Atenea PhD – Electronic tracking of training and research activities

To manage documentation and files related to training and research, there is a specific intranet for doctoral students – Atenea PhD – which is independent from Atenea (the teaching intranet). The latter system will only be activated if students take courses that use it.

Atenea PhD covers four basic matters:

• Commitment agreements between doctoral students and their thesis supervisors (CDDT form, or CDDT/DDTE form when there is a thesis supervisor external to the UPC). If a thesis supervisor or co-supervisor withdraws from this role or changes are made to supervision arrangements, all of the parties concerned must sign a new document within 10 working days.
  
  The EEBE Academic Service staff must upload the signed document currently in effect to the intranet.
  
  The mode of study (full- or part-time) must be specified on this document. Students may submit a request to change their mode of study to the academic committee for their programme before the end of the maximum period of study, provided that no extensions of the period of study have been authorised.
• Research plans: submission and updates
• Doctoral student activity reports
  The doctoral student activity report is an individual record of the activities a doctoral student has completed while enrolled in their programme. It must be kept up to date so that it constitutes a complete record of the research training and cross-disciplinary activities the student has completed or been involved in (courses, seminars, conferences, papers, grants, mobility, etc.).
  
  Doctoral students are responsible for keeping this record up to date and providing certificates or other evidence of individual activities to their thesis supervisor.
  For activities to be included in the doctoral student activity report, the relevant details must be registered via the DRAC platform. You can find information on how this research platform works here.
  
  After registering an activity in DRAC, log in to the Atenea PhD intranet and generate the activity report document. The two platforms are synchronised.

   

  Activities (papers, publications, etc.) that you share with your thesis supervisors or UPC academic staff SHOULD NOT be entered into the DRAC platform. For such activities, the thesis supervisors or UPC academic staff involved will periodically register the relevant details for all of the authors, and these activities will automatically appear on your record. Neither should you enter details related to your participation in research projects (competitively funded or not), teaching innovation projects or patents. Thesis supervisors will enter this information and add you as a participant if you were involved.

  You must, however, enter details for the activities specific to you. Given that the platform can be used to generate CVs for different uses, you must also indicate whether or not you want a particular activity to be recorded on your doctoral student activity report.

• Doctoral theses: section for submitting your doctoral thesis report when you have completed it.

 Annual assessment

The academic committee for each programme is responsible for assessing doctoral students based on the information contained in three records: 

1. Doctoral student activity report
2. Research plan and annual
3. Assessment reports
   
   

From 1 to 15 June

You can enter details of the activities you participate in at any time during the academic year, but it is during this period that you must ensure that the information on record is complete.

Review and add any information as necessary to the following

• Your doctoral student activity report.
• Your updated research plan
• You must also provide your thesis supervisor with certificates or other evidence of the activities you’ve participated in.

 The EEBE Academic Service will send thesis supervisors official assessment documents for the students they supervise.

From 15 to 30 June:

During this period, thesis supervisors must:

• provide the Academic Management Service for doctoral studies (Barcelona East School of Engineering) with annual assessment reports (including the mark awarded), along with supporting evidence, for the doctoral students they supervise; and
• validate doctoral student activity reports and research plans updates via the Atenea PhD platform.
  
  

N.B.: If this process is not completed, the academic committee cannot assess students and they will not be able to enrol for the following academic year.

By 20 July

Doctoral programme academic committees will assess students based on the progress they have made on their research plan, their doctoral student activity report and the assessment results/report provided by their thesis supervisor. The mark awarded will be "Satisfactory" or "Unsatisfactory”.

The EEBE Academic Service will enter the mark awarded into the student’s academic record.

Students who have not been awarded a mark for the academic year will not be able to enrol for the next year.

Review of assessment results

Students who receive a mark of "Unsatisfactory" in two consecutive assessments will be withdrawn from study.

Doctoral students may appeal against the assessment decisions of academic committees by lodging a substantiated written claim with the academic committee responsible for the assessment. Any appeals must be decided by the academic committee within 15 working days.

The final assessment decisions of academic committees may be contested by lodging a request for review with the rector.