Support student success Support Dal

Dalhousie University - Inspiring Minds

Support Dal
 

Academic Calendars

10. Thesis Regulations

10.1 Ethical Review

All research undertaken at Dalhousie University must comply with current institutional policies regarding responsible conduct of research, academic integrity, human ethics, and animal ethics. The policies on human and animal ethics are accessible through the Office of Research Services Ethical Conduct webpage.

10.2 Preparation of Manuscript and Submission of Theses

Thesis manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with Faculty of Graduate Studies guidelines available on the website.

10.2.1 Preparation of Graduate Theses

All graduate theses, whether for Master’s or Doctoral degrees, must be completed according to the formal Faculty of Graduate Studies regulations for thesis preparation and submission (see Formatting Your Thesis and Submitting Your Thesis). Failure to do so may cause delays in completion and may even result in the cancellation of a scheduled defence or examination.

10.2.2 Thesis Originality and Editing

The thesis must represent a coherent body of original work by the student. It must display a scholarly approach and thorough knowledge of the subject.

Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable (see Academic Integrity website). Students suspected of plagiarising any materials will be subject to Senate disciplinary processes.

In some disciplines, it may be appropriate for the thesis to include published or submitted manuscripts, papers, or reports authored or co-authored by the student. Students who wish to pursue this option must have the prior consent of their supervisory committee and must obtain appropriate copyright permission.

It is expected that the student has made a substantial contribution to any such manuscripts. Where co-authored manuscript(s) are included in the thesis, the student’s contribution must be clearly indicated (see Forms and Documents for current students). The publication or acceptance of such manuscripts before the thesis defence in no way supersedes the examination committee’s evaluation of the work, including requesting revisions.

The thesis is the primary and permanent record of the student’s work. As such, it is important that it both be written by the student (with appropriate editorial advice as needed) and conforms to normal academic standards.

10.2.3 Submission Deadlines and Registration Requirements

Students must be registered for the term in which the defence will be held, as well as the term in which the approved electronic theses will be submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies. Students will not be permitted to proceed to defence or submit their approved thesis unless they are registered.

Deadlines for the submission of fully completed and approved theses (following examination and revision) are final in all cases in order to be eligible to graduate in May or October. Students who miss the deadline will be required to register for the following term and pay the applicable registration fees. This may result in a delay in graduation.

All thesis students must refer to the Academic Dates in this Calendar for submission deadlines and registration requirements.

10.3 Master’s Theses

Approved theses for the Master’s degree must be submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies by the published deadlines (see Academic Dates).

10.3.1 Master's Examination

Supervision and examination of Master’s theses varies among academic units. This diversity recognizes differences in the nature of theses within Master’s programs and differences in the culture of thesis examinations within different disciplines at the Master’s level. The Faculty of Graduate Studies requires the following minimum arrangements for the examination of Master’s theses.

10.3.2 Master’s Thesis Examining Committee

Each Master's thesis shall be evaluated by an examining committee, following the criteria given below:

  1. There shall be a chair, usually the graduate coordinator or designate, who is not a participating member of the supervisory committee. Their duty is to ensure that the exam is appropriate and fair and to submit a report as noted below. The chair is not an examiner.
  2. The table below summarizes these minimum requirements and the examiners' statuses with the Faculty of Graduate Studies.
  Single Supervisor Co-supervised
Chair (independent) 1 (grad. coordinator or designate with Regular or Adjunct (Retired) membership) 1 (grad. coordinator or designate with Regular or Adjunct (Retired) membership)
Minimum Examiners

1 supervisor with Regular or Adjunct (Retired) membership*

1 reader with Regular or Adjunct (Retired) membership*

1 reader with FGS membership*

1 co-supervisor with Regular or Adjunct (Retired) membership*

1 co-supervisor with FGS membership*

1 reader with Regular or Adjunct (Retired) membership*

1 reader with FGS membership*
Minimum Total  4 5

*See Section 1 and Section 9.1 for further clarification. At least 50% of the membership of a supervisory committee must be either Regular members or Adjunct (Retired) members.

