Creating a PhD opportunity - guidance for website editors

PhD opportunity content type 

You should use the PhD opportunity content type if you need to advertise a PhD project opportunity on the University website.

Don’t use the PhD project content type if you need to provide an overview of a completed PhD project for marketing purposes (use the Story content type).

Writing a PhD opportunity title

PhD opportunity titles should:

• be informative and give the reader a sense of what the opportunity is.
• make sense out of context. This helps the reader understand the content when it’s presented in search engine results.

Do:

• use colons as a separator. For example, 'Putting the ‘social’ back into social cognition: perspective taking in the lab and the real world'. 

Don’t:

• prefix a PhD project title with the name of an associated PhD programme. A list of projects is harder to scan if these are all prefixed with the same programme.

Writing PhD opportunity content

Use the 'full description' field to enter the description of the opportunity.

Do:

• use paragraph breaks
• break the content up with headings to make it easier to scan

Don’t:

• add walls of text which make the content difficult to read and scan

Application deadline

Enter the application deadline date for the project. The project is automatically archived in the CMS once the date is passed. 

How to apply

Provide a link to the relevant 'applying for a research degree page' for entry requirements and a link to the Direct Application System. For example, accounting and finance research degrees. 

Application steps

Use this field to provide additional guidance for prospective applicants. For example, you can provide contact details of the person that should be contacted for enquiries about the project.

Keep this content concise, using bullet points to organise the information.

You should not duplicate fees, entry requirements or English language requirements already found on the individual research area pages.

Taxonomies for PhD opportunity content

We use taxonomies in content types to organise content, publish it to different locations, and give it meaning so people can find it easily. Taxonomies take the form of assignable categories or tags.  

Below are the PhD project taxonomies that an editor should use.

Research area

Projects should be tagged with one or more research areas. These populate a list under the research area filter in search and help users narrow their selection.

PhD funding type

Options for:

Funded

Funding for the project is available, either as a standalone project or part of a PhD programme. You can provide further details if required.

Unfunded

Funding unavailable. Applicants are expected to pay fees and any other associated costs.

PhD programme

If funded by a programme, select which programme this opportunity comes under, e.g. EASTBIO, MRC PPU studentships.

Supervisors

Options for:

Principal supervisor

This is an autocomplete field, where you need to start typing the name of the University of Dundee member of staff who is supervising the PhD and then select from the options shown. This also publishes the project on the staff member's profile.

Second supervisor

This is another autocomplete field, where you enter the name of the member of staff. This also publishes the project on the staff member's profile.

Other supervisors

This is another autocomplete field which can be used if there are supervisors other than the principal and second.

Supervisor supporting text

This field should only be completed if you need to add supporting text relating to supervisors. For most projects it can be left blank. 

You can also use this field if there is any joint supervision with a member of staff from a different university.

Potential supervisors

Use if supervisors aren't yet confirmed for the project

School

You can associate the project with one or more Schools, and divisions within those Schools.