External people (and staff from other Schools at UoE) can propose Informatics MSc projects, as well as co-supervise self-proposed MSc projects (i.e., projects proposed by a student himself/herself).

Staff from other schools of UoE do not necessarily need an Informatics co-supervisor.

However, external supervisors will usually need an internal staff member as co-supervisor. So we advise you to get in touch with one of our faculty who works in a subject area similar to your project. People. For external supervisors who supervise larger numbers of students (cluster projects), please contact the MSc project manager (msc-project-mgr@inf.ed.ac.uk) if you need help with finding internal co-supervisors.

How to propose an external MSc project:

1. First you need an iFriend account. (If you did this last year: iFriend accounts are normally preserved from last year, but DPMT data is reset every year. So you need to be re-added as DPMT user. Just follow step 2. below.)

2. We will need to add you as an external user of the DPMT online system. (DPMT system.) If you are not already a DPMT user, then please tell us your name and the email address that you used for your iFriend account, and we’ll give you access to DPMT. Contact msc-project-mgr@inf.ed.ac.uk once you are registered as a DPMT user, you can log into the system using your iFriend credentials.

3. MSc project proposals are made via the DPMT system.

4. The deadline for project proposals is Friday 20. January 2023 (5pm).

5. Projects from previous years can be imported, but please make sure that all relevant fields in the form are filled. In particular, project tags are used to identify topics in particular areas. (If you are proposing a “Design Informatics” project, then please use the “Design Informatics” tag to identify the project for students, and to facilitate admin later.)

6. The project proposal can be filed in DPMT either by the external supervisor or by the internal supervisor. However, the other supervisor needs to register as an additional supervisor for the project in DPMT. (Click on the project and then click on the green button “Register Interest” at the bottom of the page, and select the “Supervisor” option.)

7. See also the MSc project pages here for general information.

8. Later (see the timetable), students will register interest in your proposed projects and contact you. You will then mark such students as “very suitable”, “suitable” or “unsuitable” for the project in the DPMT system by 10 Feb. 2023.

9. Students will be allocated to projects 2-3 weeks after that.

How to co-supervise a student self-proposed MSc project.

The procedure is similar as described above. You first get an iFriend account, get yourself registered as a DPMT user, and log into DPMT. Then you just look up the project (already filed by the student), and register as co-supervisor (green button “Register interest” at the bottom of the page). Make sure to stay in contact with your internal co-supervisor.