Manual for supervisors, reviewers and decision-makers
In this manual you can learn how to manage a digital Individual Study Plan (ISP) as a supervisor, reviewer or decision-maker at the Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy.
Please note that the information in the white text boxes applies specifically to the Disciplinary Domain of Medicine and Pharmacy.
Updates
2026-02-02
"ISP-first assistant supervisor" in the Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology changes name to "ISP-signing assistant supervisor".
2025-09-24
The heading “Subject instance, end date” in the “Admitted to” panel under “Basic Information” has been removed. The date was merely a template date, calculated four years from the "Subject instance, start date". New ISP-versions started from September 24, 2025, onwards will therefore no longer include this heading.
Access to ISP in Ladok
To gain access to ISP in Ladok, you need a user account at Uppsala University and the appropriate permissions for ISP in Ladok. If you do not have this, please contact the department where your doctoral student is registered.
Log in to Ladok
My doctoral students (ISP)
On the Ladok start page, there is a tab called “My Doctoral Students (ISP)”. This tab contains a list of doctoral students that you are the principal supervisor, reviewer, or decision-maker for and that you are linked to in Ladok (1). (If this tab is missing, contact the administration at the department where your doctoral student is registered).
Click on the doctoral student's personal identification number to access their ISP. The link serves as a shortcut to your doctoral student, even when you do not have a current work task in their ISP.
An ISP-administrator creates and starts new ISP-versions in Ladok. Contact the administrator if you want to start a new ISP-version.
Roles and tasks
Principal supervisor
The doctoral student and the principal supervisor have joint editing rights. When the ISP is completed, it is forwarded to the principal supervisor for formal approval.
Assistant supervisors do not have access to the ISP in Ladok. The principal supervisor is therefore responsible for informing assistant supervisors about the content of the ISP and any updates.
In the event of significant changes, a revision of the ISP must be approved by the Research Training Committee (KUF), for example:
- A significantly revised research plan (for example, changes to constituent papers)
- A revised timetable for the thesis work (for example, extended periods abroad, parental leave, or sick leave)
- A change in activity level of more than 5 percentage points
- A change in funding
Head of doctoral studies
The head of doctoral studies is the reviewer. As a reviewer, you can read the content of ISPs and approve them but not revise them.
Research Training Committee
The Research Training Committee (KUF) is the decision-maker.
Examiner¹
The examiner is only involved in the annual follow-up of the ISP.
- For annual follow-ups without significant revisions, the examiner acts as the decision-maker and establishes the ISP
- For annual follow-ups with significant revisions, the examiner forwards the ISP to the head of doctoral studies after review
¹ See separate manual.
Notifications
Ladok has an automatic notification function for the digital ISP. When an ISP reaches a step in the workflow where you have a task to perform (write, approve, confirm), a notification appears in the "My Doctoral Students" tab (2), and a notification email is sent to the email address registered for you in Ladok.
In the notification in Ladok (2), you can see your current work task, and by clicking the blue link, you will be transferred directly to the doctoral student’s ISP.
The doctoral student’s ISP in Ladok
When you enter the doctoral student’s ISP, you will land on the "Workflow" tab. On this page, you approve/establish the ISP after editing or reviewing it, or you can send it back to the doctoral student if corrections are needed.
- The content of the ISP is filled in under the tabs from "Basic Information" and down. The "Timeplan" provides a summary of the information entered in the other tabs.
- "Completed work tasks" show previous steps in the ISP.
- "Current work task" tells you where the ISP is currently at, this is also where you sign and approve the ISP.
- "Upcoming work tasks" contain the coming steps in the ISP.
- "Established versions" store previous versions of the digital ISP that have been established in Ladok.
Reviewing the content of the ISP
In the "Workflow" tab, in “Current work task” you find a description of your work task (6). Enter the tabs "Timeplan" and "Overview and reflections" to get useful overviews of the doctoral student’s planned education and progression.
Once the doctoral student has approved the ISP, it is locked for editing and enters the decision phase. If anything needs to be adjusted at this stage, it must be sent back to the doctoral student with comments on what actions are needed. Enter the comment in the message box that appears when the ISP sent back in the system.
A description of the task and instructions on what to review can be found in the “Current work task” section.
For the head of doctoral studies: If the ISP has been revised in connection with the annual follow-up, the examiner has first approved the annual follow-up.
