Supervisor & Examiner Guide

This guide describes the platform from the perspective of teaching staff who run the thesis process. Both Supervisors and Examiners are covered here — the roles overlap, but a few actions (final grading, completing the thesis) are Examiner-only, and are marked as such throughout. Short demo videos are embedded next to the sections they cover.

[!NOTE] A word on terminology. In the UI you will see the labels Supervisor (day-to-day advisor of a thesis) and Examiner (the professor who is formally responsible for it). Behind the scenes the Keycloak groups are still called advisor (= Supervisor) and supervisor (= Examiner) for historical reasons — this only matters if you look at log files or configuration.

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1. Dashboard

/dashboard is your home page after login. It aggregates everything that needs your attention:

• My Tasks — a live to-do list generated from the platform state: open applications waiting for you, proposals to review, unassessed theses, interviewees to score, and so on. Each row links to the exact page that will resolve the item.
• My Theses — the theses in which you are assigned as Supervisor or Examiner. A small Gantt bar next to each one gives you a feel for how far along it is.
• My Applications — open applications on your topics. States are colour-coded: NOT_ASSESSED, INTERVIEWING, ACCEPTED, REJECTED. Click a row to open the application review modal in-place.

2. Managing Thesis Topics

Open /topics to see all topics your account manages. The table has columns for state, title, thesis types, examiner, supervisor, and creation date. A segmented control at the top filters by state (OPEN, DRAFT, CLOSED).

Creating a Topic

Press Create Topic to open the topic modal. Fill in:

• Title (required)
• Problem Statement (rich text, required)
• Requirements, Goals, References (rich text)
• Thesis Types allowed (Bachelor / Master / Project / Seminar — multi-select)
• Intended Start Date and Application Deadline (optional dates)
• Research Group — locked if you belong to only one group
• Supervisors (multi-select)
• Examiners (multi-select — pre-filled with your group head)

Save to publish. The topic then appears on the public landing page and is open for applications.

Walkthrough: creating a new thesis topic and publishing it to the landing page.

Editing or Closing a Topic

• Edit re-opens the same modal, pre-populated.
• Close opens a small modal that asks why (Topic was filled / Topic is outdated) and whether to notify students who have open applications. Closing a topic automatically rejects all its still-open applications and ends any related interview processes.

3. Reviewing Applications

Open /applications (or click an application row on the dashboard).

The page uses a two-pane layout: the left sidebar lists the applications you can review, filtered to NOT_ASSESSED by default; the right pane shows the details of the selected application.

For each application you see:

• The student's profile (name, contact, study program, semester).
• Uploaded PDFs (Examination report, CV, Bachelor report if applicable).
• Interests, projects, and special skills.
• The motivation letter and the topic they applied for.
• Any custom fields your research group configured.

Actions

• Accept opens the acceptance form. You confirm the thesis title (auto-filled from the topic), the thesis type, language, supervisors, examiners, and can add an internal comment. Two useful checkboxes:

  • Notify user — send the student the acceptance email (default on).
  • Close topic — if this application fills the topic, close it in one go.

  On save, a new thesis is created and the student is notified.

• Reject opens a modal that asks for a reason ("Topic requirements not met" or "Title not interesting") and lets you notify the user (default on). The student receives the standard rejection email.

• Delete removes an application. Use this only for spam or duplicate submissions.

• Add Interviewee creates or extends an interview process directly from the application (see Interview Processes).

Walkthrough: reviewing an application and deciding to accept or reject.

Application Lifecycle

NOT_ASSESSED → ACCEPTED (a thesis is created) or REJECTED. If you route through an interview process, the intermediate state is INTERVIEWING. If no one acts within the deadline configured by the research group, the application is auto-rejected and the standard rejection email is sent.

4. Interview Processes

The interview module lets you run structured interview rounds when you have more applicants than slots and want a fair way to pick.

Creating a Process

Two entry points:

• From /interviews, press New Interview Process and pick a topic.
• From the application review page, press Add Interviewee — the platform creates the process automatically if none exists yet.

Walkthrough: creating an interview process from the interview overview.

Walkthrough: creating an interview process directly from an application.

