Useful information
Below you can find some pages that provide useful information connected to your studies at the University of Oxford.
Late Submissions of Theses
If you are unable to meet the deadline for your thesis, or have special requirements during examinations due to medical or other reasons, these are the steps that you should follow. Consult your department first; only after they have agreed should you contact College.
A. Consult your Department
Ask your supervisor, director of graduate studies or your head of department. They must agree to a delay and must define a new date for completion. When they have done so, you must inform College.
B. Inform College
It is possible that a delay or special arrangements for examinations can be authorised by your department without needing to get the additional approval from the university Proctors. Your department should tell you if this is the case or not.
If it is necessary for the Proctors to approve this, the College will have to submit a plea to them on your behalf. In order to do so we need the following. Be sure to follow these instructions carefully, especially being sure to send any information to the people specified. (In the following TfG = Tutor for Graduates, frank.close@exeter.ox.ac.uk and AA = Academic Administrator, joan.himpson@exeter.ox.ac.uk)
We need:
- note from your department confirming that they approve a delay and specifying the new date for completion (can be email to AA copy to TfG)
- note from you explaining why you are unable to meet the original deadline (can be email to TfG copy to AA)
- any documents to support your case (e.g. if for medical reasons, a letter from doctor). A doctor's letter, and any other information that is in hard copy should be sent to the Academic Administrator.
Upon receiving your email (2) above, TfG can advise if he needs to see you or if we need further information. It is important that you understand what happens at this stage:
C. University Proctors
In order to get approval from Proctors, the College will need to convince them that you have a legitimate case and be able to prove this if necessary. That is why we need the information in 1,2,3 above. The Proctors do not give permission for over-riding university academic regulations without good cause. However, where there is a clear case, properly argued and supported, approval usually follows rapidly.
Note that a request for delay must specify the new completions date "on or before Day/Month/Year". The Proctors will not allow open-ended requests or ambiguous ones such as "two weeks". It is up to you and your department to decide what is acceptable to them; College and Proctors will usually accept this too.
D. MOST IMPORTANT: PLAN AHEAD!
If there is a serious chance of needing an extension, deal with the above matters early. This is especially true during the long vacation. The TfG will be absent from Oxford for long periods due to research, conferences, and also vacation. The College Office (AA and staff) will be over-run with the paperwork for students who are due to arrive in October, and during the vacation period the office will be over-stretched.
If there is some unforeseen event that requires emergency action, we will endeavour to do so and, if necessary, explain to the Proctors why we were unable to meet their deadline. Conversely, applications made within 1 to 2 weeks of a deadline without good reason are likely to run into problems and fail. I cannot overemphasise how important it is that you recognise this. For the vast majority of students none of this will arise; I hope this will include you.
I pass on to you a comment that the Proctors have in the past made. "Note that even absence due to illness of 1-2 weeks should not affect a student's ability to complete on time if work has been done properly throughout the year and not left to the last moment". I encourage you to bear that in mind now so as to reduce the likelihood of problems later.
Joan Himpson, Academic Administrator
Online Exam Results
An initiative by students at Oxford University now make the impossible possible: You can view Oxford University Exam Results online!
Just visit http://www.onlineexamresults.com.
The site has a photograph of every exam result that is posted at the Exam Schools. It is updated every morning as the new exam results are posted. Additionally, it is completely free to use, so you can check your own and your friends' result with just a few clicks.
Online Registration
Online Registration - Michaelmas Term 2007
In the following we provide important advance information about a new online registration process for all students who will be returning to Oxford in Michaelmas Term 2007. It was sent out by M D Sibly, the Academic Registrar and Secretary of Faculties.
Registration is the annual process by which it is checked that the University has all the relevant information about you and confirm your status as a member of the University. For Michaelmas Term you will be asked to confirm your personal details, check the programme of study (course) you have been entered on, and confirm your continuing status as a student for the 07/08 academic year.
You may remember filling out paper registration forms in college last term. For Michaelmas Term 2007 you will be able to complete your registration online, at any time that is convenient to you, between the dates of 01 September-12 October. Ideally this would be done before you arrive at the University - saving you time when you return.
Your login details will be e-mailed to you over the summer along with the link to the registration area of the University website. You already have an '@college.ox.ac.uk' type e-mail address and this is the address which will be used when communicating with you by e-mail.
