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General Information

A satisfactory 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 Graduate Catalog. Prior to the examination, you may want to consult with your supervising faculty regarding the format of the examination.

Be sure to review the Graduate School's information about Final Orals. 

Working with your Dissertation Supervisor

You should work closely with your dissertation supervisor throughout the dissertation process. You and your supervisor will work together to determine when you are ready to schedule the final oral defense meeting - revisions suggested by the supervisor reduce the probability of serious and substantive issues being raised by your committee members during the final oral defense meeting.

Discuss with your supervisor expectations for your conduct at the final oral defense meeting. In general, students give a brief (10-15 min.) summary of their dissertation, including hypotheses and key findings. Visuals and/or handouts may be used, but these are not considered necessary. Keep your opening statement brief, because the purpose of the final oral defense meeting is for the committee members to ask you questions and to provide you with their views of your work.

Updating your Program of Work

During the semester that you will be holding your Final Oral, be sure to update your Program of Work in UTBox. You will email the GSC Chair to inform them that you have done so, so that they have adequate time to conduct a final Program of Work check. This step is necessary for the GSC Chair to certify you have completed degree requirements after your final oral. 

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. 

Your dissertation document must be given to your committee members at least 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 so they can let you and your dissertation supervisor know if there are significant problems.

Request for Final Oral Form

The Request for Final Oral (RFO) form is the official notification required by 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. 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 at least 3 weeks before your schedule exam date. There are two options for gathering the signatures for your form:

  1. Digitally via Docusign -

    Request for Final Oral Exam Form Submission via DocuSign

    Before beginning the submission process, inform your committee members and the EDP Graduate Advisor 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 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 Advisor 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. Submit the Request For Final Oral Exam pdf to the Graduate School at gradstudentsvcs@austin.utexas.edu.

    OR
     

  2. In-person / hardcopy - for this option, you can download the form from the Graduate School and print; obtain signatures (all on the same form), and email it to the Graduate School at gradstudentsvcs@austin.utexas.edu. In Educational Psychology, the dissertation supervisor may also sign their own name in the place of members who cannot sign and have given written approval for the supervisor to sign instead.

Once the Graduate School is finished processing the Request for Final Oral Examination form, they then will email 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.

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. 

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 final 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. 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. 

For CP and SCCP students enrolling in only Internship in the semester(s) following successful dissertation defense, students should contact the Graduate Coordinator to request a petition to the Graduate School to waive the dissertation enrollment requirement for the subsequent semesters.

Students should be careful to ensure their dissertations are ready to upload and that all materials are in the Graduate School office before the deadline. Failure to have everything turned in by the deadline means a student will have to register for dissertation hours again the following semester, and may also be subject to fees for past semesters of waived dissertation hours.