The Process Page

Open a process from the list to see three panels:

• Interviewees — a table of the candidates you have added, with each candidate's booking status (not booked, booked, assessed) and their assigned slot.
• Slots calendar — a carousel/calendar where you create timeslots. Each slot has date, start / end time, location, and (optionally) a stream URL.
• Invitations — a bulk-invite panel that lets you email selected candidates the booking link.

Walkthrough: adding candidates to an interview process.

Walkthrough: defining available interview timeslots.

Sending Invitations

• Bulk invite — select multiple interviewees and press Send Invitations; every selected candidate receives an email with a personalised booking link (/interview_booking/<processId>).
• Individual invite — the same action, but restricted to one row.
• If you'd rather assign a slot yourself, use Assign Slot — this bypasses the student's booking step.

Walkthrough: sending invitations to multiple interviewees at once.

Walkthrough: sending an invitation to a single interviewee.

Walkthrough: assigning an interviewee to a specific slot or interviewer.

Assessing Interviewees

Click a candidate to open the assessment page (/interviews/<processId>/interviewee/<id>). You can enter:

• A numeric score — updates in real time.
• Interview notes — a rich text editor that auto-saves on blur.

Once you've assessed everyone, go back to the application review page and accept or reject the interviewees based on the collected scores.

Walkthrough: scoring and taking notes on interviewees.

5. Working on a Thesis

Open /theses/<id>. The page is a stack of accordion sections that appear as the thesis progresses through Proposal → Writing → Submitted → Assessed → Graded → Completed. Sections you rarely touch stay collapsed by default.

5.1 Thesis Configuration

The Config section holds the "master data" of the thesis:

• Title, type, language, keywords, start / end date.
• Visibility — see §5.8.
• Students, Supervisors, Examiners — user pickers with search.
• State tracking — a read-only table showing when the thesis entered each state.

Editing is limited to Supervisors, Examiners, and admins.

5.2 Supervisor Comments (Private)

A private thread only visible to Supervisors and Examiners. Use this for internal notes ("Ana's proposal needs another pass — the eval section is still missing"). Students never see this thread, even though the accordion is technically on the same page.

5.3 Proposal Review

When the thesis is in the Proposal state, the student uploads their proposal here. You can:

• Preview the latest PDF inline.
• Look through the version history (who uploaded which version and when).
• Delete an old version if it was uploaded in error.
• Request Changes — opens the feedback modal (see §8). Each line becomes one row in the feedback checklist. The student sees a todo-list, can tick items off, and you can verify.
• Accept Proposal — moves the thesis into the Writing state. This is confirmed with a modal.

Walkthrough: reviewing a proposal and either requesting changes or accepting it.

Walkthrough: posting comments and attaching files as feedback for students.

5.4 The Writing Phase

Once the thesis is in Writing, the section shows:

• The thesis PDF and any auxiliary file types (appendix, code, data) configured by your chair.
• A version history per slot.
• The student-visible comment thread.
• The feedback overview for the thesis (same mechanism as for the proposal, but of type THESIS).

Supervisors can also upload files on behalf of the student — useful when a student hits a technical block. Deletion of uploaded files is restricted to Supervisors / Examiners.

5.5 Presentations

The student proposes a presentation date as a draft. In the presentation section you can:

• Accept the draft — the presentation moves from Draft to Scheduled, invitees are emailed, and the presentation becomes public at /presentations/<id>.
• Reschedule (edit the draft) or Delete it.
• Add attendees, set the location, and pin a stream URL for online defenses.

Walkthrough: approving a presentation draft and inviting attendees.

5.6 Assessment

The assessment is the structured evaluation of the finished thesis. Press Add Assessment to open the assessment modal:

• Summary, Strengths, Weaknesses — rich text.
• Grade Components — a dynamic table. Each row has a name (e.g. "Written work", "Presentation"), a weight (or a Bonus flag), and a grade. The final grade suggestion is computed automatically from the components and their weights.
• Grade Suggestion — the free-text field you want to propose to the Examiner.

A Download PDF button renders the assessment as a signed-off PDF for your records. Both Supervisors and Examiners can add / edit the assessment.

Walkthrough: filling in the structured assessment and suggesting a grade.