  1. Voting: Only examiners with Faculty of Graduate Studies membership may vote in the outcome of an examination and sign the Master’s Thesis Approval Form.
  2. Defence format: Master's theses may be examined either through oral or written defence. Oral Defence: In the case of an oral defence, it shall be public and the student must participate in the examination. The student shall give a short presentation, followed by questions from the examining committee (one or more rounds) and an in camera deliberation by the committee. If time permits, questions from the audience may be allowed before the in camera session. The results of the exam will be communicated to the student. Written Defence: In the case of a written defence, the student will submit the thesis for examination. The candidate will respond to the comments, criticisms and recommendations of the examining committee through the exchange of written commentary.
  3. Outcomes: Theses are either approved or rejected. The categories are: (a) approved as submitted; (b) approved upon specific corrections with a clear timetable for completion, normally within one month; or (c) rejected. If rejected, the committee may recommend that the student be allowed to re-submit a revised thesis for re-examination.
  4. Reporting: The examination chair shall report the outcome of the defence to the chair and graduate coordinator of the academic unit. In the case of a rejection without the option to re-submit/re-examine, or if a student decides not to pursue the option to re-submit/re-examine, the graduate coordinator must assign a final grade of F for the thesis course and notify the Faculty of Graduate Studies. If a student receives a final grade of F for the thesis, the student will be dismissed from their program.
  5. Electronic Submission: See Electronic Submission of Final Thesis (see Section 10.7).
  6. The Faculty of Graduate Studies regulations on the examination of Master's theses constitute minimum requirements.

10.4 Doctoral Theses

Doctoral theses must display original scholarly work, expressed in satisfactory literary form, consistent with the discipline concerned, and be of such value as to merit publication.

10.5 Regulations for the Defence of a Doctoral Thesis

All Doctoral theses must be examined in a public oral defence, to be conducted by an examining committee, recommended by the academic unit, and approved by the Faculty of Graduate Studies. A candidate shall not be permitted to proceed with the oral defence and examination until all of the following requirements have been met: (a) all required coursework completed successfully; (b) comprehensive examination passed; (c) examining committee established; (d) the style and format of the thesis meets the requirements of the University and appropriate copies of the thesis have been submitted as per regulations and deadlines in Section 10.6.1 below. A candidate proceeds to Doctoral thesis examination with the approval of the supervisor and supervisory committee. In exceptional circumstances, a candidate may proceed without the consent of the supervisor and supervisory committee, but a signed declaration included on the PhD Thesis Submission Form is required by the Faculty of Graduate Studies..

10.5.1 Doctoral Examination Procedures

  1. Appointment of External Examiner:
    On the Request to Arrange Oral Defence of a Doctoral Thesis Form, the head of the academic unit (or graduate coordinator, where appropriate) shall recommend to the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies the name of the proposed external examiner that was approved by the supervisory committee. Usually, the appointment of an external examiner occurs three months before the anticipated date of defence. The person suggested should be an acknowledged expert in the field or discipline of the research being examined in the thesis; must not have been directly involved in the student’s research in any way; must not have collaborated or published with the student or the supervisor within the last ten years; should possess a Doctoral degree or equivalent; and should have demonstrated experience of Doctoral supervision to degree completion and/or examination of PhD candidates. Evidence of these qualifications must be explicit in the CV submitted for the proposed external examiner. The choice of the external examiner must be approved by the Associate Dean of of Students. If the first-choice external examiner is unacceptable to the Faculty of Graduate Studies or if that person is unavailable, the Faculty of Graduate Studies will contact the academic unit and request information for an alternate external examiner. Once an external examiner has been appointed, the graduate coordinator may then confirm the availability of the external examiner and propose dates and times for the defence. Once a tentative date and time have been confirmed by the academic unit, the formal invitation to the external examiner is issued by the Faculty of Graduate Studies.
  2. Thesis Required for External Examiner Evaluation: At least six weeks prior to the scheduled defence, the candidate shall send a PDF copy of both the thesis and their current CV to the Faculty of Graduate Studies (thesis@dal.ca). The PhD Thesis Submission Form and PhD Examination Information Form with all signatures must be sent to the Faculty of Graduate Studies. The Faculty of Graduate Studies will send the thesis to the external examiner once the PhD Thesis Submission Form has been received and the tentative date and time of the defence has been determined. The candidate shall also send the abstract from their thesis for publication in a public notice of defence (the abstract must be submitted in Word compatible format to thesis@dal.ca). If the external examiner requests a hard copy of the thesis, the Faculty of Graduate Studies will send it via courier.
  3. Thesis Required for Committee and Academic Unit: The candidate will provide the thesis to the examining committee (excluding the external examiner).
  4. No arrangements will be made for the oral examination until all these requirements are fulfilled. The examination will be held no earlier than five weeks after submission of the thesis, thereby allowing adequate time for the thesis to be read by the external examiner.
  5. The Faculty of Graduate Studies will arrange the schedule and format for the examination.
  6. The Faculty of Graduate Studies will send a copy of the thesis to the external examiner at least five weeks before the examination with a request to submit the examiner’s report of the thesis no later than one week prior to the tentative defence date.
  7. The external examiner will submit a constructively critical and analytical report (the external examiner’s report) to the Faculty of Graduate Studies at least one week prior to the scheduled date of the defence. The examiner’s report must include a recommendation on whether the thesis should proceed to oral defence. Where the recommendation is not to proceed, the report should indicate what, if anything, would be required to make the thesis acceptable. Note that a decision to proceed to defence does not imply that the thesis is approved, only that it is acceptable for defence. The external examiner and the examining committee will have questions that must be answered to their satisfaction, and a thesis can be rejected as a result of the defence. The external examiner’s report must not be disclosed to the candidate or the supervisory committee prior to the defence. If participation by the external examiner is not possible, the defence should be rescheduled.
  8. If the external examiner does not recommend that the thesis proceeds to oral defence, the thesis is considered rejected. The candidate then has 12 months to submit a revised thesis for examination. The revised thesis may be sent to either the original external examiner or to a new external examiner, as deemed appropriate by the Faculty of Graduate Studies. A Doctoral thesis may be submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies for examination no more than twice. If the thesis is rejected a second time before the oral defence, the student will be dismissed from their program without the possibility of reinstatement.
  9. If the external examiner recommends that the thesis proceed to defence, notice of the public defence of the thesis will be published and sent to all relevant academic units by the Faculty of Graduate Studies. All interested faculty, students, and members of the public will be welcome to attend the defence.
  10. Variation of the regulations outlined above may be permitted only with the written permission of the Faculty of Graduate Studies.

