Evaluation

When and how is the adjudication committee appointed?

• You submit your thesis.

• The department sends you a letter confirming that you have submitted the thesis.
• The department sends a proposal for an adjudication committee to the faculty, with a copy to you.
• You have a one-week deadline to submit any remarks regarding the committee.
• The department's proposal is approved by the Dean, before the faculty sends an appointment letter to the committee members, with a copy to you.
• The committee is normally appointed within 4 weeks of approval of the application for assessment.

How long does the assessment take?

The recommendation of the adjudication committee will normally be submitted within ten weeks of the committee having received the thesis.

The assessment can take longer during holiday periods. The deadline for the recommendation is stipulated in the committee's appointment letter.

The faculty will notify you if the committee's deadline is extended. If you have not received any news 11 weeks after the appointment of the committee, you can contact the department and ask whether the work is nearing completion. The committee must not be contacted directly.

Unanimous positive recommendation

If the recommendation of the adjudication committee is unanimously positive, the faculty will inform you of this after the Dean has approved the recommendation.

A few days after you receive this information, you will receive a copy of the recommendation by post, together with a letter that states the time and date of the trial lecture and public defence.

The letter will also notify you of the date and time at which you will be informed of the topic of the trial lecture. You will also be given information about the date of the conferral ceremony to which you will be invited.

The letter will also state the deadlines for submission of the following to the faculty:

• thesis to the printer
• errata list, if applicable
• presentation of your thesis to be published on the disputation website
• personal details form (odt)
• photograph (as a jpg file)

Divided or negative recommendation

If the recommendation of the adjudication committee is divided or negative, it must first be approved by the Dean. It is then sent to you, together with a letter stating the date on which the matter will be reviewed by the Faculty board sub-committee (TUV - in Norwegian only). You must be prepared for the full process from then to take some time.

The letter from the faculty forwarding the recommendation will stipulate a deadline for submitting any remarks to the recommendation.

Your remarks will be sent to the adjudication committee, which will decide whether it wishes to respond to them or not.

Note that your remarks will not have the status of an appeal, as you cannot appeal a rejection until the case has been reviewed by the appointments committee.

The appointments committee will normally decide to reject a thesis if the negative recommendation is unanimous.

If the recommendation is divided, the appointments committee may either reject or approve the thesis for public defence. The Committee may also ask for more expert statements.

You will receive a letter with a copy of the appointments committee's decision, regardless of the outcome. This is the point at which you may appeal the decision.

The earliest point at which a thesis that has been rejected can be resubmitted in revised form is six months after the decision to reject the thesis (i.e. the date of the appointments committee meeting). You can only resubmit the thesis once.

The committee recommends revision

The adjudication committee may recommend that you be given the opportunity to revise the thesis within a 6-month deadline. The revised thesis will then be considered part of the initial submission.

The committee will not present a recommendation, but a preliminary statement addressed to you, giving specific proposals for amendments. The Dean will have powers to decide whether to permit the revision, and you will receive a letter containing the decision. You cannot appeal this decision.

If you submit a revised version of the thesis within the deadline, the original committee will present its final recommendation after assessing the revised thesis.

Responding to the committee's proposed changes and submitting a revised thesis by the deadline does not give automatic approval of the thesis.

The deadline for submission will only be extended when there are very strong mitigating circumstances. It is normal for candidates to have other work in addition; this is not, therefore, an acceptable reason for an extension. The point is that you make as many amendments as possible within the deadline.

If you do not submit a revised version within the deadline, the thesis will not normally be approved for public defence.

The committee's preliminary statement will then be sent to the appointments committee for review, in the same way as when the recommendation of the adjudication committee is negative or divided. You will then have to wait for at least 6 months before you can resubmit for the last time.

The appeals process

You can appeal a decision regarding rejection of a thesis, trial lecture or public defence. A substantiated appeal must be sent to the faculty.

The faculty can rescind or change the decision if the appeal is found to be justified. At HF, decisions on appeals regarding rejection of a thesis are made by the Faculty board sub-committee (TUV).

If the faculty does not uphold the appeal, it will be submitted to UiO's appeals committee in order for it to make a final decision. The appeals committee may review all aspects of the decision appealed.