1. Supervisor should have complete knowledge in the domain that the student is interested.

2. Supervisor is interested to supervise the student and has sufficient time at her/his disposal (less number of graduate students already working).

3. Support the student through all stages of work both technically as well as personally. Many a times students get disheartened because of the work not going as planned when they need moral support.

4. Allow the student to take independent decisions about the research and then critique them so that the student can become a better independent researcher.

5. Supervisor has already published sufficiently good quality papers in the area of interest and peripheral areas.

6. Supervisor is considered in the Institution to be fair, ethical and considerate towards graduate students.

7. Supervisor is established in the specific area and has a number of projects either completed or ongoing so that he/she can support you with RA position.

1. Supervisor should have complete knowledge in the domain that the student is interested.

2. Supervisor is interested to supervise the student and has sufficient time at her/his disposal (less number of graduate students already working).

3. Support the student through all stages of work both technically as well as personally. Many a times students get disheartened because of the work not going as planned when they need moral support.

4. Allow the student to take independent decisions about the research and then critique them so that the student can become a better independent researcher.

5. Supervisor has already published sufficiently good quality papers in the area of interest and peripheral areas.

6. Supervisor is considered in the Institution to be fair, ethical and considerate towards graduate students.

7. Supervisor is established in the specific area and has a number of projects either completed or ongoing so that he/she can support you with RA position.

I agree with the excellent, analytical, views of Nageswara Rao Posinasetti !

I fully endorse what all he has enumerated.

Looking back into my personal experience at IIT/Kanpur (India) & Wash. Univ. (USA) days, when we discussed about "Under whom we can do research", our criteria were these - "Subject should be easy to learn and it should not require too many special courses or books to study to start research" & also "work under a PhD guide under whom we can quickly get our doctorate degree". There were many famous professors in the department who met the criteria 1-6 of Nageswara Rao & some with criterion 7, but we had this big concern about working under some Professors who were rumoured to take too long (several years) to approve of a thesis. Especially, if there is any student taking 5 or more years for a doctorate degree (after finishing course requirements), we would be too worried! If you see that some Professor has too many students, and still more students seeking his / her guidance, chances may be that both the criteria I added above are met & especially criterion 2 - he / she can approve of a thesis in few years! "Fast graduation" appeals to most of the PhD students so that they can take up some company / faculty job after their graduation!

With best wishes

Sundar

I agree Sundarapandian, fast completion is an important requirement. That depends upon many factors, but important one should be that if you choose an ongoing project. In such a case the basic infrastructure is already existing, fair amount of literature survey is already completed, and your peers in the group will be able to help you in addition to the supervisor.

Empathy plays a major role. Research supervisor needs to treat the "time & resource" of research scholar as that of their own.

The ideal qualities of a research supervisor are experience in the field, having time for the project, and personality.

Sounds rather ideal. We don't have sufficient number of people satisfying  even #1 :), at least in this part of the world. The west is much better in terms of #1.

ideal quality of supervisor is

- First try to understand the quality and demerit of the candidate.

and according to that supervise him.

I like to add that a good guide should know the "cultural differences" and act accordingly. My doctoral guide, (late) Dr. Chris Byrnes, had totally 3 Indian students (I was his third student) and he guided also students from USA, China, Japan, etc. As the Dean of the Engineering School, Dr. Byrnes also travelled to many countries. When I first called him, "Sir", he politely requested me to avoid it in addressing him. (His other students called him by his first name "Chris", but I could not call him that way!) So, in later meetings, I called him "Dean Byrnes" and avoided "Sir" as per his wishes.

In India, it is common for students to address faculty as "Sir" / "Madam", and some overdo it also! If my M.Tech student missed a class, and if I enquire him about it - he might reply like this (in India) - "Sir, I was not well, Sir.. I had to see a doctor, Sir.. I took medicine, Sir.. Now, I am all right, Sir.. I will be regular in classes, Sir.. Thank you, Sir"

I hope friends got the point - good guides appreciate this cultural difference and guide the students accordingly. Dr. Byrnes was an ideal guide for me. After graduation also, I worked with him as a co-author & AP in the same department for a few years.

