Virtual defence

These are the steps to follow for the defence of theses by electronic means (blended or completely virtual):

To carry out the act of defence by telematic means

  1. The EDIUS will schedule a virtual videoconference room in Microsoft Teams for the celebration of the act of defence. Said Teams sessions will be formalized based on the defense date, processing the defences of the current month first.
     

  2. The Microsoft TEAMS application will be used to carry out the thesis defence, and at a technical level there will be a PhD Programme teacher who will assume the role of technical moderator of the application. This person will be in charge of giving access permission to the attendees of the act and also of effectively providing the indications determined by the tribunal president. In addition, the moderator must:

    1. Connect 30 minutes prior to the scheduled public session for the defence in order to welcome the members of the examining commitee, thesis supervisors and the PhD student;
       
    2. Record the public thesis defence session;
       
    3. Start the video call in the deliberation session while the PhD student presents the thesis, sending the link to this session together with the link to the form in order to provide the secret vote for cum laude to the members of the examining committee.
       
  3. To carry out the virtual act of defence, two sessions will be created:

 

a. Formal examining committee constitution session and development of the act of defence of the thesis

  1. The PhD student, supervisor(s), tutor (if applicable), members of the examining committee and the technical moderator, will have access to the session with the category of “session members”, and members of the university community and non-university attendees at the event will be assigned as “session guests”.

    In this session, the president of the examining committee will act as the “host” of the videoconference and will summon the other members of the committee and the PhD student at least 30 minutes before the start of the public presentation. To do so, the moderator will connect 30 minutes before the scheduled time of the act of defence. The PhD student and the members of the examining committee will have to perform the relevant connection tests and also confirm that these latter ones have access to the defence chat session and to his/her email to be able to participate fully and correctly in all aspects that the act requires.

    Next, the president of the examining committe will check the presence in the virtual session of the other members of the committee and the PhD student. To this end, the secretary will identify the PhD student and the members of the committee, claiming, when necessary, the relevant documentation via video or electronically in order to accredit each of them. This procedure is recorded in the Act of defence.

  2. The academic act of defence of the thesis will start when the president of the committee takes the floor and who will:

    • Introduce the PhD student to the rest of the members of the committee and establish how the act of defence will be performed. The president will also allocate the time available for the PhD student to present their thesis work, and the discussion time between the PhD student and the examining committee on aspects related to the dissertation that they deem appropriate.
       
    • Then, the president will give the floor to the PhD student for the presentation of the thesis.
       

  3. During the whole act, the members of the examining committee will have a chat available in order to communicate among themselves and the moderator.

  4. After the presentation from the PhD student, the president will take over to indicate the beginning of the round of questions to the PhD student, starting with the examining committee and, if applicable, by any doctoral degree holder present at the event. For this, attendees will be able to make use of the chat enabled in the session to request the president whenever they want to take the floor.

  5. At the end of the round of questions, the president will take the floor again to indicate that the members of the examining committee will be absent from this session for the deliberations on the assessment of the thesis. In addition, the president will establish and communicate to the attendees then, how long this will take.

  6. If, due to any unresolved technical problems which are longer than 30 minutes and, as a result, the act of defence cannot be carried out or completed successfully, the president will close the act, which will be invalidated and will be held a second time, at the same time, two working days later.
     

b. Deliberation session on the doctoral thesis

  1. After the defence, the thesis will be deliberated and graded in a second virtual session held at the same time for the deliberation of the examining committee. This session will be different from the first one and will not be attended by the moderator of the application, only by the members of the committee. The URL of this second virtual session will be sent by the moderator to the members of the examining committee by e-mail during the presentation of the defence by the PhD student.

  2. During the deliberation session, the members of the examining committee will be disconnected from the defence session, which will remain open meanwhile but no interaction is allowed between those who still remain connected in it.

  3. Once the deliberation is over, the corresponding sections of the Act of defence of the thesis will be filled in. Its content referring to the assessment of the thesis and its defence will have to be drawn up by the secretary after the deliberation session by the members of the examining committee. The text will be the subject of oral consensus or, where appropriate, sent by e-mail in editable text format to the members of the committee for possible correction and final approval.

  4. After the qualification has been awarded, the president will end the deliberation and indicate to the moderator by e-mail to close the deliberation session. The members of the examining committee will return to the virtual session of the act of defence.

  5. In the event that a thesis obtains the qualification of outstanding, the secretary of the examining committee will explain how to proceed for the secret voting for the Cum Laude Mention and the Extraordinary PhD Award through the form enabled for this purpose by the USC.
     

c. Activation of the first session

After the deliberation by the examining committe, the president will communicate the qualification obtained publically in the session for the act of defence and will consider the act as finished. The moderator will then close the session.
 

d. Defence minutes and secret assessment for the cum laude and Extraordinary PhD Award

The documentation for the defence will consist of:

  1. A single minutes that will reflect:

    • (At the beginning of the session) The composition of the examining committee, with explicit indication of the members and their positions, the day, time and the technical means by which the thesis defence will be carried out.
       
    • (In the deliberation session) the development of the act of defence, the interventions, if any, from the members of the committee, time of deliberation, assessment report and qualification granted by consensus. In addition, explicit mention is made if the PhD student chooses
       
      • International mention
         
      • Industrial mention
         
      • Cotutelle thesis
         

    And, where applicable, state that the requirements for such mentions have been met.

  2. URL address and access credentials to the form enabled for the secret assessment for the Cum Laude Mention and the assessment for the Extraordinary PhD Award in the case of theses with an overall qualification of outstanding performance.

    In this case, the secretary of the examining committee will explain how to proceed to the secret voting for the Cum Laude Mention and the Extraordinary PhD Award through the form enabled for this purpose by the USC:

    • To hold the secret voting for the Cum Laude Mention and assessment for the Extraordinary PhD Award, in order to guarantee anonymity, the USC will activate a form for the specific date and time of defence through Microsoft Forms on nube.usc.gal.
       
    • The results of this voting and assessment must be received  within 24 hours by the Academic Management Service (SXA), who will communicate the result of the award Cum Laude Mention to the PhD student and the secretary of the examining committee by electronic means.
       
    • The vote counting minutes for the Cum Laude Mention and the assessment for the Extraordinary PhD Award will be electronically signed by the official appointed by the USC who will attest the result.

Once all the data and documentation of the act of defence of the thesis has been received, the PhD student will be able to pay the fees for the submission of the doctoral degree.

You have at your disposal:

  1. Training designed from the TIC area in the official YouTube channel of the University, where you can find tutorials on the use of the different tools that will be used in teaching. The use of the Virtual Campus as well as the one in Microsoft Teams.

  2. Microsoft official tutorials

  3. Guide aimed at members of the examining committee

  4. Guide for the moderator of the theses that are carried out virtually.