Approving or establishing the ISP
After reviewing the ISP your task is to approve, establish or send the ISP back to the doctoral student for revision.
- Click on one of the blue boxes under the heading "Current work task."
If you choose to approve/establish the version, that means you are signing the ISP, and it will be forwarded to the next step in the ISP workflow
There are two options för the principal supervisor to approve the ISP and send it forward in the system:
- “Approve version (not annual follow-up)”
- “Approve version (annual follow-up)”
Not annual follow-up
When revising the ISP, but not in connection with the annual follow-up, the principal supervisor must approve the ISP with “Approve version (not annual follow-up)” for it to be forwarded to the person responsible for doctoral studies.
The principal supervisor must always specify what has been revised.
Enter brief information in the message box that appears when the ISP is forwarded in the system. The next person in the workflow can view the information under “Completed work tasks” in the “Message” column.
Annual follow-up
The annual follow-up is carried out by the doctoral student and supervisor in consultation with the examiner. The examiner must review the documentation in the ISP.
Once the annual follow-up has been completed, the principal supervisor approves the study plan by selecting “Approve version (annual follow-up)”, which is then forwarded to the examiner. The principal supervisor should inform the examiner if the ISP only contains only minor changes and can be approved by the examiner, or if the ISP contains significant revisions and must first be approved by the examiner and then forwarded to the head of doctoral studies. Enter this information in the message box that appears when the ISP is to be forwarded in the system.
If the examiner does not approve the follow-up, it is returned to the doctoral student (and supervisor). The examiner should then write a comment in the message box about what actions to take.
Filling in the ISP
(Applies to ISP supervisors with editing permission)
Once an administrator has started an ISP version in Ladok, information can be entered in the tabs from "Basic Information" down to "Overview and reflections" in the left menu. The panels "Admitted to" and "General syllabus" in "Basic information" are locked to the ISP-administrator.
The "Timeplan" tab is a summary of entered information in the other tabs, and no new information should be added here.
The doctoral student and principal supervisor both have editing authorisation.
Basic information
Admitted to (1)
The information in this panel is retrieved from the student´s admission data in Ladok. Thus, the “Subject instance, start date” is the date when the doctoral student was admitted to the doctoral education in Ladok. The “Subject instance, end date”, is a template date calculated 4 years from the start date in Ladok.
"Higher education institution resources": The doctoral student and the supervisors enter which resources the institution provides in the education and to what extent these can be expected to be available to the doctoral student during the education. For example, access to experimental measurement equipment, cohorts of collected biological material, or databases.
General syllabus (2)
The ISP-administrator enters information about the general syllabus.
Milestones in third-cycle studies (3)
Select milestones from the predefined list to plan the doctoral student's education per calendar half year.
It is mandatory to specify whether it is a half-time seminar, defence of doctoral thesis, or licentiate seminar.
The milestones can be adjusted during the revision of the ISP based on how the studies progresses.
Study activity and funding (4)
Planned activities and funding are entered by the supervisor and doctoral student on a half-year basis.
Reported activities and funding are retrieved from Ladok.
- Fill in the planned activity and funding (planned employment, as per admission documents) for the entire doctoral period.
- The activity is related to personal work effort in the doctoral studies where full-time (100%) corresponds to 40 hours/week on average over six months.
- The total activity percentage should not exceed 800%. 100% study activity corresponds to one calendar half-year of full-time studies.
- For previously admitted doctoral students, previously reported activity and funding are retrieved from the basic Ladok system.
- Once the study activity has been reported on a half-yearly basis, the planned activity for the current half-year must be removed.
- It is important to update your activity prior to the half-yearl report, especially in the case of longer absences such as parental leave and sick leave.
- The Research Training Committee (KUF) decides on the revision of activity and funding. If the activity rate changes less than 5 percentage points, it should not be reported and does not lead to revision of the ISP.
Departmental duties (5)
Here a doctoral student´s departmental duties are documented.
Other documentation (6)
Previously established ISPs and other documents of relevance to the third-cycle eduaction can be uploaded here (PDF).
Supervisor and decision-maker
In "New supervisor input," the principal supervisor specifies agreed supervisor input per calendar half year, such as the organization, percentage, or hours of supervision.
Use "Change information" to add a note if there is relevant information that does not fit within the supervisor input.
