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General Information
A satisfactory final oral examination Dissertation Defense (AKA Final Oral Examination) is required for the approval of your dissertation. The nature and extent of the examination is described in chapter three of the the Graduate Catalog. Prior to the examination, you may want to consult with your supervising faculty regarding the format of the examination.
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EDP students use APA style for headings, references, and citations of their dissertations. Everything else will be according to the Graduate School template. For formatting assistance with your dissertation and Final Oral materials, you can contact Bob Penman at bpenman@austin.utexas.edu to schedule an appointment or to have your question answered by e-mail. Mr. Penman can help you with things like page numbering issues, table of contents generation, pdf conversion, and more.
Scheduling your Final Oral
When you have established a day and time for your final oral, schedule a room through EDP. Final orals cannot be held after noon on Fridays without prior approval of the EDP Department Chair. Final orals must be held on the UT-Austin campus during regular business hours. Exceptions must be approved by the Dean of Graduate Studies.
At least 4 committee members (including your dissertation supervisor) must participate in your Final Oral. Read carefully the Graduate School’s rules about committee member attendance at your final oral. The Graduate School no longer distinguishes between physical attendance or virtual/electronic attendance. However, if you are defending in person, EDP requires that you and your dissertation supervisor both be in the same room. If any of your committee members cannot attend your final oral either in person or remotely, put them on Page 2 of the Request for Final Oral form.
Important note regarding fully virtual defenses: as of Spring 2025, the Graduate School requires a room on campus be booked and available for in-person attendees for all dissertation defenses, even if fully virtual, to comply with the public attendance requirement for dissertation defenses. If your defense is planned to be fully virtual, please contact the EDP Graduate Coordinator regarding room reservation/technology.
Request for Final Oral Form
The "Request for Final Oral" form is the official, required notification to the Graduate School of your Final Oral plans. It must be turned in to the Graduate School at least two weeks prior to your final oral. There are two options for submission:
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Once the Graduate School is finished processing the Request for Final Oral Examination form, they then will e-mail a Report of Dissertation Committee form to both you and your dissertation supervisor (in the case of co-supervisors, it will be sent to the first one listed on the Request for Final Oral). The Report of Dissertation Committee is the form your committee will use to indicate to the Graduate School the results of your Final Oral. This form must be printed out and brought to your Final Oral for signatures.
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Your dissertation document must be given to your committee members at least 2 weeks before you ask them to sign the Request for Final Oral form (this would be approximately one month prior to your final oral). Any exceptions to this should be worked out with each committee member, as some members will not sign unless they have received the dissertation with ample time for review. Dissertation committee members should be asked if they prefer a hard copy or electronic copy of your dissertation. When delivering your dissertation to your committee members, ask that they review it as soon as possible and let your dissertation supervisor and you know if there are significant problems. The Request for Final Oral form and other required materials indicated on that form must be turned into the Graduate School at least 2 weeks prior to your final oral. Failure to do this will result in your needing to reschedule your final oral. |
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Final Oral
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When you have established a day and time for your final oral, schedule a room through EDP. Final orals cannot be held after noon on Fridays without prior approval of the EDP Department Chair. Final orals must be held on the UT-Austin campus during regular business hours. Exceptions must be approved by the Dean of Graduate Studies.
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Final Oral Results
Dissertation defense meetings generally go well (i.e., a unanimous vote to pass the student). Some revisions of the document are almost always requested. Be sure to leave time to complete these before the deadline to upload your dissertation and turn in all necessary paperwork to the Graduate School (3:00 p.m. the last day of class).
The committee may choose other options than Pass. These include the following: Reconsideration, Not Pass, and Fail. Reconsideration indicates that extensive revision is necessary, but the committee is willing to examine the rewritten dissertation without a second final oral defense meeting. Not Pass indicates that the committee is not satisfied with the dissertation but believes it could be made satisfactory with rewriting and another oral is scheduled. Fail indicates that at least one member of the committee has decided the dissertation is unsatisfactory and the candidate may not rewrite.
After the Final Oral
After your defense, the Report of Dissertation Committee Form must be signed by all committee members. Those committee members who are not physically present at your final oral must sign the form digitally. The Graduate School no longer allows proxy signatures on this form. All signatures must be on the same form. Once all signatures are obtained, the supervisor or student must then have the GSC Chair sign it and return it to you.
Students will hold on to their signed Report of Dissertation Committee Form - as well their corrected dissertation and any other required materials - until the semester they plan to graduate. Once they have applied to graduate, the final edited dissertation document must be uploaded through the Graduate School portal. Once the dissertation is uploaded, you will then email the Graduate School your Report of Dissertation Committee Form as well as any other required forms to gradstudentsvcs@austin.utexas.edu. (Students going on internship following the final oral will wait to upload the dissertation and turn in the required Graduate School materials until they have completed internship and are graduating.)
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