5.7 Final Grade & Completion (Examiner-only)

Only the Examiner sees this section. It contains:

• A short feedback field (rich text).
• The final grade input.
• A Mark thesis as finished button that becomes active once the thesis is in the GRADED state. Pressing it moves the thesis into COMPLETED — the record becomes read-only and appears in the student's history.

[!IMPORTANT] Setting the final grade in Thesis Management does not submit the grade to the university's grade-management system. Follow your institution's normal grade submission process in parallel.

Walkthrough (Examiner-only): adding the final grade and completing the thesis.

5.8 Visibility

Every thesis has a visibility setting that decides who can view it:

Setting	Who can view
PRIVATE	Only the assigned Examiner, Supervisor, and Student.
STUDENT	Assigned people + any authenticated student, advisor, or supervisor.
INTERNAL	Assigned people + any authenticated advisor or supervisor.
PUBLIC	Assigned people + any authenticated user. If the thesis is FINISHED, the page is even reachable by unauthenticated visitors.

Change it in the Thesis Config section. The full permission matrix is on the Permissions page.

6. Browse Theses and Overview

• /theses — a searchable, filterable table of all theses you have access to. Filters by type, state, search text; row click opens the thesis page. Admins can create a thesis directly here via Create Thesis (skipping the application flow).
• /overview — a Gantt-chart view of the same set. Ideal for chair meetings ("what is everyone actually working on right now?"). Same filters as /theses.

7. Presentation Overview

/presentations shows the calendar of all scheduled presentations. You can:

• Switch between calendar and list layouts.
• Filter by research group (helpful if you're a member of several).
• Copy an iCal feed URL to subscribe to the calendar from Outlook, Google Calendar, or Apple Calendar.
• Open a presentation card for the direct actions (reschedule, delete, view attendees).

8. Feedback System

Feedback is the platform's structured way to say "please change X". Instead of a free-form comment thread, feedback lives in a checklist attached to either the proposal or the thesis:

• Press Request Changes.
• Type one requested change per line in the textarea.
• Existing items appear as rows with a checkbox — tick items you consider resolved.
• Save. Students see the same checklist; they can tick items to indicate "done"; you can un-tick if it wasn't done to your satisfaction.
• Deleting a row removes the request entirely.

The feedback of type PROPOSAL and THESIS is shown in the corresponding section; the delete/verify controls are only enabled for staff.

9. Notification Settings

Open Settings → Notification Settings. Staff members see extra options:

• New Applications email — three modes:
  • No topics — never receive application emails.
  • Only my topics — email when someone applies to a topic you own.
  • All topics — email on every new application in your research group.
• Include Suggested Topics — a sub-checkbox that appears when the mode is Only my topics or All topics. Extends the notifications to applications submitted without a topic ("suggested topics").
• Application Review Reminder — a weekly digest of applications still waiting for your review. Turn this on if you receive a lot of applications and want to avoid missing any.
• Presentation Invitations, Thesis Comments — same toggles as students see, plus a per-thesis table that lets you mute noisy theses without muting all of them.

10. Research Group Admin Actions

If you are the head of a research group or have been given the Group Admin role, you get access to /research-groups/<id> and can:

• Update the group's name, abbreviation, and description.
• Add or remove members.
• Assign the Group Admin role to another member.
• Configure per-group settings:
  • The application-review deadline (minimum 2 weeks) after which unreviewed applications auto-reject.
  • Custom application fields shown to students during application.
  • A Scientific Writing Guide link surfaced to students during the writing phase.
  • Per-case email templates — edit them at /research-groups/<id>/email-templates/<case>/edit.

These options don't affect Supervisors / Examiners who are not group admins, so they are only briefly mentioned here. A dedicated Group Admin guide could cover them in more depth.

Walkthrough: updating general research group details.

Walkthrough: configuring per-group settings such as application deadlines and custom fields.

Walkthrough: adding new members to the research group.

Walkthrough: granting the Group Admin role to another member.

11. Getting Help

• Short video walk-throughs for every staff feature are embedded directly next to the relevant sections of this guide.
• The full role-by-role permission matrix lives on the Permissions page.
• The Data Retention Policy at Data Retention Policy answers most GDPR-related questions.
• Direct support: thesis-management-support.aet@xcit.tum.de.