Thanks,

Sundar

Much has been said and very well with regard to the quality of an ideal tutor. I would add that a good tutor leaves the learner free to act in all the various phases of the project from the collection of bibliographic data until the final report. However, at each stage he analyzes the methodology and the results, corrects errors and recommend the right path through their analysis.

These are qualities of an effective research supervisor

•  Ensure the partnership is right for research
• Get to know students and carefully assess their needs
• Establish reasonable, agreed expectation
• Work with students to establish a strong conceptual structure and research plan
• Encourage students to write early and often
• Initiate regular contact and provide high quality feedback
• Inspire and motivate
• Help if academic and personal crisis crop up
• Take an active interest in students future careers
• Carefully monitor the final product and presentation  of research

• Someone inspiring trust (to me personally)
• Someone who will actually contribute to the work
• Fast and forward thinking
• Efficient and intuitive communicator
• Insightful
• Reliable 
• Proficient in English and other foreign languages (meaning more than one unless En-native and more than just reading) or math (meaning ongoing practice of math) or healthcare (system approach), ideally some combination
• Open but straightforward 
• With interests in more than one area
• Young at heart
• Sharing my pol-phil views (although this is implicit in 'trust')

I am not interested in his/her reputation and/or popularity, the number of publications or awards, experience, sociability and I am definitely not interested in his/her personal life although some of these qualities are important for a teacher or a leader.

I would work with someone from another area, industry or a ‘distant’ supervisor.

I thank Linda and Hristina for making great points. In my long experience and interaction with PhD students, these are the criteria (from the point of view of PhD students):

With best wishes

Sundar

Dear friends - I have enclosed below a photo of my beloved guide, (Late) Dr. Chris Byrnes, control expert, Washington University, USA. In this photo, Dr. Byrnes was advising his PhD student, James Ramsey. (I am senior to James!)

With best wishes

Sundar

Dear Roland - Thanks for a great reply!

Some excerpts from the paper you enclosed on "Quality Supervisory Practices" (Chrispen, Chabaya, Paul and Owence-2012).

"For a university to achieve quality research supervision practices, both parties to the process should aim at completing the research project within the set time limits. Nevertheless, research students do not complete their degrees owing to a variety of reasons chief among these are personality factors, motivational factors, feelings of isolation, family demands, financial circumstances and lack of support (Chabaya, Chiome and Chabaya 2009; Burnett 1999)."

My comment:

A good guide will help the candidate, not only on the academic part of the dissertation, but also on the problems addressed above & enumerated below:

• Personality factors
• Motivational factors
• Feelings of isolation
• Family demands
• Financial circumstances
• Lack of support

Excerpts from the paper (2012):

Factors in the Supervisors:

• Honouring obligations
• Constructive, consistent and prompt feedback
• Results and quality oriented supervisors
• Members of an active research committee who get along

with each other

• Monitoring and Supervision task force

Factors in the Students:

• Innovation oriented candidates
• Appreciation of scholarly tradition
• Community of learners
• Student Sherpas (Coaches)
• Autonomous but responsible students

For more details, kindly read the full paper (see link given in Roland Iosif Moraru).

It is a great paper with good input details from the PhD students. Though it is a case study, the findings will be useful to all.

With best wishes

Sundar

Dear Sundar,

I agree with you in that a good guide will help the candidate, not only on the academic part of the dissertation, but also on the problems addressed above & enumerated below:

I appreciate all the answers. I have to put forth a question here;

What if the supervisors do not follow the above mentioned required criteria? What will be its impact on the future of researcher?

Kindly ponder your valuable thoughts.

@Bhavesh

Those are the ideal characteristics. As a student when you have a choice you should make sure that as many of those characteristics are present in the supervisor as possible based on the limited information available at that time. Also you should spend considerable amount of time and discussion with your senior researchers in the department to get those details. If you make a wrong selection, then you will be on your own for doing the research and may depend on others either formally or informally (such as RG) to proceed with your research. I hope you are not facing this problem.

Thank you so much sir for your valuable suggestions. I am happy to share that my guide is too supportive and take care of my research. But is very difficult for a researcher to accomplish the task of research when the supervisor lack the above mentioned qualities.

@Bhavesh

Though I agree with what you say, but these days there are options available and people should not dishearten if that happens. I am not sure about university, but some universities allow to change advisor if there is any problem. Though that may create some bad blood and the students sometimes may have to change the institution. There should be some other faculty who may help.

