GCAS College Dublin · For Faculty
Ten portals,
one dashboard.
What I built over the summer, why it exists, and how to use it. Everything here is live now and reachable from your Faculty Dashboard.
Creston Davis · Chancellor
Why any of this exists
We’ve grown, and the way we support our student-researchers hadn’t grown with us.
Too much was living in individual inboxes. A supervisor agreeing something by email. A nomination made verbally and remembered differently by two people. A thesis sent as an attachment and lost when someone was travelling. When that happens the researcher pays for it: a defense slips, an approval can’t be evidenced, a fee turns out never to have been agreed.
Each portal does one job. It gives a task a single place to happen, leaves a record that outlives any one person’s memory, and makes visible who is waiting on whom. The aim isn’t more administration — it’s less of the kind that arrives as an emergency.
The portals
All ten were designed and built this summer. They are colour-coded here exactly as they are on your dashboard, so the two read as one system.
Supervisor Dashboards
One per programme, BA through PhD. Your supervisees, their progress, the work they’ve submitted, and the approval that releases a defense.
MA Thesis Supervisor Nominations
MA researchers nominate a thesis supervisor before approaching anyone. Built because supervision was being arranged privately and billed to GCAS afterwards.
PhD Supervision Nominations
Years 2 and 3 supervisors, nominated by researchers completing Year 1 and decided here rather than by correspondence.
Literature Review Approvals
Year 1 researchers lodge their review with its AI declaration before Canvas. You approve both together. Sits at the top of the PhD Supervisor Dashboard.
Assigned Graders Portal
Who is grading which MA course, and when each set of grades is due. Answers in one screen what otherwise arrives as four emails.
Gradership Applications
Doctoral researchers applying to grade MA coursework, with a panel room for directors’ notes, two-way correspondence, and a reserve list.
Defense Submissions Portal
Theses and dissertations submitted for defense, each with its AI declaration, awaiting your confirmation that the work can be defended.
Defense Committee Desk
Reservations and availability side by side. Take a committee seat here rather than by email, so whoever is assembling the rest can see it.
IRB Portal
Research ethics applications awaiting review and clearance. Supervisors: a doctoral researcher working with human subjects cannot finish Year 1 without it.
Support Portal
Ticketed help for anything administrative: records, fees, access, leave of absence, course additions. Replaces the individual inboxes these used to land in, so a request is logged, routed, and answered even when someone is travelling.
How four of them actually run
The rest are self-explanatory once you’re in them. These four have an order that matters.
MA thesis supervisor · external nominee
- 1Researcher nominatesNames a supervisor outside Core Faculty and acknowledges the fee.
- →
- 2You approveIs the nominee qualified, and is the expertise genuinely unavailable here?
- →
- 3We ask the nomineeWilling in principle, subject to the fee being settled. Never the researcher.
- →
- 4Bursar invoicesOne tick in the portal. 600€ covers the first three months.
- →
- 5ConfirmedPaid, appointed, and in writing to both. Supervision begins.
That order is the whole design. Confirm before invoicing and you may have to retract an appointment when a researcher can’t pay. Invoice before asking the nominee and you’re holding money for supervision that may never happen.
PhD Year 1 · literature review
- 1Months 2–5Development worksheet, then a 5,000-word draft.
- →
- 2Month 9 — lodgedSubmitted with its AI declaration, before Canvas.
- →
- 3You approveThe review and the declaration together. Citations are the risk here.
- →
- 4Month 10 — CanvasYour approval is what releases them to lodge.
A review sitting unread in that queue blocks the researcher’s Month 10. If a citation doesn’t check out, raise it with them directly and in confidence first — the Handbook puts the burden on GCAS and rules out detector output as evidence.
Defense · MA thesis and PhD dissertation
- 1Researcher submitsFinal draft plus AI declaration, through the Submissions Portal.
- →
- 2Supervisor confirmsA judgement that it can be defended — not a receipt.
- →
- 3Committee formsSeats taken at the Defense Desk, where availability is visible.
- →
- 4Defense scheduledMA: draft with the committee two weeks ahead. PhD: 90 days ahead.
Support portal · where administrative requests go now
- 1RaisedBy a researcher or by you, from your GCAS account.
- →
- 2RoutedTo Records, Fees, or Academic Supervision — not to one person’s inbox.
- →
- 3AnsweredBy whoever is on duty. Travel and leave stop being single points of failure.
- →
- 4On recordBoth sides keep a record of what was asked and what was said.
Please use it rather than replying to a researcher’s direct email, however small the question. Every request that goes through the portal is one that does not vanish when a colleague is away — and it protects you as much as it protects them.
Start here: Master Portal Instructions
The first card on your dashboard. It documents every portal — what it’s for, who can open it, how to work it, and what to do when something misbehaves. If you read one thing before September, read that.
The one thing that will save you an email. Access is checked against the address on your WordPress account, not the address you send mail from. If you hold two and your account carries the older one, a portal will turn you away from something you’re entitled to open. The refusal screen names the address it’s reading — quote that when you report it and it’s fixed in one step instead of three.
A card missing from your dashboard isn’t a fault. Cards are hidden rather than shown as dead links, so a missing card means either the portal isn’t relevant to your role, or your account isn’t on its list yet. Both are quick to fix.
A session in September
I’ll schedule a meeting for mid to late September so we can go through these together: confirming everyone can get into what they need, walking through the ones you’ll actually use, and hearing where they’re awkward.
Nothing here is settled. If a portal makes your work harder rather than easier, I want to know before it becomes habit.
Before then, three minutes of your time
- Sign in and open your Faculty Dashboard.
- Click into every card you can see, and note any that turn you away.
- Read the Master Portal Instructions card, at least the section on how access works.
With thanks for your patience while these were built.
Creston Davis · Chancellor · GCAS College Dublin