PLEASE READ ALL OF THIS
All grad students are required to submit a Student Activity Report (SAR) by APRIL 24. “All grad students” means everyone enrolled in the CS graduate program including those that are graduating this semester and those that have not selected advisors yet.
The SAR is basically a formatted report of your annual activity. This process is mandated by the graduate school and the report is used by the CS Graduate Program Committee (GPC) to discuss your progress in the program with your advisor, to provide feedback to students, to identify candidates for awards, to analyze external participation in internships, and to encourage and track quality in our graduate program.
In contrast to years past, all Student Activity Reports (SARs) must be submitted via an online form this year. We anticipate some hiccups as with any new software, so please bear with us and watch email and Piazza closely for updates. We have created a Piazza group for students to immediately post issues (See https://piazza.com/class/imv09lxb7i04v1).
Please follow the instructions below to submit your complete and accurate SAR. Be advised you can submit only once, so make it count. At the end of this email, you will see the kinds of information that will be asked in the form. You may want to prepare the information for cut and paste in to the online form prior to logging in to submit.
Your SAR submission will be reviewed by your advisor (if you have one) and the GPC. The advisor and the GPC will provide written feedback to the student prior to the end of this semester. Failure to submit a SAR will be interpreted as no activity and will likely be regarded as unsatisfactory progress in the grad program. So, please be diligent and submit your SAR by the APRIL 24 DEADLINE.
The Student Activity Report online form is available at https://hosting.cs.vt.edu/gpc/. Click on the Student Activity Report link (https://hosting.cs.vt.edu/gpc/sar/). You will have to login using your CS SLO credentials. Please contact department tech staff if your credentials are not recognized.
You will be able to submit your SAR only once, so make sure you read the fields carefully before you type (or paste) the information. The listing at the end of this email highlights most of the information you will need. However, you should read carefully as the form may be formatted differently.
For most students that have submitted SARs previously, the SAR form will be pre-populated with the info submitted last year. If this is your first time doing a SAR, then the form should be blank.
For some students, at the top of the form you will see links to previous year's SARs. You should be able to click on these links and review what you have submitted in the past.
The form does a validation before submitting, so press validate first and if there are no errors, then click the submit button when it becomes available.
Below is a list of questions we typically ask on the SARs. The online format will be slightly different, but this gives you an idea of what to prepare.
*1: Enter your full name/VT Student ID/PID.
*2: What is your primary degree goal?
*3: Are you in the 5-year integrated BS-MS program?
*4: Which semester did you begin graduate studies?
*5: Who is/are your research advisor(s)?
*6: Enter the semesters in which you have taken/plan to take specific milestones.
Entered MS Program:
Filed MS Plan of Study:
MS Final Exam:
Completed MS Degree:
Entered PhD Program:
Took PhD Qualifier Exam:
Completed PhD Qualifying Process:
Filed PhD Plan of Study:
Completed PhD Preliminary Exam:
Completed PhD Research Defense:
Completed PhD Final Defense:
*7: Funding History.
*8: Publication Record.
*9: Internships.
*10: Planned Internships.
*11: Accomplishments thus far.
*12: Plans and Goals.
*13: Departmental Activities.