Dear Nageswara Rao:

Most of the Universities that I know permit the change of Supervisor and this needs the approval of the "Monitoring / Research Supervision Committee". For this, a "no objection" letter is required from the old supervisor and a "consent" letter is required from the new supervisor. In IIT Kanpur (India), where I studied, I have seen students changing their supervisors and with these consent letters, changes were made for those students. Procedures are there to take care of this change of supervisors in most of the Universities to my understanding.

With best wishes

Sundar

Today I came across a good article on how to choose a good research supervisor in Times Higher Education (UK) web-site, and I am sharing the summary of the article here.

Article: "10 truths a PhD supervisor will never tell you"

Author: Tara Brabazon

Link: Attached

Summary - 10 Truths for deciding Research Supervisor (Tara's article)

Best wishes,

Sundar

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/features/10-truths-a-phd-supervisor-will-never-tell-you/2005513.fullarticle

Many Universities permit changes in the PhD program for a doctoral student. The changes can be made in not only the Research Supervisor, but other changes may be also permitted (subject to University approval). I have enlisted below some changes.

 Thank you all! Have a good day!

Best wishes

Sundar

I think supervision is not just about supervise or guiding the student, its a friendship between student and supervisor.

supervisor should give a small trends about the student research by advise him about the main parts in the thesis. some supervisors leave the students in a dark way and keep say you go back and read that it.

Regards

It's easier said than done that one could change a research topic, field or supervisor. Sometimes students do not have that choice but if they do, they should definitely dare to speak.

It would be nice if students could work with a supervisor from other universities, even abroad. But even if this idea remains fiction for the moment, there is the alternative of speaking and consulting with academics at conferences, via e-mail and networks. Students shouldn't be afraid to approach people who may help them. Virtual and distance conversations may be valuable as well.

I also believe in the power of serendipity. I remember that when I decided to read, write on and research Canada's policies, suddenly I was presented with the opportunity or luck to meet a lot of Canadians here, there and everywhere. It is so funny because it happened at the strangest places and circumstances, often unexpectedly. These talks helped me with some ideas.      

An experience researcher, usually have attacked some important problems and at the same time have developed a high-fidelity intuition about an extended area of problems and research programmes. He knows that intuitively a problem have a solution but the analytical proof of that may require many years. This is usually a PhD thesis problem.

After the student take the problem there should be a dialectical opposition and dialog between the analytical development of student and the intuitive view of the supervisor. The intuition of the supervisor would lead the student to the correct path, whereas the students analytical work will amplify the whole problem.  The final synthesis it is expected to be the thesis of the student.

The process need the appropriate time to spend by both student and supervisor.       

Bhavesh Tiwari has asked this question:

"What if the supervisors do not follow the above mentioned required criteria?  What will be its impact on the future of researcher?"

The whole point of this thread is to bring an awareness to research supervisors what is expected from us! Good supervisors know that they have to fulfill these natural requirements. Analytically, there are ten types of supervisors and students may make sure that their supervisor is in the category they like! 

I have enclosed an useful link - "How to get most from the supervisor?" and this link classifies the ten types of supervisors.

If the supervisors are not helpful, the students may contact Dean of Postgraduate Studies (or equivalent position like Dean - Research), fill up necessary forms or give letter and change the supervisor before they complete the course requirements.

Supervisors can only show the way! The students must walk the path themselves.

With best wishes

Sundar

http://www.postgrad.com/editorial/advice/exams/examinations_examiners_supervisors/get_the_most_from_your_postgraduate_supervisor/

Dear Sundarapandian, 

As very well stated with the other fellow researchers, there are several qualities expected from a research supervisor. In a nutshell, most of these qualities revolve around academic rigour and interpersonal relations. Please read this article for more details in relation to these. 

Manathunga, C. (2005). The development of research supervision: “Turning the light on a private space”. International Journal for Academic Development, 10(1), 17-30. doi:10.1080/13601440500099977

Good supervisors are let students learn through the dissertation/thesis process while they just do the facilitation, ie, they understand that it is not them learning but the student. They allow a students not only to produce a good thesis but also to grow academically and professionally through out the research process.