Inspire

Inspire is Australia’s first online HDR candidature management system to enable the ‘digital doctorate’. Students – and their supervisors – can track the progress of their candidature, request changes to their candidature and submit their thesis for online examination. In addition, students can track the research training skills they have attained against the Vitae researcher development framework, set goals and plan for career outcomes.

Flinders researchers can use Inspire to complete the HDR Supervisor Development Program and track their development against their compliance to be HDR supervisors.

In 2021 Inspire will deliver further functionality for the online examinations module, the new Register of HDR Supervisors that will assist the Office of Graduate Research to facilitate supervisory teams for students and demonstrate compliance against national requirements, and a certification of skills development for HDR graduates.

For the first time in any Australian University, it is possible for HDR students to manage all aspects of their candidature using just the one system, Inspire, accessible at any time, from anywhere in the world.

Note: Inspire is best used with Chrome or Firefox browsers. Internet Explorer or other browsers may not work correctly.

Students are able to apply for the following variations to their candidature in Inspire:

• change or addition of a supervisor
• degree transfer or significant change to project
• transfer to full-time or part-time
• change enrolment location
• intermission of candidature
• extension of candidature and scholarship
• HDR allowance claims
• Scholarship recreation leave
• withdrawal of enrolment.

All applications are subject to review and approval and are managed by an online workflow. 

Students, supervisors and external examiners can use Inspire for some HDR examination processes:

• Students can use the quick and simple intention to submit milestone to provide their supervisor with an indication of when they are going to submit their thesis.
• The intention to submit milestone prompts the supervisor to nominate examiners early.
• The intention to submit milestone gives students the option to state which examiners they DO NOT want to review their thesis.
• Supervisors can nominate examiners online via the Nomination of Examiners form at any time, before or after receiving the intention to submit. One examiner per form.
• Students can submit their thesis for examination. Students will be asked to upload a PDF version of their thesis, their full Turnitin report, their thesis summary for graduation and if applicable co-authorship permission forms.
• External examiners can download the thesis, and any supporting materials, for examination and return their reports to the Office of Graduate Research.
• Students and supervisors will be able to see the status of the examination in Inspire > Examination > Results
• Students and supervisors will access results and examiner reports in Inspire when both reports have been approved by the Office of Graduate Research.
• HDR students will now be able to manage their thesis amendments approval process via an online workflow.

The streamlining of these processes is expected to improve turnaround times for HDR examinations.

Students can use Inspire to plan their career and set goals:  

• Choose a primary and secondary career focus, by selecting one of: academic, industry, or entrepreneurial. 
• Set goals with completion dates and activities corresponding to your selected career focus. 
• See your goals on your landing page in Inspire.  
• Change your career focus, goals, dates, and activities at any time. 

There are several benefits: 

• Selecting a career focus helps you identify the skills necessary for your chosen career and provide you with activities to develop those skills during your candidature.
• Setting goals helps you identify any tasks or milestone you would like to meet, reminds you of due dates you set and keeps you on track with your desired progress.
• When you complete a goal, it’s a reminder to take some time out to reflect on what you’ve achieved and record your achievement (helping to build your CV). 
• By linking your career focus and goals to the doctoral graduate attributes, the VITAE and REST frameworks in Inspire can recommend research training to move you along the path of your career focus.  
• By identifying career-relevant training, you can start developing industry-recognisable skills that also happen to be transferable, which can in turn ‘unlock’ additional future career opportunities.