- Please make sure you are in contact with the PhD administration regarding your digital defence. When doing so you must also decide if you need to use an office at UiO during your defence, or if you can conduct the defence from home or an office elsewhere.
- Prior to your defence you should familiarise yourself with Zoom as a tool, if you have not already done so. Make sure that your microphone and video works well, and that you have access to a stable Internet connection.
- If you need to use a blackboard during your defence, we recommend using a tablet/iPad with a pen as a virtual board, and share that screen during the Zoom session. You may be able borrow a tablet/iPad from the University, if needed. Contact your unit to see if this is possible for you.
- Together with the PhD coordinator at your department and the PhD coordinators at your faculty, find a suitable date and time when you and your opponents are available. The coordinators will then assign a chair of the defence and a technician to facilitate your defence.
- The digital defence will be conducted as a Zoom webinar, which is slightly different from a regular Zoom meeting. Read more about the differences here.
- For the actual defence you must join the webinar using your personal link sent to you by the technician, no later than 30 minutes before the defence will start.
- The technician will be the host of the Zoom defence webinar, but you will be a panelist, which means you should control your own microphone and must mute/unmute yourself. During the defence, remember to share your screen to show slides or other digital material. The technician will be silent during most of the defence, and is not there to take over responsibilities of the other participants, but to ensure that the technical aspect of the defence is managed properly.
- Two days before the defence, you will have a practice defence in Zoom with a technician and the chair of your defence. If possible, the opponents will also take part in the practice session. You should use the same equipment (camera, microphone) and location (office) for this test meeting as you will do during the defence.
- You must either record your trial lecture prior to the defence, or set up a time for a live video conference with your opponents and the chair of the defence, so that the trial lecture can be evaluated by the opponents in advance. More information about digital trial lectures.
- During the defence we recommend that you shut down all other programs on your laptop, so that the only things running are Zoom, a digital copy of your thesis and your presentation of your work.
- Anyone who wishes to attend your defence can do so by connecting to the Zoom session using the Zoom meeting ID, and get access to your thesis. Both will be available on the defence announcement site.
- When either the first or the second opponent is satisfied, the chair of the defence will invite everyone in the audience to serve as an opponent ex auditorio.
- When all questions are answered, the committee, the chair of the defence and the technician will need to leave the webinar to discuss your work in a private Zoom meeting. You will be made co-host prior to this. Do not leave zoom. Once the committee has agreed, they will return to the webinar and announce their decision.
- When the formal disputation is over, attendees in the audience can be promoted to panelists, so that you may celebrate digitally afterwards if you want.
- If technical issues occur that simply cannot be resolved right away, the chair of the defence will pause the defence until the issues can be solved. If it still cannot be solved, the defence may need to be called off and rescheduled.
- If you have any questions regarding your defence, please contact your faculty administration.
The responsibilities of the candidate during a completely digital defence
Important information and preparations for the ph.d. candidate.
Published Sep. 7, 2020 4:58 PM
- Last modified Jan. 5, 2022 8:21 AM