The online registration process is designed to be as quick and simple as possible. Full instructions will be given nearer the time but, if you do encounter any problems, or for any reason you are unable to complete registration online, a Registration Helpline will be available if you would like to speak to someone or you require additional support.
Further details on the Online Registration process will follow in Trinity Term, to include:
- A Step-by-Step Guide to Online Registration
- Details of the Registration Helpline; telephone number, e-mail and opening hours
- Details of when you will receive your login details to carry out online registration for MT 07
Student Self Service
Confirm your details by 121th October
You should have recently received a letter containing details of your userID for the University of Oxford Student Self-Service site. Shortly after that you should have received an email containing your Student Self-Service site password.
If you have not received your userID or password, or if you have problems using the site, please contact OSIC@admin.ox.ac.uk.
The Student Self-Service site is where you will need to register online for your forthcoming year of study at Oxford. You will need to register online at the anniversary of the term in which you first started your current programme of study. Most of you will be Michaelmas term students and should hence register at the start of Michaelmas term.
Once you have logged on at https://www.studentsystem.ox.ac.uk/ using your userID and password, you will be asked to change your password. It must be at least 8 characters long, contain both letters and numbers but no special characters, and not contain any repeating consecutive characters. After this you will be asked to check your details and confirm your status. And that's all there is to it.
So do register before 12th October 2007. If you need some extra motivation, there will be a prize draw to receive one of 50 Free Memory Sticks - provided, of course, you keep the deadline. So what are you waiting for? Register!
Warning: Oxbridge Essays
University Offence to Facilitate Plagiarism
The company Oxbridge Essays has been emailing Oxford graduate students to recruit them as essay writers for the company, offering seemingly lucrative awards. Oxbridge Essays is one of an increasing number of companies that exists, essentially, to sell essays to students. Despite disclaimers on these companies' websites, the vast majority of their student customers hand such essays in as their own. Writing for such companies effectively condones and facilitates widespread plagiarism.
The Clerk to the Proctors advise that: A change was made to Statutes last April that, essentially, makes it an offence for students to supply material to Oxbridge Essays and similar companies.
Be aware, therefore, that any student recruited as a writer by this or similar companies is committing a University offence and is likely to be punished severely.
Example Email from Oxbridge Essays
Dear XXXXX,
My name is XXXXX, writing from the recruitment department at Oxbridge Essays. We have a shortage of students with PhDs in XXXXX and we wonder whether you would like to write for us? Below is a short introduction to the company and our services; if you would like to sign-up, please just follow the link at the bottom of the page and we'll email you the relevant information.
Oxbridge Essays employs 1000+ Oxford University and Cambridge University educated writers to produce model academic research such as essays, dissertations, personal statements, CVs and so on for a predominantly international clientele. We now have a number of short-term and long-term writing positions available. Writers can make as much as £600 for one 2000 word essay and £50,000+ a year working frequently. As a PhD student writer, you have no obligations whatsoever to undertake work for us, and may work just during vacations if you prefer or take on the occasional piece during term. Alternatively, we offer PhD researchers short-term and long-term contracts for quotas of work should you prefer.
Additionally, Oxbridge Essays offers a range of scholarships and sponsorships for Oxbridge PhD students worth up to £10,000 per student. Moreover, we offer gap-year, travel and research grants of up to £5,000 per student.
Moreover, our SAFI scheme (Sign-a-Friend-Initiative) rewards you for recommending Oxbridge friends and colleagues to the company, with fees of up to £150 per PhD student recommended and £200 per academic lecturer.
If you have any interest in the above, please visit the writers' section of our website at the following link: XXXXX.
If you would like to apply, please complete the short application-form at XXXXX.
www.academia.edu
Academic webpages for graduate students free of charge
www.academia.edu is a site for graduate students and academics, which has just launched. It allows graduate students and academics who don’t know HTML to create academic webpages. To create a webpage, you just fill in a few fields, upload any papers, and press ‘create’. The site is totally free. Check out this sample academic webpage to get a better idea of what results might look like.
There are also discussion areas of the site for various fields, and there
is a primitive paper-tracking engine that tracks the latest papers uploaded to the web in various fields.
The site was set up by a fellow of All Souls College for the academic community – any feedback to richard@academia.edu is very much appreciated. We'd like to thank him for his generosity!