As part of our undergraduate education at Cambridge specialists meet small groups of students weekly to coach them. These sessions are known as supervisions.
Supervisors support student transition into University life and guide their progress through their studies, ensuring they understand course material and directing them to additional support.
Supervisors range from early career researchers to world-leading specialists and help students to form connections between different parts of the course, providing rapid feedback on their progress.
In this section
- Data protection statement relating to supervisors and supervisions
- The 'Justice 4 College Supervisors' campaign
- Supervisor workload survey
- Further Information
- FAQ
Data protection statement relating to supervisors and supervisions
This document details how the Colleges and CASC, as the supplier of CamCORS, handle and use personal data both provided by supervisors and collected about supervisors and the students they teach in supervisions.
The 'Justice 4 College Supervisors' campaign
Campaigners under the banner 'Justice 4 College Supervisors' (J4CS) have raised several matters with the Colleges regarding the undergraduate supervision system.
Programme of work
The J4CS campaign called for a boycott of undergraduate supervisions for Michaelmas Term 2023. The call for a boycott was suspended following an agreed increase to the intercollegiate rates for supervisions for 2023/24, as detailed in this joint statement.
A programme of work was created by the College representatives, and agreed by the J4CS campaigners, to confirm how to progress the campaign's issues via the University and intercollegiate governance structures.
Progress reports of the programme of work from the College representatives are published regularly: Lent Term 2024, Michaelmas Term 2023.
College/J4CS meetings
College representatives have been meeting over the years with J4CS campaigners to discuss issues raised with the undergraduate supervision system. From 30 March 2023, joint statements on those meetings have been agreed and published:
2023/24
21 March 2024, 6 March 2024, 22 February 2024, 8 Febuary 2024 (cancelled), 25 January 2024, 12 December 2023, 30 November 2023, 9 November 2023, 19 October 2023, 5 October 2023, 18 September 2023
2022/23
22 June 2023, 11 May 2023, 30 March 2023
Supervisor workload survey
In Lent Term 2024 all current and recent undergraduate supervisors were asked to complete a survey on their experiences supervising.
The resulting data from the first half of the survey is detailed in this initial survey report. An interpretation of what that report shows is provided here. A further report on data from the second half of the survey will be released in the future.
Further information
For current or prospective undergraduate supervisors, there is more detailed information on expectations, training, payment rates, and supervision norms.
For current or prospective postgraduate supervisors, there is guidance on supervising postgraduates and creating supervision reports.
FAQ
Q. What is a supervision?
A supervision is a small-group session where undergraduates meet with a specialist in their subject to discuss the course. Typically a student will have one or two hour-long supervisions each week (this varies from course to course).
Q. Who organises supervisors?
Directors of Studies in Colleges typically arrange supervisors to teach their students. They monitor their supervisors' performance and effectiveness, and address any concerns raised about the quality of the provision.
Q. How many students are in a supervision?
Supervisions vary between subjects but often have 2-3 students and one teacher in a weekly session.
Q. Who pays for supervisions?
Colleges pay for supervisions. Reports submitted by supervisors, to provide feedback to their students, are also used by Colleges to process payments for the work of their supervisors.
Q. Who determines the payment for a supervision?
Payment rates are set by individual Colleges, which will be at least as high as the intercollegiate recharge rate. The intercollegiate recharge rate is used by Colleges to pay for supervisions provided by other Colleges, and is set annually.
Q. What does the supervision payment rate include?
The supervision payment rate includes preparation, teaching and marking.
Q. Are new supervisors paid to attend training sessions?
An ‘Initial Payment’ is given to new supervisors, as recognition of the additional preparation needed at the outset to take on the role of supervising undergraduates. That preparation will include a mixture of required online and face-to-face training, as well as other orientation exercises at the new supervisor’s discretion.
Q. How many hours does a supervisor teach?
The amount of teaching a supervisor provides varies, due to the subject being taught and each student's particular needs. On average 70% of supervisors provide 50 supervisions or fewer a year.
Q. Who delivers supervisions?
- There are nearly 250,000 supervisions each academic year, delivered by 4,800 supervisors.
- Approximately 30% of all supervisors are postgraduate students, 20% are early career unestablished researchers, 20% are University Teaching Officers, and 15% are College Fellows (15% are ‘Other’).
- Approximately 20% of supervisions are provided by postgraduate students, 10% by early career unestablished researchers, 25% by University Teaching Officers, and 30% by College Fellows (15% by ‘Other’).
Q. Why do postgraduate students supervise?
A minority of supervisions (20% on average per academic year) are delivered by postgraduate students. Postgraduate students can choose to supervise, developing their teaching skills and preparing for future employment. In turn undergraduates benefit from receiving tuition from supervisors active in research within their studied subject.
Q. Is there a limit on how many hours postgraduate students can supervise?
Students undertaking taught Masters courses are not expected to work during term-time.
The University recommends that full-time postgraduate research students undertaking a course of more than 12 months, or the MPhil by thesis, work to up to 6-10 hours per week. Such students may undertake longer working hours after explicit discussion with their Supervisor and their College Tutor, but even then students must never exceed a maximum of 20 hours of work each week.
Q. Do supervisors have a contract?
Most supervisors are self-employed. Some supervisors are contracted by Colleges, for example as College Teaching Officers, and supervision teaching forms part of their contract. Some supervisors have contracts with one or more Colleges.