The author is supervising several student works. Since each of them is finalizing their work more or less in parallel, there is a need for a structured way of supervision.

No student should suffer from being forgotten nor should get feedback too late. Being a supervisor is not the biggest part of my job and so I need a common procedure. I simply can not remember/maintain the preferred data flow mechanism of each and every student. So students have to adopt to my method.

And this is document describes the method.

PS: Do not hesitate and contact me if you have suggestions!

The supervision process consists of multiple parts:

• Following the Rules: how to keep students up to date on the process here
• Communication Channels and Setup: how to exchange files and information
• Individual Appointments: regular meetings with the students
• Regular Submissions of PDF files: how to supervise content
• Weekly LaTeX-Q&A: there are always things you can learn about LaTeX
• LaTeX Code: basic rules and direct feedback

This process is hosted as a github project.

You can «follow» the project on github and regularly monitor its changes which is recommended but not mandatory. General notifier-services are being blocked by github and can not be used for following the changes here.

Changes will be announced via email to all of my students.

My preferred way of communicating with you is via email. I am fairly good reachable per email, even on evenings and most weekends.

If you want to get in touch with me for instant feedback, call my office phone number. Either I am in my office and can answer your call or (after four? times of ringing) you will be routed to my cellphone. If you land in my voice mail system, I am currently speaking to someone else or my phone is off (during sleeping hours).

You might as well ask me for my Jabber ID.

Sorry, I do have strong arguments against usage of Skype. But you might as well ask me for my Google+ ID and schedule a Google hangout there.

I am using a tablet computer to read your PDF submission. This way I read and annotate the content of your thesis.

Please use Syncthing instead of cloud-based services like Dropbox. It maintains our level of privacy without exposing data to the public cloud.

Syncthing is available for all major operating systems except Apple iOS because Apple is prohibiting tools like Syncthing as they prohibited tools like external keyboards for many years.

Create a Syncthing folder for your thesis using any name you wish. I rename it to «LASTNAME_THESISTYPE» on my side (only) anyway. («Thesistype» is either «Bakk» or «DA».)

After you have created your Synthing folder, please do send me your device ID (web interface > Actions > Show ID) and the ID of your shared folder (expand the folder in the web interface).

You are going to set up a Git repository especially for your LaTeX document. Even if you already have a Git repository for source code or such, please do create another one solely for your thesis document as well.

Please contact me for getting information where to push your local Git changes to.

Do not wait for some final chapter or so to check in! Check in often! Use it as an off-site backup in case your computer fails or in case you delete large portions of text by mistake. Never think that this will not be the case. We are all humans so we all make mistakes. Even me :-)

Each student gets a weekly 30 minute slot or a bi-weekly 60 minute slot. If you think I need to do a small internet research by myself for a question you have got, email me your question(s) upfront.

Agenda:

• What happened since the last appointment?
• What were the problems?
• Probably: comments about the last PDF submission
• Probably: comments about the LaTeX source
• Next steps and deliverables until next appointment

If the appointment should be canceled, write me an email at least one day in advance. Short term cancels only via synchronous communication channels such as phone.

This is about the content of your thesis.

If you finish a certain part of your document:

1. Generate the PDF file
2. Put it in the shared Syncthing folder
3. Rename it to YYYY-MM-DD_TYPE_LASTNAME_-_optional_things.PDF
4. Send me an email, describing the parts I should check

File name convention examples:

• minimal example: 2012-03-18_DA_Smith.pdf
• example with comment: 2012-03-19_Bakk_Mueller_-_chap_2-4_ready_for_persual.pdf

After I checked the content of your document, you will may annotations in the PDF file which will be discussed at the next individual appointment.

I might as well add comments in your LaTeX code as well.

We will schedule a weekly hour for LaTeX-specific questions and best practices. It is not mandatory but highly recommended. Especially at an early stage of your thesis!

I assume that you already have basic LaTeX knowledge. At this LaTeX-Q&A I will show examples of LaTeX source code and suggest things that spare you lots of time (and nerves).

Please be assured: although I stick to current LaTeX code issues of my students, this event is not intended to offend the work of single persons! It demonstrates optimizations and encourages learning for everybody.

I will keep individual LaTeX code optimizations to a minimum and explain things only at this LaTeX-Q&A meetings! You will see: your colleagues make the same mistakes as you do. And as I have done a couple of years ago.

Occasionally, this LaTeX meetings may be canceled. In this case, I will send an email preferably at least two days in advance.

This is about the form of your thesis.

You have to use the LaTeX typesetting system to write your thesis. For millions of reasons there is no arguing for doing it in other systems. Sorry for that.

I will keep individual LaTeX code optimizations to a minimum and explain LaTeX-related things only at the LaTeX-Q&A meetings!

I assume that you already have basic LaTeX knowledge.

• Use the LaTeX thesis template of LaTeX@TUG
  • you can use your own thesis template as long as you know what you are doing (I will check!)
  • especially as LaTeX beginner: never write your own template or preamble. Trust me. BTDT :-)
• In any case: please read the content of the example chapters of the LaTeX@TUG template!
• Use the todonotes packet
  • add the «listoftodos» command in your document to get an overview of open issues
  • Annotations and suggestions will be done using todonotes snippets within your tex-files
  • use todonotes by annotating open issues by yourself
• Check in all necessary files for compilation into the Git repository
  • do not forget images and such
  • do use meaningful submit messages in the commit line
• Maintain a script that generates the PDF file completely
  • the thesis template of LaTeX@TUG offers a makefile for that purpose
• Make sure your LaTeX-editor …
  • uses a decent spell checker
  • produces UTF-8 compatible TeX-files
  • does not produce line lengths longer than the usual 70-90 characters in your TeX-files
• Do not check in the PDF output files into the Git repository of your thesis unless we agree on an exception
  • you can ignore files for Git and thus keep them only for your own

There is an even longer page with excellent tips on how to write LaTeX documents. I recommend you to read it as well. Some details do differ from your situation here because you are using a different LaTeX template (KOMA script) where following things are handled differently:

• no natbib
• no doublespace (it’s not even maintained any more)
• no geometry
• no pslatex

Student Supervision Process by Karl Voit is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License