ORGANIZATION OF PhD-LEVEL COURSES
11/10/2019
PROPOSAL OF COURSES note: these rules will change for AY 2021-22 and the new rules will be published by the end of January
To support the attainment of the general training aims, both the PhD School and the PhD Programme in Information Technology organize a wide set of educational activities for students.
Courses offered by the PhD School
These courses deal with transferable skills. The School opens a specific call for proposals on a yearly basis (usually in February-April). Any professor who is willing to present a proposal is invited first to contact the Chair (or vice-Chair) of the PhD Programme in Information Technology. Proposals are submitted by filling in a form with the details of the course program. Both replication of courses offered in previous years and new courses are welcome. The lecturers may be either internal or external. They are remunerated with a fee that depends on their status (internal/external, coming from Italy/EU countries/extra EU countries), with general rules established by the PhD School. For internal lecturers, the budget can be either transferred to a research fund or, after deductions, used for personal payment.
Courses offered by the PhD Programme in Information Technology
The disciplinary courses in Information Technology are taught by DEIB Professors or by invited instructors, who must have a curriculum considered as appropriate by the Faculty Board. These courses are related to topics in the four areas of the IT PhD Programme (Computer Science and Engineering, Electronics, Systems and Control, Telecommunications), though some of them may have an interdisciplinary nature. Courses provide advanced knowledge, and give the students the necessary training for addressing research issues in a professional and competitive way. General methodological topics are preferred, so as to attract a sufficiently large number of PhD candidates.
Each year (usually in February) a call for proposals is issued by the PhD Programme, regarding courses that are to be delivered in the next Academic Year (i.e. from November 1st of the current year to October 31st of the following year). Any Professor of DEIB is entitled to present a proposal. All courses have a 5 credits format, corresponding to 25-30 hours of classwork activities. The proposal should be presented to the Faculty Board by filling a specific on-line form, indicating in particular the name of the lecturers, the detailed program, the teaching organization and the methods of final learning assessment. In the case of multiple lecturers, an integer number of credits must be assigned to each of them.
The Faculty Board is in charge of the selection. Usually, there is a limitation on the number of courses that can be offered each year. It is suggested not to propose the same course in two consecutive years, unless a large number of attendees is expected. The list of selected courses is eventually approved by the DEIB Council. Course instructors are remunerated with a fee that depends on their status (internal/external, coming from Italy/EU countries/extra EU countries), with the same general rules adopted by the PhD School. A decision on the activation of the course will be communicated by the end of the month April for courses to be started from November to October.
The effective activation of each course depends on the number of registered students: if a reasonable number (established by the Board of Professors, currently 3 enrolled PhD candidates at Politecnico di Milano) of registered students is not reached, the course will not be remunerated. It may be still activated for free or cancelled. In this case, payments to external professors will be charged on funds of the proposers of the course. In previous years the vast majority of courses had at least seven registered PhD students.
Registrations to courses are entered by the PhD candidates by the end of December within their study plans. Therefore in January the course organizers can have an idea of the number of registered candidates; these numbers can vary slightly as PhDs are allowed to insert and delete courses during the year.
MANAGEMENT OF COURSES
After approval
Each activated course has a proposer (usually the main lecturer or an internal professor in the case of courses held entirely by external instructors) and possibly other invited lecturers.
The proposer of the course has the following duties:
· Define the detailed program and fix the exact dates and schedule, taking care of preventing conflicts with other PhD courses. The detailed program (i.e., course outline) should be inserted using the online services system in Scheda incarichi di docenza. A request will be received by the coordinating professor. If the professor is an external researcher, a DEIB professor can be delegated to insert the information.
· Reserve a classroom, with adequate capacity, in the selected dates.
· Upload all the required information, including schedule and location, on the online application Incarichi e attività didattiche (normally before the end of July).
· Manage the course and coordinate the lecturers, if needed.
· Perform the assessment of the students.
· Register the students’ evaluations on the Online Service application Teaching
For instructors: before the course
- Detailed information about location of the course must be available in the detailed programme (this part of the form can be edited if necessary also after the formal approval of the course using the Online service Schede incarichi docenza). The schedule and locations must be finalized at least one month before the beginning of the course.
- A message info about the course should be sent by the course professor to enrolled participants giving detailed information some time before the course (but be aware that the enrollment list can change at any time, as attendants can insert the course or delete it any time)
- External attendants might ask to attend the course: this participation can be informal (no statements given) or formal: for this case see https://dottoratoit.deib.polimi.it/?m=8&id=9
- The formatted list of attendants and the register for the course will be prepared and sent to the coordinator by the PhD secretariat before starting the course
For instructors: during the course
The following rules must be followed:
- attendance (at least 70%) is mandatory to take the exam or to obtain an attendance certificate.
- The secretariat will send you a form, which must be signed by the formally registered participants
For instructors: after the course
- An evaluation of the students must be performed at the end of the course, based on an exam (grade: Pass/Fail)
- For internal professors, exams are managed like all the other courses at PoliMi.
- For external professors: grades can be also entered online by a delegate, but an original signature by the external professor is requested on a paper form (verbale), which can be downloaded from the online system – the delegate cannot sign the grades
- Certificates of participation for external attendants: this service is not available at the moment
- Letters of confirmation of participation. If requested by external participants, professors can write a letter (a template is available)
Courses held by external professors
- All instructors will have to register on Polimi web site to get a personal code (codice persona)
- A CV must be attached for external professors when proposing the course
- A request for additional funding can be presented in case travel expenses are higher that the allocated sum (€ 6500 for extraEU, € 5500 for EU, € 4000 for Italians – a course is international only if at least 15 credits have given by a professor from a foreign institution – these sums are gross values, the recipient receives approx. half of the amount)
- In case of courses held entirely by an external professor, an internal professor can be delegated by the external professor to manage the online information within the requested deadlines, i.e. inserting detailed program, schedule of lectures, grades
- Grades can only be signed by the professor officially responsible for the course as indicated in the system (not a delegate). If a digital signature at Polimi is not available, the grades have to be formally signed on paper and sent to the secretariat.
