The practical value of the individual study plan (ISP) for PhD students and supervisors

or The individual study plan - a useful planning tool or an administrative burden?

Abstract

The individual study plan (ISP) consists of a template where PhD students and their supervisors plan and track the progress of the research studies, course work and other activities that are part of the PhD studies. The ISP has often been criticised as an administrative document with limited value that takes time from PhD students and supervisors, especially the more vague parts dealing with the outcomes as formulated in the Ordinance of Higher Education.

To get a better understanding of how much the ISP is used, how it is perceived and how it could be improved, we interviewed 16 PhD students and 12 supervisors. Many appreciate the ISP as a tool to plan and track the progress of the PhD studies, but it is often seen as an administrative necessity and not used more than what is demanded by the management. Much of the criticism revolves around the recently added part dealing with the outcomes as formulated in the Ordinance of Higher Education, Annex 2, which is perceived as incomprehensible and too broadly and vaguely formulated to be useful. This results in that it is often filled out with standard formulations weakly related to the achievements of the student, in practice undermining its task to ensure fulfilment of the Ordinance of Higher Education.

We therefore suggest to reformulate the part dealing with the outcomes as formulated in the Ordinance of Higher Education to make it more practically useful, or ensure that these goals are fulfilled in another way, e.g. through mandatory courses. Inspiration may be found by investigating how the ISPs are used and perceived at various departments, faculties, universities and in different countries. It would also be helpful to clarify the function of the ISP as a contract for PhD students and supervisors by giving more examples of when the ISP has been necessary and useful in courses for PhD students and supervisors and further strengthen the role of the ISP as research and course planning tool by streamlining and maximizing the function in relation to the work needed to fill it out, e.g. by improving the progress overview by adding a graphical representation summarizing progress such as progress bars or a plot of progress as function of time.