ABSTRACT
As Ingrid Moses points out in her chapter, nearly 103,500 students were enrolled in postgraduate courses in Australian universities in 1992 — 18.5 per cent of the total enrolments within institutions. The mature age postgraduate student poses additional perplexities for staff and tertiary institutions. Except in certain programmes (the MBA is the most common), where no undergraduate degree is required for entry, the mature student has a basic degree and probably an established learning style preference. The chapter suggests that two procedures which might be useful are contracts and checklists, for departments, supervisors and students. Both contracts and checklists should cover pre-enrolment and enrolment procedures, as well as the practices and understandings pertinent to candidature, and the usual specific full documentation regarding production of the thesis and submission procedures. Both contracts and checklists must be detailed, for it is the lack of clearly articulated detail in current procedures which leads to so many less-than-satisfactory candidatures.
