Supervision of Higher Degree by Research Students: Supervisor Resource Book

This is a resource book to assist supervisors of Higher Degree by Research (HDR) students to develop the quality of their supervisory practice. It is also a useful resource for anyone, who is associated with supporting HDR students and seeking to better understand the supervision role. Supervisor training in Australian universities has tended to focus on compliance and ensuring that all supervisors understand the policies, forms, resources and support services that underpin best practice research supervision. This resource book aims to go beyond compliance by providing a range of components and tools developed collaboratively in five Australian universities through interviews and workshops with HDR supervisors. The materials in this resource book thus distill the experiences and reflections of many experienced supervisors to provide tools and learning materials for all HDR supervisors. This resource book was developed to provide the knowledge that has been gained from diverse experiences of supervision in a form that can be used to accelerate supervisor development and to prepare supervisors for experiences in the future. It is hoped that this book’s tools will encourage collaborative discussion and that supervisors’ discussions of their dilemmas and ideas will build local communities of practice about HDR supervision.