Inspire

Inspire is Australia's first 'digital doctorate' designed for HDR students - and their supervisors and advisers - to enable them to obtain the skills and guidance they need to succeed in completing their candidature on time.

For the first time in any Australian University, it is possible for a PhD student to manage all aspects of their doctorate 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
• intermission of candidature
• extension
• withdrawal of enrolment.

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

Students and supervisors 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.

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.