School of Animal Biology:
Guidelines for the Postgraduate Seminar Series
Postgraduate Seminars are presented on Fridays at 1:00 pm, in the Agriculture Lecture Theatre
The role of the Postgraduate seminar series in the School of Animal Biology is two-fold. The seminars
are presented:
1.
2.
3.
4.
to inform the School of the research activity being undertaken by graduate
students within the school;
to train and encourage postgraduate students in their research;
to increase students’ confidence and train students to communicate their ideas
and findings to a large audience; and
for students to receive feedback on their research from a diverse range of people;
The postgraduate seminar environment should therefore be intellectually stimulating, supportive
and academically rigorous, to the benefit of all students and staff.
General Guidelines:
- Postgraduate students in the School of Animal Biology are expected to present at least one
seminar each calendar year;
- As part of a student’s Confirmation of Candidature, they must present a proposal seminar to
the School within 6 months of enrolment, before the submission of their Research Proposal;
this seminar should then be followed by a Panel Meeting with the student’s supervisor/s and
panel members;
- Seminars can range in length from 15 minutes to a full-hour.
- Students are encouraged to use the seminar series as an opportunity to practice
presentations that they will be giving at a research conference.
- Whole hour sessions will be reserved for proposal seminars, although a second, shorter
seminar may also be booked for a proposal seminar slot following consultation with the
Chair and Postgraduate Coordinator/s;
- Two proposal seminars should never be presented in the same one hour session.
- Each student will present a full hour seminar to the School of Animal Biology at the time of
thesis submission. This will be part of the School of Animal Biology research seminar series.
Role of the Seminar Chair:
- Postgraduate seminars are to be administered and chaired by a currently-enrolled
postgraduate student, for the duration of one semester;
- The responsibilities of the Chair are to organise seminar bookings and maintain an up-todate booking sheet, inform the School of upcoming seminars (generally on Mondays and
Fridays), and introduce and mediate seminar sessions as a responsible academic Seminar
Chair.
Expectations of Student Speakers and Audience at Postgraduate Seminars:
Student Speakers
- Students should be well prepared and presentations should be rehearsed, preferably in front
of supervisors and/or colleagues;
- Students should answer all questions directly, and should refrain from deferring questions to
their supervisor/s unless absolutely necessary;
- The student should recognise the authority of the Chair at all times.
Audience
- Audience members should at all times be respectful of the student presenting the seminar
and other members of the audience;
- Audience members should recognise that the Chair has authority at all times, with the
power to decide whether to halt a particular line of questioning or to decide how long
questions should go;
- All questions are to be asked to the speaker, and audience members should not engage in
unsolicited discussion that is not recognised by the student speaker or by the Chair;
- Question-time should be reserved primarily for questions and clarification;
- Concerns, comments or constructive criticisms, if necessary, should be posed to students
respectfully, and any issues that require further discussion beyond what a student can
answer should always be taken up at a later time;
- Audience members should only answer questions if requested to by a student, and should
never interrupt a student’s presentation;
- Audience members should recognise that a seminar (and especially a proposal seminar) is a
stressful experience for students, and should at all times be positive and helpful;
- Question-time should not be used for:
i.
asking students to recite definitions ad hoc;
ii.
publicly debating, among audience members, the validity or otherwise of a student’s
experimental methods or statistics, to the embarrassment of the speaker;
iii.
questioning students in an intimidating or aggressive fashion.
- If audience members wish to raise concerns about the seminar format they should do so by
consulting the Postgraduate Coordinator/s, who will then liaise with the postgraduate
student body as well as academic staff to facilitate discussion.