2 Introduction to supervision

This is an introduction text that explains that I will be your supervisor for your project and outlines some guidelines for our collaboration.

2.1 The introductory letter - Meeting procedure and formalities

Supervision letter: This is a copy of the introductory mail that you received, modified slightly for variation in group sizes (and trimming some of the niceties).

To get started, let’s get a few things done.

2.1.1 To do list

Step 1: Please make an MS Teams Team and invite me to it (as an owner). Step 2: Make a plan for the first meeting. (See the info below) Step 3: Figure out how you are going to work together (you cannot just divide up the project into small parts and each do a different part) - we’ll discuss this in the first meeting.

In the first meeting I will be the moderator (i.e. like a meeting-coordinator) - I will keep track of the time, make sure we talk about everything on the list, and try to let everyone have a chance to speak.

We need to discuss how you as a group are going to approach writing a project together. It is both an exciting and challenging process, part of the challenge is to get several individuals in the same room (teams for now I presume) where all group members can be heard, and can contribute to the development of the project.

To help with that, we are going to need to have some formalities in our meetings (otherwise I will just end up speaking far too much), and we won’t achieve what needs to be done in the discussions.

2.1.2 Roles and responsibilities in the meetings

Formalities: for every meeting you need to as a group select the following 3 people: (These need to be different for every meeting, but one person can take on multiple roles in smaller groups.)

  1. The person responsible for sending the agenda (talking points) before the meeting. (At least 1 day before the meeting.)

  2. The note-taker for that meeting (Will be responsible for sending a summary of the meeting to everyone after the meeting).

  3. The moderator for that meeting (will be responsible for keeping the meeting running on time and according to the agenda).

Just as a suggestion: I will include a rather formal meeting agenda in the team files section that you can use to save some time setting up a meeting agenda each time. Just change the headings that you want to and then update the table of contents (right-click on it and click on “update field”).

2.1.3 Rules for the meetings (short and sweet)

  1. Everyone is treated with respect.

  2. When one person is talking, all other people must listen. Not just keep quiet, but actually listen to the suggestions / comments.

I will share a supervision guide with you all once you have made the team, then we will use MS Teams to set up our meetings. I’ll show you how to do this - I will also make an agenda for the first meeting, and ask everyone to send me points they would like raised.

Please make the MS Team, discuss among you who will do what role in the first meeting, and we can cover the rest once we meet.

Important notice: The time have available for supervision are spread evenly through the semester, it is entirely your responsibility as a group to arrange to use the time allocated through the semester.

Best regards, Robert Smith

2.2 How many meetings?

  1. Introductory meeting: We will go through literature search and a few useful tools for writing in a collaborative project. (I will try to do a digital/video guide so that you can watch / view / pause rewind the info as much as you please.)

Here I will also try to get to understand where you are as a group in terms of 5 main areas:

  1. Your subject specific knowledge (this till be in terms of the specific topic that you have chosen to work on).

  2. Your experience and knowledge of group project work.

  3. Your skills in project and process management for getting the job done.

  4. Your technical academic skills – Theory of science, methodology, methods and theory.

  5. Your project writing skills – The practical writing tools, reference mangers, programming skills, collaboration tools etc.

  1. Meeting 2: You need to have worked on and bring a complete problem statement (see the guide and tips below), we will discuss it in the first meeting.

  2. Meeting 3: The literature review, and expected method should be done, and any data or materials you plan to use should be collected. We will go through your planned method and argumentation in the meeting.

  3. Meeting 4: The analysis should be complete, and you should have some working points for your discussion / conclusions. We will go through your arguments verbally, and I will probe any major gaps I see in your thinking.

2.3 Language

As you can see from this text, my first language is English. So anyone that wants to work on their English writing, or just get more exposure to economics in English it might be a good opportunity for you – If you want to work outside of the country or in most multinationals here in DK it is typically a requirement (Danmarks Nationalbank included). You will not be assessed on your grammar, but you will need to make sense and write in a professional manner.

If you would prefer to work in Danish, you are of course welcome to.

To get the most out of the supervision I recommend that in addition to the introductory meeting, 3 group meetings should be sufficient.