IMCEERES Digital Programme Guide
Thesis Review & Oral Defence
The CEERES programme has an agreed defence procedure.
Thesis Review
Three reviewers are assigned to each thesis: one from the third mobility university and one each from the University of Glasgow and the University of Tartu. Reviewers have 2–3 weeks to write their review of the thesis (feedback comments) and assign a grade. If one of the thesis supervisors comes from Glasgow, then they will also serve as a reviewer (in accordance with Glasgow’s regulations). If one of the thesis supervisors comes from Tartu, the reviewer from Tartu has to be a different person (in accordance with Tartu’s regulations). The third mobility reviewer will be assigned according to the regulations of the third mobility university. All reviewers upload comments to the MS Teams shared drive.
The Glasgow administrator will combine the reviewers’ comments, without grades, and send the reviews to the students no later than 24 hours before the defence. Some partners are required to inform students of the grades awarded by the reviewers several days before the defence, however these results are only preliminary and will be confirmed after the oral defence.
Defence Committee
The MA thesis defence committee will be comprised of representatives from the third mobility partner and one representative each from the University of Tartu and the University of Glasgow. The defence will take place at the third mobility university; Glasgow and Tartu representatives will either come in person or participate virtually. The programme managers at the University of Tartu and University of Glasgow usually represent Tartu and Glasgow at the defence. If they are not able to attend, they can appoint amother member of staff from the university with suitable academic expertise. The oral defence takes place approximately one month after thesis submission and the final date will be arranged by the third mobility partner.
Oral Defence (30 mins)
All defences will include the following elements:
The aim of the presentation is not to simply summarise the thesis. You should assume that the defence committee have all read your work, so there is no need to repeat verbatim what you wrote in the thesis. Instead, you are recommended to use the time to reflect on some of the bigger conclusions and implications of your work and/or what you learnt from the process of researching and writing on your topic. How does the research feed into theoretical debates? What important empirical knowledge has the research uncovered? How has the thesis used innovative methods or approaches that offer academic value? How has the research generated new knowledge and understanding of the topic?
You can also use the opportunity to address any criticisms or weaknesses of the thesis pointed out by the reviewers in their reports. For example, if the reviewers felt that it was unclear in your thesis how the theoretical framework was applied to the empirical analysis, you could clarify this during your presentation.
You can use slides to help structure your talk if you like, but these should be kept to a minimum and should only contain key words, images, or diagrams. Reading large amounts of text from the slides is not allowed. Make sure that you practice timing your presentation in advance as the time limit is strict and you will be stopped after 7 mins.
Here is a downloadable summary of the oral defence procedure.
After the Defence
After the defence, the coordinator of the third mobility university uploads the filled marking form, including the preliminary grade, to the consortium Shared folders by the end of next working day at the latest. The results will be confirmed by the consortium Joint Board of Examiners (convening by the end of October or late May/early June). Furthermore, the Joint Board of Examiners confirms all student study results and the overall programme grade that will appear on the joint diploma.
