A satisfactory 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. Together with your supervisor, you will determine when you are ready to schedule the final oral defense meeting. You should follow your supervisor’s advice regarding your readiness for this final step in the process. Usually, when students are anxious to finish and the supervisor is requesting further revisions, it is for a good reason. Revisions requested by the supervisor reduce the probability of serious and substantive issues being raised by your committee members during the final oral defense meeting. In short, you are more likely to pass your final oral defense meeting if you follow the advice of your supervisor.
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. Sometimes overheads 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.
General Notes
During the semester that you will be holding your Final Oral, be sure and update your program of work and upload it to UTBox. You will then email the GSC Chair (currently, Toni Falbo) to inform her that you have done so, so that she has 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.
EDP students use APA style for headings, references, and citations of their dissertations. Everything else will be according to the Graduate School template. If you need formatting assistance with your dissertation and Final Oral materials, you can contact Bob Penman at bpenman@austin.utexas.edu to schedule an appointment or to have your question answered by e-mail. Mr. Penman can help you with things like page numbering issues, table of contents generation, pdf conversion, and more.
Request for Final Oral Form
The "Request for Final Oral" form, aka the "Pink Form", must be turned in to the Graduate School at least two weeks prior to your final oral, and can be downloaded from the Graduate School website. Download the form, fill in the information needed, and print on pink paper. Official names and titles for committee members can be found in the UT Directory.
The Graduate School now accepts scanned/electronic signatures on this form. Note: all signatures must be made on the same form. In Educational Psychology, the dissertation supervisor may also sign his/her own name in the place of members who cannot sign and have given written approval for the supervisor to sign instead.
After you have all the committee member signatures on your Request for Final Oral form, bring the form to the EDP Graduate Coordinator in the EDP Administrative Office, who will check over the information, obtain the signature of the Graduate Adviser, and make a copy for our office. You will then take the form, along with the other materials indicated at the top of the form, to the Graduate School for processing.
NOTE: The Request for Final Oral form and other required materials indicated on that form must be turned into the Graduate School in person. Failure to do this will result in your needing to reschedule your final oral! If you are not living in Austin, you will need to have a friend walk your paperwork around for signatures, and then to take it and other required materials to the Graduate School.
Once the Graduate School is finished processing the Request for Final Oral Examination form, they then will e-mail a "Gold Form" to both you and your dissertation supervisor (in the case of co-supervisors, it will be sent to the first one listed on the Request for Final Oral). This form must be printed out on gold-colored paper and brought to your Final Oral for signatures.
Request for Final Oral - Sample Form.pdf
Scheduling your Final Oral
When you have established a day and time for your final oral, schedule a room through EDP Rooms. 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, 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.
Final Oral Results
Dissertation defense meetings generally go well (i.e., a unanimous vote to pass the student). Some revisions of the document are almost always requested. Be sure to leave time to complete these before the deadline to upload your dissertation and turn in all necessary paperwork to the Graduate School (3:00 p.m. the last day of class).
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 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 Gold Form must be signed by all committee members. Those committee members who are not physically present at your final oral must sign the form digitally. The Graduate School no longer allows proxy signatures on the Gold form. All signatures must be on the same form. Once all signatures are obtained, the supervisor or student must return the Gold form to the EDP Graduate Coordinator, who will then have the GSC Chair sign it, and will send it to the Graduate School for you.
The white signature sheet must also be signed by all dissertation committee members, and you will turn that in to the Graduate School (Main Building, Room 1), with other required materials, after you upload your dissertation for graduation (see Graduation information). No proxy signatures are allowed on the white signature form. Digital signatures are accepted from all dissertation members with the exception of the dissertation supervisor, who must provide an ink signature.
Successfully defending a dissertation includes obtaining all signatures on the white signature sheet and the Gold Form, and turning in to the Graduate School to verify completion of degree requirements (except internship). The Graduate Adviser will follow-up with the Graduate School by email each semester/summer to ensure the requirement for future dissertation registrations are waived.
Students will hold on to their corrected dissertation and other materials, to be uploaded and submitted by the last class day the summer they graduate.
Note: Students’ last semester of dissertation registration is the one in which they successfully defend their dissertation.
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 for the following fall semester, and is subject to fees for past semesters of waived dissertation hours.