Assistant supervisors can be specified as free text in the “Note” field.
Supervisor conversation
Select "Type of conversation," fill in the date and participants.
Supervisor conversations concerning the research project are marked as “Follow-up conversation” and documented in “Note”.
Annual follow-up
At least once a year, the ISP must be followed up and, if necessary, revised. The annual follow-up is carried out by the doctoral student and supervisor in consultation with the examiner, and documented as “Annual follow-up conversation”.
In “Note”, the doctoral student and supervisor should evaluate and document how the collaboration has worked over the past year. What has worked well? What has not worked? Any suggestions for changes? Other comments.
See also “Overview and reflection” regarding annual follow-up.
Thesis work
How to use the tab "Thesis Work" is determined by each department. Below, different possibilities are described.
Summary (1)
Here, the preliminary title of the thesis and basic information about it are documented, and the research plan is uploaded (PDF).
The information entered on the “Thesis work” tab can serve as a basis for the annual follow-up.
In case of significant changes to the research plan, the revision must be decided by the Research Training Committee (KUF).
Planning and follow-up (2)
In this panel, planning and follow-up of activities related to the thesis work can be documented, for example the design of the introductory chapter of a compilation thesis.
Part of thesis work (3)
Here, parts of the thesis work can be planned and followed up. This could include an article in a compilation thesis or a chapter (select "Other") in a monograph.
Each subproject gets a separate page and a subheading, "Planning and follow-up," where more detailed follow-up can take place per calendar half year.
Document for the various parts of "Thesis work" what have been completed in the previous year and plan head for the coming year.
Ethical conditions (4)
Any ethical conditions regarding the thesis work can be uploaded here.
Courses and conferences
Courses, conferences, and other credit-bearing activities at the doctoral level are reported in Ladok and when certified they are automatically transferred to the doctoral student's ISP under the heading "Unsorted certified results" (yellow rows). The activities are then sorted under the appropriate headings further down.
Reported results at the doctoral level before 2018, which are found under "Other results" in the doctoral student's overview in Ladok, are not automatically transferred to the doctoral student's ISP.
Provide a preliminary plan for courses, conferences and seminars totalling 30 credits.
Unsorted certifed results (1)
Certified results at the doctoral level in Ladok are automatically transferred to Ladok ISP and appear under this heading. The results then need to be sorted under the appropriate headings (2, 3, 5, 6).
Once a planned course has been completed, reported and sorted, it should be removed from the planned courses list.
Mandatory courses (2)
Here planned and completed mandatory courses are documented.
Elective courses (3)
Here planned and completed elective courses are documented.
Credit transfer / Credited education (4)
Credited education is automatically transferred from Ladok to here.
Conferences (5) and Seminars and other activities (6)
Under these headings are planned and completed credit-bearing conferences, seminars and other activities.
Non-credit-bearing activities (7)
Planned and completed non-bearing activities in third cycle education can be documented here.
Filling in non-credit-bearing activities optional.
Learning outcomes
In the field “Change information” for each learning outcome, the activities that contribute to the achievement of the outcome is documented. A learning outcome is marked as completed when it is achieved.
Filling in this section is optional.
Timeplan
In the timeplan the information entered in the other tabs in the ISP is summarized to give reviewers and decision-makers an overview of the doctoral student´s plans forward. No new information is entered in this tab.
Under “Timeplan”, you can also see an overview going back in time.
Overview and reflections
This page provides an overview of key parts of the doctoral student's individual study plan per calendar half-year.
Planned activities are indicated in parentheses. If both planned and completed activities exist for the same half-year, the completed activity is shown first, followed by the planned one in parentheses.
100% study activity corresponds to one calendar half year of full-time studies, which means that four years of full-time studies gives a total of 800% study activity.
In reflections, the supervisor and the doctoral student can reflect on the student's progression at different stages of the doctoral education. This may include discussions on achieved milestones, identification of potential obstacles, and planning of future steps.
During the annual follow-up, the doctoral student and supervisor should briefly summarise the past year under “Reflections” and comment on future planning. Deviations from the planned work should also be documented here. In case of significant deviations, the ISP must be revised.
The annual follow-up is carried out in consultation with the examiner. The examiner must review the documentation in the ISP.
See also “Supervisor conversation” regarding annual follow-up.