Advisors
ADVISements
teaching with TT
Intro
Transart Institute (TT) offers postgraduate degrees in partnership with universities in the UK and EU, providing the academic, creative, and support components of the process and leaving administrative oversight (degrees, transcripts, quality control, and accreditation) to larger institutions. TT currently has two such partners and a third in progress. TT advisors work with PgRs registered with all of our partner universities.
YOUR ROLE
PgRs lead their project. Advisors guide and support projects to meet milestones and advance the research agenda. Team members are colleagues. There is no hierarchy.
You are engaged as an independent consultant with the Institute and are paid for every hour you work. You will invoice TT on a trimester basis. We keep paperwork to an absolute minimum—one brief check-in form per trimester and TT external examiner result forms as needed. Timely responses are essential to make that work.
You will receive minimal updates, links and reminders via your Signal Advisor group as well as a trimester Digest by email.
Process
Applicants request advisors in their Expression of Interest (EOI) form. Once a PgR’s EOI has been reviewed and they have been interviewed and registered, we will assemble an advisory team based on their requests and projects. One advisor must be a TT Core Advisor. Teams will be introduced and meet at the start of the trimester.
You will be requested to sign an annual agreement so we have your up-to-date info to begin. You will also submit or update your TT People Advisor profile. This is where applicants will find you.
TRAJECTORIES
By the second trimester, PgRs commit to either an accelerated mode to build momentum and stay in sync with peers, or an extended pace with an additional year, depending on their unique processes and external obligations. You will find curricula for each degree and mode at the bottom of the Postgraduate Research page (in the top menu bar).
The PhD is 3 or 4 years, and the MRes and PhD by Publication/Portfolio are 1 or 2 years. TT is committed to seeing our researchers through on time by keeping processes simple, minimal, and regular, with trimester-wide, all-inclusive check-in forms and monthly online sessions and meetings, interspersed with three Deep Focus months each year.
All PgRs attend a suite of nine monthly topical online intensive workshops, which include research development and a Sunday guest talk, followed by PgR-led research group meetings. The Sunday sessions are required for the duration of the PgR’s tenure with TT.
ADVISORY TEAM MEETINGS
As part of an advisory panel team, you meet monthly while we are in session—once a trimester as a team and once each in one-to-one meetings.
We highly recommend choosing a fixed full team meeting time the first month of each trimester. PgRs will alternate meetings with individual advisors for the remaining two months. Meetings consist of one hour of discourse and up to two hours of prep, reading, reviewing the project, etc.
Deep Focus
To foster stretches of highly concentrated workflow for PgRs, faculty, and staff, the fourth month of every trimester is designated as a Deep Focus month. In April, August and December, the institute is closed. No meetings, deadlines or sessions occur.
ASSESSMENT
There are three milestones in every PgR's tenure: proposal, draft and thesis/viva. You will be invited to comment on and sign off on the milestones as well as the RC Research Development Portfolio in the third week of the third month of the trimester via an assessment check-in form that includes feedback on progress, and sign-offs.
Additionally, one TT faculty member external to the team will assess the proposal, and two external examiners will assess the thesis by email. Once the thesis component is signed off, the viva will take place.
You will be invited to assess other PgR Proposals. Your team may request specific assessors, both internally and externally, to align expertise. You may also be invited to assess other TT PgRs proposals and provide a second opinion on an assessment or other progression matter.