PhD Examination Committee Minimum Composition:

  Single Supervisor Co-supervised
Chair (independent) 1 (appointed by FGS) 1 (appointed by FGS)
External Examiner 1 (external to Dalhousie, appointed by FGS) 1 (external to Dalhousie, appointed by FGS)
Minimum Examiners 1 supervisor with Regular or Adjunct (Retired) membership*

1 reader with Regular or Adjunct (Retired) membership*

1 reader with FGS membership*		 1 co-supervisor with Regular or Adjunct (Retired) membership*

1 co-supervisor with FGS membership*

1 reader with Regular or Adjunct (Retired) membership*

1 reader with FGS membership*
Academic Unit Representative 1 (Regular or Adjunct (Retired) membership) 1 (Regular or Adjunct (Retired) membership)
Minimum Total 6 7

*See Section 1 and Section 9.1 for further clarification. At least 50% of the membership of a supervisory committee must be either Regular Members or Adjunct (Retired) members.

Voting: Neither the chair nor the academic unit representative may vote on the outcome. The thesis cannot be approved without the agreement of the external examiner. Only the external examiner and examiners who hold Faculty of Graduate Studies membership may vote. They and the academic unit representative will sign the PhD Thesis Approval Form.

10.5.2 Oral Examination

The oral examination of a Doctoral thesis is the culmination of the candidate’s research program. It exposes the work to scholarly criticism and gives the candidate the opportunity to defend the thesis in public. The roles of the committee members are as follows:

