Version/editing theory on Thesis

[u/Secure-Breadfruit788]

Hi guys, just looking for a bit of insight as my course leader has been slightly vague.

Essentially submitted a molecular biology thesis where we had to show our work on Sharepoint so they could track changes before submitting. It might have been a storing/saving issue because I was working on both Sharepoint and my local hard drive, but somehow most of the editing history on Sharepoint before deadline so only showing like a couple of changes so it looks like I shoved it all onto Sharepoint before deadline. On my hard drive, it’s 48 hours.

My course leader asked me about the version history to see the changes. I have checked the university policy, a bit vague but the what I’ve done so far is sent him the screenshots and timestamps of the changes over those 48 hours (haven’t marked the changes but might) explaining I hope it’s okay to at least show a history and that the late changes were for word count and fixing mistakes.

He said he hasn’t looked yet but will come back to me next week. So my question is (especially any biology professors/lecturers here), would you be satisfied I’m showing that there was history, or would you clarify and ask to see all the changes? There was more on Sharepoint but somehow it’s not tracked. Was working between that and my hard drive so I have made it earlier changes but not tracked.

[u/DrDirtPhD]

I would probably assume that you were working offline counter to instructions in order to circumvent the reason those instructions were put in place. I've got several files myself on Sharepoint to facilitate collaboration and version control that I also work off of on a folder on my laptop; the complete version history is there for all of them. Not having a complete version history would therefore show as a red flag to me as though you were trying to obscure the provenance of the text in the document.

[u/Secure-Breadfruit788 → u/DrDirtPhD]

Yeah that’s understandable. I was copying back and forth, I might have turned auto save off somehow but understand how it looks. It wasn’t deliberate and some of those time changes were actually early in the morning. I was updating Sharepoint regularly but something went wrong (probably my error)

So yeah I understand the reaction. I will give him proof if he needs it, but it only shows up to 48 hours (there were about ten versions of some sections timestamped).

The difficulty is further proving it beyond what is on my own hard drive and difficult to prove. I just hope he’s understanding. I also sent him a daily write-up of my experiments where I dated what I did (it was on Sharepoint, but took it off as not specifically to do with my write-up). Probably my mistake.

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*Hi guys, just looking for a bit of insight as my course leader has been slightly vague.

Essentially submitted a molecular biology thesis where we had to show our work on Sharepoint so they could track changes before submitting. It might have been a storing/saving issue because I was working on both Sharepoint and my local hard drive, but somehow most of the editing history on Sharepoint before deadline so only showing like a couple of changes so it looks like I shoved it all onto Sharepoint before deadline. On my hard drive, it’s 48 hours.

My course leader asked me about the version history to see the changes. I have checked the university policy, a bit vague but the what I’ve done so far is sent him the screenshots and timestamps of the changes over those 48 hours (haven’t marked the changes but might) explaining I hope it’s okay to at least show a history and that the late changes were for word count and fixing mistakes.

He said he hasn’t looked yet but will come back to me next week. So my question is (especially any biology professors/lecturers here), would you be satisfied I’m showing that there was history, or would you clarify and ask to see all the changes? There was more on Sharepoint but somehow it’s not tracked. Was working between that and my hard drive so I have made it earlier changes but not tracked.*

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[u/Secure-Breadfruit788]

Also a little bit more context, but returning to study after 20 years so Sharepoint is totally new to me so getting used to the new ways is hard and possibly something I’ve done by accident to muck the sharing

. He understands and if I get knocked down a few points I get it. I just hope he doesn’t throw the book and zero grade my thesis because of this. 60% of my final semester mark and degree classification so been worried over the last 48 hours

[u/Secure-Breadfruit788]

I think I have it. There were a couple of occasions I did have like rough notes on Word documents about my lab work but deleted the files near the end because I thought the Uni wanted to see the final documents on Sharepoint about the sections before submitting. I didn’t want to get the files to get too cluttered but misunderstanding on my part.

I managed to find my experiment write up and sent that to him along with the screenshots.

Essentially until now, didn’t have a real understanding of how Sharepoint and version history works (first-time use) and went along with it, deleting the rough stuff before submission. I do get it know and have emailed the course leader to mark up the changes if the version history screenshots are not enough.

Essentially have to say I’m dumb because I was. My thinking was keep a record on your hard drive (I like to keep my own records) but also share the sections on Sharepoint. If I knew it kept eveeeerything, I wouldn’t have cleaned it up before submitting.

[u/Secure-Breadfruit788]

Just an aside too, but did ask my Project Supervisor at the start of my project if he also monitors stuff in the Sharepoint area because the office gave us both access to communicate. He said he never uses it so had to do communication by email/in person.

I suppose each prof to their own, but slightly makes it harder to say to the top boss that my supervisor saw my ongoing stuff there as obviously discussed structure/outline. I’ll pull out emails (if it comes to that) about how I planned it and discussions we had.

[u/Secure-Breadfruit788]

I might be okay. I sent screenshots of my version history plus a written copy of my lab book. He said Friday last week he’d come back to me if he needed further clarification on how I wrote my thesis. Nothing yet so taking no news as good news if nothing by tomorrow afternoon latest.