Every student is assigned an academic ‘Placement Advisor’. The Placement Advisor will track the student’s progress throughout their placement year and act as first marker for their placement report and viva voce examination, which take place in October/November when the student returns to their final year of studies in Manchester.

The Placement Advisor will conduct two essential meetings (minimum) with the student during the year.  These meetings must be recorded via the appropriate form and sent through to the Placement Office. The Placement Advisor may feel that the student would benefit from further meetings and/or may be in email contact with the student about their progress during the placement year.

The role of the Placement Advisor is as follows:

• To conduct two remote meetings (minimum) with student
• To first mark their placement report
• To make arrangements for, and chair, the student’s viva voce examination.

The allocation of a Placement Advisor to a placement student will be based on the student’s area of research. Allocations will be made in October and the first placement advisor meeting should be conducted soon after, to ensure that the student is settling in well on their placement.

The second meeting will be conducted towards the end of the placement (between March and June) and should have a focus on how the student is progressing towards their project report.

Please fill in the First Placement Advisor Meeting Form (link in box below) when you meet the student.

It is important that a reasonable amount of time is spent with each student and the supervisor – please set aside two hours for this process.

General points 

• The student will contact you in October/November to introduce themselves and to let you know how they are getting on with their placement so far.  On receipt of this initial email, please arrange a suitable day/time to hold the first Placement Advisor meeting.  The aim of this meeting is to ensure that the student is settling well into their placement and to identify any potential problems as early as possible.
• Please liaise with the student and their placement supervisor to arrange a convenient time for them both to hold the first meeting.
• Please try to speak to the student and supervisor separately first and then together if possible.  This gives both the opportunity to raise any problems that they may not do together.  Hopefully these will be few, and can be resolved in the joint discussion.  If not, please bring any problems to the attention of the Placement Office.
• Find out what the student is doing.  If the student has not yet started their project it is especially important to reassure yourself that it will get underway in timely fashion (e.g. What type of work?  Is it a self-contained project or fitting in with the work of others? Is it routine screening? What equipment and techniques are being used?)
• Please try to ensure that the student is being well supervised and is gaining a lot from the experience.

Find out from the placement supervisor how well the student is working, eg:

• How well did the student settle in on arrival?
• Does the student show a good knowledge of the work?
• Does the student learn quickly and put the knowledge into practice?
• Are time keeping, industry and application to the work good?
• Does the student get on well with others and express him/her self well both orally and in writing?
• Is the lab‑book well kept (if applicable)?

Please fill in the 'First Placement Advisor Meeting Form'. As it is the first meeting, please identify something that the student can be asked to concentrate on to improve for their next visit. 

Information for the student

Much of the following has already been given to the students but it is important to reassure them that they have not been forgotten! 

Please remind the student that they are expected to continue 'meetings' (filling in the meeting forms on the intranet) with their academic advisors during the placement.  Ideally these should take place via Zoom/Teams, rather than via email.

• They should not hesitate to contact their academic advisor, the Placement Office or their Programme Director if there are ANY problems or questions. Many are already in regular contact, especially by email, and all should be reminded that we may well send important messages to their university email addresses, so they should check them as well as any company/personal email accounts they may have. When we have not picked up a problem with placements this has usually come down to the student not telling us. Please try to ensure that the student feels able to alert us to problems. 
• We require a report at the end of the placement year - the student has been given some guidelines. This does not need to be a self-contained project report but may be a description of the background to their work and the methods used without significant results - the format will depend on the type of work being undertaken. Sometimes an extended internal report is required by the company ‑ if so this will usually be adequate. The report will be assessed by two members of staff with a viva (split marks are 70:30 with 70% of the marks going towards the written report) and will be made available to the external examiner. This contributes approximately 9% towards the degree classification.
• Students will receive information about the “what to expect from final year talk” (which will be podcast) and projects (incl. how to self-arrange with a member of staff) and the new Final Level Handbook as soon as it becomes available. Until the new handbook is made live the students can be referred to the current Final Year Handbook to get a rough idea of what is likely to be on offer - Programme Directors can advise on any likely changes.
• If the student wants University accommodation for the next academic year they should visit the University accommodation office website or email accommodation@manchester.ac.uk

The second meeting will consist of a conversation in which the student will talk through a PowerPoint presentation they have prepared based upon the theme of their placement report. You are asked to complete a ‘Second Placement Advisor Meeting Form' (see below).

We ask the Placement Advisor to:

• Contact your allocated student to establish a mutually convenient date for the meeting to take place. The visit should take place between March and the end of June.
• Download the presentation for your allocated student. This will be sent to you in advance via an email directly from the student.
• Conduct the meeting with the student. We ask that you contact the student on the pre-arranged date/time and talk through their PowerPoint presentation with them. The aim of the presentation is to provide a focus for you to talk with the student, giving feedback and asking questions to determine how their research and project are progressing. Please check that a realistic timetable for submission of draft material for the final report has been agreed between student and supervisor.

We ask that you complete a ‘Second Placement Advisor Meeting Form’, which you should refer to during the conversation with the student and note the relevant details.

Important points:

• There is no minimum/maximum length for this PowerPoint presentation but we require that the first slide includes the working title of the Placement Report (it can be changed later if necessary).  We provide PowerPoint templates for the students.
• Placement Supervisors are not required to be involved in this exercise but you should alert the Placement Office to any problems that are flagged up by the student which might be resolved via a telephone call.
• It is important to stress to the students that they will not be assessed on their performance in the meeting. This exercise is to help them to get feedback, and to focus their minds on their project while they are still on their placement. No marks will be awarded for their PowerPoint presentation and it will not affect their final report mark.
• Once the presentation has been completed, you should not retain the presentation. This is especially important for placements subject to confidentiality agreements (if you or the student’s supervisor have any queries about confidentiality please contact the Placement Office.

The projects are first-marked by the Placement Advisor.

Reports will be available on Blackboard (BIOL40000) unless they are covered by a Confidentiality Disclosure Agreement (CDA) in which case it will be submitted as a hard copy.  

Technical Instructions for accessing and marking the reports on Blackboard can be found here

Marking guidelines (all reports)

First Marker Report Form (all reports except Business, Science Communication, Education and Conservation & Animal Husbandry)

Second Marker Report Form (all reports except Business, Science Communication, Education and Conservation & Animal Husbandry)

First Marker Report Form (Business)

Second Marker Report Form (Business)

Detailed Marking Criteria (Business)

First Marker Report Form (Science Communication)

Second Marker Report Form (Science Communication)

First Marker Report Form (Education)

Second Marker Report Form (Education)

First Marker Report Form (Conservation & Animal Husbandry)

Second Marker Report Form (Conservation & Animal Husbandry)