The goal of the Beta PhD program is to train PhD students to become qualified researchers in Operations Management at either academic institutions or business research organizations. The main way to achieve this is "learning by doing", in the sense that a PhD student works on a pre-defined, supervised research project from the start. Furthermore, PhD students take high-level PhD courses. The course work provides the students with state-of-the-art knowledge of their research field and of research methodologies.
The course work is completed during the first two years. Beta does not specify a standard course program for all students, but leaves considerable freedom to PhD students and their supervisors to select courses that are relevant for their research and meet the student's interests. The course program has two objectives: 1) The course program is tailored to the supervised research project and provides the theoretical and methodological knowledge needed to successfully complete the research project. 2) the course program should also enhance the PhD-student's understanding of techniques, theories, and research methods that are not directly used within this project. The course program broadens the student's theoretical foundation and research skills, and it provides a solid foundation for a future research career.
Workload:
960 hours for PhD students who started before September 1st, 2012
840 hours (30 EC) for PhD students who started after August 31st, 2012
Each PhD student and his/her supervisor develop an individual course program, within three months after the PhD student has started. This program is submitted to the Beta office electronically (beta [at] tue [dot] nl). If you have any questions or issues that you would like to discuss before formally submitting the course program, please contact either Geertje Kramer, Beta co-ordinator (g [dot] g [dot] kramer [at] tue [dot] nl), or Erwin Hans, Education Officer (e.w.hans@utwente). Please list all courses that the PhD student intends to follow and provide the following information on each course, preferably in the standardized format:
This program is reviewed by Beta's education officer and will be either approved or suggestions are made for changing and resubmitting the program. After completing a course, the PhD student must send a copy of a document declaring the successful completion of the course to the Beta office. In addition to completing the courses, PhD students also need to present their research at least once during the Beta PhD symposium or the Beta conference, and they are expected to attend this symposium/conference regularly.
After successfully completing the whole course program and meeting the requirement for participation in the Beta PhD symposium, the completed course program is sent to the Beta Executive Board who decides whether the PhD student meets all criteria. If so, the PhD student will receive the Beta Education Certificate.
The following requirements must be satisfied regarding the individual course program:
The program should contain at least 960 hours of credits, for PhD students who started before September 1st 2012, and 840 hours for PhD students who started after August 31st 2012 (for conversion: 1EC = 28 hours).
The following two courses are compulsory:
Additional courses must be at PhD level. You may select courses offered by Beta members (see below), and by other PhD networks and universities. Furthermore, you may include courses offered by the 3TU. School for Technical Design, Stan Ackermans Institute. Particularly courses within the programs Logistics Management Systems and Mathematics for Industry may be relevant for Beta PhD students. Contact the coordinator of the program of your interest to register for these courses.
In exceptional cases, a course program may include a course at a Master's level. However, the reason for selecting such a course needs to be clearly motivated. Courses at Master's level may be included for no more than 25% of the workload of the entire PhD program. In the following section we give more information on requirements for including a Master's level course in your program. Summer and winter schools may be included in the program, but only after approval by Beta's education officer, as only summer and winter schools at PhD level and with a substantive program will be approved. So all summer and winter schools have to be submitted to Beta before participation.
A PhD course aims to familiarize students with the state-of-the-art in research as to identify future research directions, while a Master's course may be geared more towards application of research to practical problems. Therefore, the inclusion of a Master's course in the PhD course program should be an exception, and requires clear motivation of the scope and level of the course.
Please provide the following information in addition to the regular information that needs to be provided for all courses:
Sometimes a Master's course is strongly oriented towards research and is already of the same level as PhD courses. This may, for example, be the case if it is part of the honor's program and goes beyond "normal" Master's courses, or because a course largely overlaps (same literature and exercises, same instructor) with a PhD course that is, for example, offered by LNMB. This provides the strongest motivation for selecting a Master's course (first point above).
Beta has the following research programs:
Beta offers courses that are linked to these programs:
Production, Maintenance, Materials Coordination & Transportation (PMMT)
Human Performance Management (HPM)
Business Information Systems (BIS)
Quantitative Models for Analysis of Operational Processes (QMAOP)
New Product Development Processes (NPDP)
Operations Management in Healthcare (HC)
Stochastic Processes (3 possible courses):
|
PhD course |
Workload in ects |
Workload in hours |
Costs |
|
Research Perspectives on Operational Processes |
2 |
56 |
€ 400,00 |
|
Technology Entrepreneurship & Innovation Management |
6 |
168 |
€ 1.000,00 |
|
Regression Analysis Techniques |
2 |
60 |
€ 200,00
|
|
Inventory Management |
3 |
84 |
€ 300,00
|
|
Production Control |
3 |
84 |
€ 300,00
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Master Course : Proof Techniques |
3 |
84 |
€ 300,00 |
Participation in courses organized by Beta is free for Beta PhD students as it is for PhD students who participate in the TRAIL Research School, except for the course Technology Entrepreneurship & Innovation Management. Beta PhD students have to pay a fee of € 750,-- to participate in the course Technology Entrepreneurship & Innovation Management (discount is available for max. 5 participants per year), TRAIL PhD students have to pay the standard rate.
A course fee will be charged to all other participants.