  1. Chair of the Defence: The examination is chaired by a member of the panel of Faculty of Graduate Studies PhD defence chairs.
  2. Examining Committee: The examining committee consists of the research thesis supervisor or co-supervisors, at least two additional members, and the external examiner who shall be from outside the university. An academic unit representative (the head of the academic unit or a designate) is included as a non-voting and non-examining member of the committee.
  3. The academic unit representative attends the public and in camera sessions of the defence. The role of the academic unit representative is to ensure the academic unit expectations are adhered to and reports such to the defence chair.
  4. Order of Examination Proceedings: a) the chair of the defence opens the proceeding with a brief description of the protocol; b) the candidate is questioned on the thesis following a summary presentation no longer than 20 minutes; c) the chair will give priority to questions from the external examiner and then from the other members of the examining committee in some pre-arranged order; d) the audience will then be invited to ask questions if time permits; e) the chair adjourns the examination when the examining committee decides that further questioning is unnecessary, and the candidate and all members of the audience are required to leave the venue; f) the chair then presides over the examining committee during its deliberations in camera; g) following the in camera session, the candidate is invited back into the venue and is informed of the decision of the committee; h) the chair oversees the completion of the PhD Thesis Approval Form for examining members present at the hybrid/in-person defence while the  Faculty of Graduate studies will oversee the completion of the PhD Thesis Approval Form for those attending virtually (for virtual defences). The chair completes the defence report and returns it immediately to the Faculty of Graduate Studies.
  5. In camera Deliberations and Grading: The decision of the examining committee is based both on the thesis and on the candidate’s ability to defend it. The thesis is graded approved or rejected. A thesis can be a) accepted by the examining committee as submitted; b) accepted on condition that specific corrections with a clear timetable for completion are made, or; c) rejected. The thesis can be rejected on grounds of form as well as content. If specific corrections are required, the thesis will be returned to the candidate with a time limit for the completion of all corrections, typically no more than one month. Specific corrections required by the examining committee will usually be left to the satisfaction of the research thesis supervisor.
  6. Proceedings in the Case of Rejection: If the thesis is rejected, the committee can recommend that the student be encouraged to re-submit a revised thesis. The revised thesis will be re-read by an examining committee, at least two of whom were on the original committee. The thesis shall be submitted to an external examiner who may be the original external examiner if the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies considers this to be desirable. The candidate shall defend the thesis before an examining committee in the usual way. If the thesis is rejected again, there will be no third examination. Such a student will be academically dismissed without the possibility of reinstatement.
  7. Variation of the procedures stipulated above may be permitted only with the written permission of the Faculty of Graduate Studies.

Please note the thesis can only be rejected twice (i.e., by the external examiner before oral defence, by the examining committee after oral defence, or rejected by any combination of the external examiner and the examining committee) at which point a student will be academically dismissed without the possibility of reinstatement.

10.6 Electronic Submission of Final Approved Theses

It is the responsibility of the student to ensure that all submission requirements have been met. Failure to meet these requirements can result in delay in graduation.

All theses are submitted electronically to the Dalhousie Institutional Repository (DalSpace), where they are searchable and available online to the public.
 
All final approved theses must be submitted directly to the Faculty of Graduate Studies as PDF/A files via DalSpace. These files are termed “electronic theses” or “e-theses”. The procedures for e-theses approval and submission can be found on the Faculty of Graduate Studies website. It is the student’s responsibility to meet Faculty of Graduate Studies formatting requirements and to ensure that the thesis has been converted into a compatible PDF/A file. In addition to electronic submission of the thesis via DalSpace, the following required forms must be submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies. These include: Thesis Approval Form; Dalhousie Thesis Licence Agreement; and Student Contribution to Manuscripts Form (if applicable). Note that these forms are retained on file by the Faculty of Graduate Studies.
 
Within one week of submitting the e-thesis to the Dalhousie Institutional Repository (DalSpace), it is reviewed by the Faculty of Graduate Studies. If the submission is not approved (e.g., a formatting error is identified), it will be returned to the student for corrections.

Students must be registered for the term in which they submit their approved electronic thesis to the Faculty of Graduate Studies. The submission cannot be finalized for a student with a lapsed registration.  
 
Once the thesis submission is approved, it is committed to the institutional repository and harvested by Library and Archives Canada, which circulates copies according to the International Inter-Library Loan Code and with full copyright protection for the author. Similarly, e-theses are also stored by DalSpace, where they are searchable and available online to the public.

10.7 Thesis Embargo

When a thesis has been uploaded to DalSpace, it will usually be included in the institutional repository and the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) collection unless there is a compelling reason for not doing so. Students who wish to have their theses withheld from DalSpace and Library and Archives Canada may request an embargo for a one-year period by completing the Application to Embargo a Thesis Form found on the Faculty of Graduate Studies website under Forms and Documents/Theses and Defences. Applications to embargo a thesis must be submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies before the student's defence.

When the submission is approved, the student and supervisor will be notified in writing of the thesis embargo approval. This notification will include an expiration date for the embargo upon which the thesis will automatically be released. The Faculty of Graduate Studies does not send reminders regarding this date.

In certain cases, a one-year extension can be requested. Requests must be in writing to the Faculty of Graduate Studies (thesis@dal.ca) at least one month before the expiry of the initial one-year embargo. The request must include a detailed explanation of the reason for the additional one-year hold.