Deadline postponments
Fully digital request and multi-stage approval process for deadline postponements
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Description:
There are several deadlines students have to meet in a PhD program, some of which mark major stepstones in the progress. This especially refers to the affiliation deadline and the deadline for the qualifying exam. Students have the option to request a deadline postponement for affiliation as well as qualifying exam deadlines. This feature facilitates a fully digital request and multi-stage approval process for deadline postponements.
Details:
According to the deadline, different rules can be defined for the approval process. For example, if the qualifying exam is to be rescheduled just a week later due to logistic reasons, different approval steps can be taken compared to a request of a 6 months postponement of academic reasons. Therefore, different categories can be configured to define different approval processes.
The student can fill out a „request form for deadline postponement“ and submit it online. According to the choices and the requested extension, the corresponding approval process will be initiated. In case of a small postponement, just one person might review the request, whereas in case of a long postponement, several steps might be required.
In theory, all such reviewing rounds look the same and can be endlessly summed up to form any required approval process: The responsible person will receive an automated notification of a new request. All requests are also shown in a list view. Here, via an „edit“ function, the request form can be accessed and evaluated. There are three options to decide on: deny the request, send it back to student with comments to amend, or approve the request. After approving, this very same process will be repeated by the next responsible person in order to build a multi-stage approval process.
After the final approval, the student will receive an automated message and the deadline will be changed in the system.