - knowledge of subject specific sources available |
| 01/12/2021 | 01/12/2021 | Departmental seminar - opportunity to find out more about the broader field |
| 17/01/2022 | 19/01/2022 | Visit to Exeter university - meeting with researchers to discuss current challenges |
| 02/02/2022 | 01/05/2022 | Teaching and demonstrating: UG modules - opportunity for me to refresh knowledge of key concepts |
| 03/02/2022 | 06/07/2022 | Teaching - The Brilliant Club - opportunity to work with a younger audience, engage them with my research topic and apply concepts in an understandable way |
| 06/04/2022 | 06/04/2022 | Doctoral roundtable - presented a session on "research reproducibility" |
| 08/05/2022 | 08/05/2022 | E-learning module: Time Management - raised awareness of some techniques to help with prioritisation |
| 11/06/2022 | 12/06/2022 | External conference - able to learn about other research practices/meet colleagues working in a similar field |
What makes this a good training record?
- Development activities are varied, e.g. workshops, e-learning, seminars, teaching etc.
- Development is spread out across the year, e.g. it is continuous rather than being squashed in at the end of the year.
- Development activities are clearly described with an indication of why the individual chose that development option.