G3 and Above – DAC Meetings

At the beginning of each graduate year, MCO students are required to report their progress and plans for the following year to a Dissertation Advisory Committee (DAC) whose roles include

Monitoring students’ progress and ensuring that major objectives and standards for completion of the dissertation are being met
Determining when the student may begin writing the dissertation
Providing professional advice on all aspects of the dissertation project, from experimental paradigms to project feasibility and time management, to the scientific impact of the work
Serving as liaison between students and graduate administration as well as providing support during any personal obstacles

Annual meetings with the DAC are mandatory, however the committee may require more frequent meetings depending on the student’s progress, especially toward completion of the dissertation. As with the Candidacy Exam, each student is responsible for forming his or her own Dissertation Advisory Committee.

In an effort to better support students in planning their short- and long-term professional development, MCO is working to integrate the Individual Development Plan (IDP) into the DAC. What is the IDP? The IDP is a mechanism by which trainees can develop a plan of action to achieve specific goals during their training and beyond. It is currently being used by many PhD programs and in fact, several faculty in MCO are already using variations of the IDP to support trainees in their labs. Learn more about the IDP by clicking here.

As such, we have come up with some modifications to the existing DAC procedures to enable the integration of the IDP. 

IDP Meeting: Students and PIs are required to schedule an IDP meeting that should take place 2-3 weeks prior to each DAC meeting, using their respective IDP forms as a discussion guide. It is recommended the IDP forms should be submitted AFTER the IDP discussion has taken place.
Student IDP: Students will complete the MCO Student IDP form and attach section 1 of the form at the end of their DAC research report which will be submitted (by replying all to the DAC confirmation email) one week prior to the DAC meeting.
Advisor IDP: Faculty advisors will complete the MCO Faculty IDP form and send the form to the entire DAC (by replying all to the DAC confirmation email) before the DAC meeting.
1. Please note that upon completion of the IDP forms, both faculty and students will automatically receive their responses via email from Qualtrics. The MCO program will store the annual student and faculty IDP forms for aggregate program evaluation purposes only.
DAC Meeting Discussion: At the conclusion of the scientific part of the DAC meeting, the chair will formally initiate a discussion about the faculty and student’s IDP.

For your convenience, a copy of the entire IDP form can be found here.

G4 & G5 DAC Report Instructions

Page 1 DAC report format
Your Name, Your Lab(s), Project Title
Expanded abstract with subsections (Background, Approach, Results, Conclusion, Significance). This expanded abstract is a concise description of your project. It should summarize progress, challenges, and proposed plans so that your committee can provide useful near- and long-term advice.

Following the expanded abstract present a set of bullet points (the details can be saved for the meeting). For example
• achieved milestone description (Fig. 1)
• achieved milestone description (Fig. 2A)
• achieved milestone description (Table 1)
• anticipated milestone description (Fig. 3, Table 2; 3-4 months)
• anticipated milestone description (Fig. 4, 5; 4-6 months)

Page 2+

If you have multiple projects, prepare a “page 2+” for each, listing each title on page 1.

To emphasize timely publication, we strongly encourage G4+ students to model their post-page 1 DAC report as a draft manuscript(s) that outlines an anticipated scientific story. The degree that the report will resemble a complete manuscript draft will depend on the extent of progress. That is, adjust the proportion of experimental design and data analysis vs experimental plans to reflect your progress.
For each project (anticipated or completed manuscript) present a skeletal narrative that anticipates a future publication. The purpose of the narrative is to create an accessible context for each cited figure/table, illustrating the conceived narrative arc. This narrative should explicitly cite completed, partial, or conceived figures/tables. All figures should include full legends. Incomplete figures should illustrate the goal and parameters, but should not contain simulated or hoped-for data. For example, graphs with axis names but no data, an empty western blot with lanes and anticipated conditions clearly labeled, a written description of microscopic images (or just an empty/grey box with a full legend). The anticipated data figures should also include an approximate timeline for the data collection.

Again, the report is a sketch of a paper(s) that you are developing. The presentation of preliminary figures is an exercise to help the committee see how you are thinking about the collection, analysis, and presentation of your data. This way, the committee can discuss whether the direction presented is the best way to answer the scientific question, as well as be specific with its advice/feedback. Published papers can be cited (provide links or PDFs), but do not need to be incorporated into the forward-looking DAC report.

G3 and Above – DAC Meetings

DAC Meeting Guidelines & Requirements expand_more

IDPs expand_more

G2 & G3 DAC Instructions expand_more

G4 & G5 DAC Instructions expand_more

G6+ DAC Instructions expand_more

Sample DAC Reports expand_more