Designing a thesis tele-supervision system for postgraduate medical sciences students

Introduction: Today, progressing science and technology at all domains, including education and research, will bring new opportunities to resolve the communication and interaction problems. The aim of this study was to determine potential factors affecting the thesis supervision and provide a web-based solution. Methods: This is a developmental study conducted in two theoretical and technical phases at the Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in 2017. The theoretical phase was performed in three stages, including literature review and investigating the existing studies and Delphi’s study based experts’ view as well as identifying the thesis supervision status based on 200 postgraduate students’ point of view. The technical phase had two stages, including to draw processes and to design the physical and logic schemes of the system. The Thesis Tele-Supervision software named SAHPAD was designed by C# and ASP. NET programing languages. Results: The results showed that out of 40 potential factors specified at the first stage of theoretical phase by using experts’ opinion, 13 items were selected as the main factors. According to the results obtained from the students’ views at the third stage, the factor of “accessibility” had the minimum score, i.e. 3.15 mean of four, which was the worst status. Conclusion: The designed system covered from the beginning to the end of the thesis workflow at its electronic frame with its various capabilities such as the interaction of the research team to decide the title, draft the proposal, prepare for thesis defense,etc.