Panoho research candidate management
Learn about the new research candidate management system coming in 2025.
The current ResearchMaster system is at the end of its product life and needs to be replaced before it is no longer supported by the vendor. ResearchMaster provides functionality for two things: research candidature management and management of the University’s human and animal ethics processes.
OmniStar has been chosen to handle Ethics Management, and Cayuse’s Graduate Education Manager (GEM) for research candidature management. Digital Solutions will be integrating both products with existing University systems. Learn more about the new ethics management system, Hōkai.
Naming our new Candidature Management system—Panoho
The new research candidate management system will be known as Panoho. This name was gifted by the Office of the DVC Māori. The name connects the new system to the University’s te reo Māori name, Te Herenga Waka, meaning the mooring place of canoes.
Panoho is the Māori word for a 'punting pole'. Panoho were traditionally used by Māori to propel waka forward, especially when travelling upstream on rivers. This is appropriate for our new Candidature Management system in two ways: it both 'punts' students into their postgraduate programme and also gives them a lift or push forward as they navigate along their learning journey waterway. It is the tool that gets you going and helps you through tricky patches.
Improving the student and staff experience
The Faculty of Graduate Research are striving to improve the experience for our research candidates and the staff that support them. The replacement of ResearchMaster provided an opportunity to review existing processes, looking to simplify and consolidate these to reduce the administrative burden. Panoho will also provide enhanced reporting capabilities and improve visibility of our research candidates to support their pastoral and academic needs, for example, staff will be able to look at the current status of all students under their care.
Panoho will go beyond what ResearchMaster current does, by supporting our Master’s by Thesis and Master’s by Portfolio candidates in addition to our Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) and Professional Doctorate candidates. It is due to go live in 2025.
Processes in scope
Panoho will replace ResearchMaster, as well as many of the existing paper and Microsoft Office online forms. Panoho will also deliver some new functionality to support our research candidates. The following processes will be managed in Panoho, with each process configured with an approval workflow, providing visibility to both staff and students as the request progresses.
Candidature Management
- Change of programme or course code
- Change of study location
- Permission to undertake research away
- Change between full time and half time
- Extension
- Absence (e.g., annual leave for doctoral students)
- Suspension
- Termination
- Withdrawal
- Early thesis submission
- Engagement monitoring
- Milestone management, including the ability to defer deadlines.
Examinations
Examinations for Master’s by Thesis, Master’s by Portfolio, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) and Professional Doctorates will be managed in Panoho. Both our internal and external examiners will access Panoho to engage in the examination process. The following will all be handled within Panoho:
- Permission to exceed the word limit
- Thesis embargo
- Notice of intention to submit
- Thesis submission for examination
- Appointment of examiners
- Examiner reports
- Viva arrangements
- Examination outcome
- Amendments
- Degree completion.
The Panoho examination process will support the existing Library thesis deposit process.
Supervisor management
- Application to act as a supervisor
- Supervision meetings
- Change of supervisory team
Academic Progress
- Academic Progress
- Doctoral progress reports (Candidature Development Plans, CDPs)
- Master’s progress reports.
Key system benefits
The new system is cloud-based and will be configured to meet University requirements. It will provide the University with the following benefits for supporting our research candidates:
- Provides a way to track each individual candidate’s unique journey.
- Creates a central location for faculty, staff and candidates to track progress, manage resources, and share information and data.
- Includes milestone tracking to provide oversight of a candidate’s progress using a smart date engine.
- Integrates with existing University systems to ensure data is reliable and up to date.
- Enables doctoral researchers and supervisors to easily record supervision meetings.
- Allows for progression monitoring and academic progress review.
- Has configurable online forms and workflows for candidature and examination management with automated approvals.
- Allows staff and candidates to track progress of processes.
- Provides automated reminders for outstanding tasks.
Project contact
If you have any questions about Panoho please contact the ResearchMaster Replacement project team by emailing ResearchMasterReplacementProject@vuw.ac.nz.