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  • Final Orals must be held on campus and during regular business hours
  • They cannot be scheduled after noon on Fridays without prior Department Chair approval.
  • At least 4 committee members, including your supervisor, must be present
  • In-person attendance is not required, but if you are defending in person, you and your supervisor must be in the same room
  • If any member cannot attend (in person or remotely), list them on Page 2 of the Final Oral Request Form. 

Request for Final Oral Form (RFO)

The Request for Final Oral (RFO) form is the official notification required by the Graduate School's official notice of your Final Oral plans. It defense and must be turned in to the Graduate School submitted at least two 2 weeks prior to your final oral. Failure to do so results in required rescheduling of the Final Oral. Signatures can take a while to gather, so you should start the RFO form before your planned defense date. Start early (at least 3 weeks before your schedule exam date. Be defense) to allow time for gathering signatures. Make sure to send your Dissertation document dissertation to your committee before submitting the Request for Final Oral Form. There are two options for gathering the signatures for your form:

Digitally via Docusign -

form. The completed form must be emailed to the Graduate School, at GradStudentSVCS@austin.utexas.edu 

There are two ways to collect signatures for your RFO:


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  • Instructions

    • Request for Final Oral Exam Form Submission via DocuSign

      Before beginning the submission process, inform your committee members that you will be sending the Request for Final Oral Examination Form to them via DocuSign.

      Required Information for Request for Final Oral form

      • The names and email addresses of your Supervisor, Co-Supervisor or Member 2, Member 3, Member 4, and EDP Graduate Adviser are required. Members 5-7 are optional.
      • Planned date, time, and location (building and room number) of your Final Oral exam.
      • You will also need to indicate on the form if IRB approval is required and, if so, enter the IRB study number.

      Submit the Request for Final Oral via Docusign

      NOTE: Do not begin the process until you have all the required information listed above. If you start the form without finishing it, it will create abandoned documents in the DocuSign system. Abandoned forms cannot be accessed again and you will have to start over.

      DocuSign Request for Final Oral Examination Link: http://links.utexas.edu/bkbpwfs

      Tracking Form Progress

      Once submitted, DocuSign will automatically send the form to all committee members for their eSignature. The Graduate Adviser will be the last one to sign.

      DocuSign will send you an email with a Document Review link. Save this email and use the link to monitor the progress of your form signatures.

      Submit the Form to the Graduate School

      You will receive a final email from DocuSign when all signers have completed the signing process. Click “View Completed Document” link in that email. When the document opens on the DocuSign website, click the “Download” button at the top of the document. Select the “Combined PDF” option and save the document to your computer. A combined document includes the form and the certificate of completion. The certificate provides a full audit trail of your DocuSign transaction. Send the Request For Final Oral Exam pdf to the Graduate School at gradstudentsvcs@austin.utexas.edu.

OR
 

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  • . If needed, your supervisor may

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  • sign on behalf of an absent member (with written approval from the member).

After your RFO is processed, the Graduate School will send you a Report of Dissertation Committee (RODC) form to both you and your dissertation supervisor. The RODC is the form your committee will use to indicate the results of your Final Oral. You can either print out the form to bring to your defense, or can distribute the form to your committee via Docusign.. This form is used to report your defense results and will need to be signed by all committee members after your exam.


  1. Digitally via Docusign -


Final Oral Results

Dissertation defense meetings generally go well! Some revisions of the document are almost always requested. Be sure to leave time to complete any requested revisions before the graduation deadline to upload the dissertation to the Graduate School. 

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