The regulations in this section cover the reports completed by examiners and independent chairs for examinations of postgraduate research (PGR) students, including guidance from examiners on corrections.
21.1. Before the oral examination, examiners must:
21.1.1. Undertake an initial assessment of the student’s work, including a consideration of the relevant award criteria and, if present, a Covid-19 statement.
21.1.2. Complete individual preliminary reports in English summarising their initial assessment and noting areas to explore in the oral examination.
21.1.3. Exchange their preliminary reports with the other examiner/s.
21.1.4. Prepare for the oral examination with the other examiner/s and use the preliminary reports to formulate questions for the student.
21.2. If an independent chair is appointed, they must receive the preliminary reports and must oversee the examiners’ preparations for the oral examination.
21.3. If at any point up during the exmaination process, the examiners suspect academic misconduct (for example, the falsification of data), the internal examiner, or independent chair if appointed, must stop the examination. The internal examiner or independent chair must inform the student that the process has been stopeed becuase of suspected academic misconduct. The examiners must then follow the policy on academic misconduct for PGR examinations and awards.
21.4. After the oral examination, the examiners must make a recommendation with a supporting rationale on a joint final report based on:
21.4.1. an assessment of the dissertation (or submission for a doctoral degree by published work), and
21.4.2. on the student’s performance in the oral examination.
21.5. If after exhausting all efforts to reach a joint recommendation, the examiners do not agree, they can make individual recommendations on separate final reports.
21.6. An independent chair, if appointed, must oversee the deliberations of the examiners in reaching their recommendation. In the case of disagreement between the examiners, the chair is confined to advising the examiners on their options and on enabling them to reach a decision.
21.7. Examiners must not discuss their recommendation with the supervisors during any part of the examination process.
21.8. Examiners must decide on a recommendation from the permitted options.
The student has met the criteria for the award of the relevant degree.
The student has met the criteria for the award of the relevant degree, but minor errors must be corrected.
The student will be given 28 days from the formal notification of the outcome to submit their corrections.
The student has not met the criteria for the award of the relevant degree, as errors or omissions of substance must be corrected.
The student will normally be given six months from the formal notification of the outcome to submit their corrections.
The student has not met the criteria for the award of the relevant degree, as the work requires significant revision and a resubmission.
The student will normally be given twelve months from the formal notification of the outcome to resubmit.
The student has not met the criteria for the doctoral award and has no prospect of reaching doctoral standard in any permitted timeframe, but they have met the criteria for the relevant research master’s degree.
The student has not met the criteria for the doctoral award and has no prospect of reaching doctoral standard in any permitted timeframe. They have instead met the criteria for the relevant research master’s degree, but minor errors must be corrected.
The student will be given 28 days from the formal notification of the outcome to submit their corrections.
The student has not met the criteria for the doctoral award and has no prospect of reaching doctoral standard in any permitted timeframe. They do however have the potential to meet the criteria for the relevant research master’s degree following a resubmission.
The student will normally be given twelve months from the formal notification of the outcome to resubmit.
The student has not met the criteria for the award of the relevant degree and has no prospect of reaching the relevant standard in any permitted timeframe. For doctoral students, there is also no prospect of the student reaching the standard for a research master’s degree.
21.9. Resubmission is only permitted once. For second examinations, examiners cannot recommend a further resubmission (recommendations D and G).
21.10. For doctoral degrees by published work, examiners can make any recommendation. Where corrections or a resubmission is required, examiners can only specify changes to the commentary and not the publications. Examiners can also require the removal of individual publications.
21.11. If the examiners recommend minor errors, this can only cover:
21.11.1. Typographical errors.
21.11.2. Minor amendments, replacements and/or additions to the text, references, or diagrams.
21.11.3. Other more extensive corrections if they do not require a major reworking or reinterpretation of the intellectual content of the dissertation.
21.12. If the required corrections are more substantial, the examiners cannot recommend minor errors.
21.13. If there are numerous instances of errors that are individually minor but when taken together form a significant undertaking, examiners can recommend errors or omissions of substance instead, as this provides a longer period.
21.14. Where a doctoral student has not met the criteria for a doctoral award, the examiners must not automatically recommend a research master’s award as a default. A research master’s award is only appropriate if the student has met the criteria for this award.
21.15. The relevant research master’s degree for recommendations E, F and G for each faculty is as follows:
21.15.1. Master of Philosophy (MPhil): for Arts and for Social Sciences and Law.
21.15.2. Master of Science by Research (MScR): for Engineering, Health Sciences, Life Sciences, and Science.
21.16. If the examiners require corrections or a resubmission, they must produce written guidance for the student.
21.17. The combined guidance from examiners must:
21.17.1. Provide combined guidance from all examiners that specifies the parts of the work where improvement is required.
21.17.2. Avoid individual lists from each examiner as this can risk inconsistencies and duplication. Where there are typographical and other minor errors annotated on the dissertation, this can be from one examiner.
21.17.3. Avoid language that suggests the improvements are optional, such as ‘the student might wish to consider’.
21.17.4. Provide sufficient detail so that the student is given appropriate direction, while allowing the student to use their initiative. Guidance on minor errors will necessarily be narrower in focus.
21.17.5. Define the limit of the changes required, which must be achievable within the time permitted for the recommended outcome.
21.17.6. Avoid directing the student to undertake further work beyond the requirements for the award. Publications, for example, do not form part of the award criteria and so cannot be required.
21.18. For typographical and other minor errors, this can be returned to the student as annotation on the dissertation. It is acknowledged that annotation on the dissertation will not necessarily be provided jointly from all examiners.
21.19. The internal examiner (or independent chair if there are only external examiners) must send the guidance on corrections or a resubmission directly to the student as soon as possible after the oral examination. The guidance, except fo rany annotation added to the dissertation, must also be included in the joint final report.
21.20. Students can work on their corrections or on a resubmission when they receive the examiners’ guidance on the understanding that the Research Degrees Examination Board can require enhanced guidance from the examiners and/or can change the outcome of the examination.
21.21. Examiners must make a recommendation, provide a supporting rationale, and include guidance on any required corrections or a resubmission on a joint final report, which must be written in English.
21.22. If the recommendation and rationale differ significantly from the preliminary reports, the examiners must explain why in the joint final report.
21.23. If the examiners do not agree on a recommendation, they can complete and submit separate final reports. Separate reports should only be used after all efforts to reach a joint recommendation have failed.
21.24. Examiners can also comment on the examination process in confidence directly to the Research Degrees Examination Board (via pgr-exams@bristol.ac.uk) if they have any observations that cannot be included in their report.
21.25. The independent chair, if appointed, must complete a report to confirm that the examination was conducted in accordance with the regulations.
21.26. The internal examiner (or independent chair if there are only external examiners) must submit the examiners’ preliminary reports, the joint final report, and the report from the independent chair (if appointed) to the School PGR Director.
21.27. The School PGR Director must review the reports, sign the joint final report, and arrange for the reports to be sent to the Academic Quality and Policy Office (pgr-exams@bristol.ac.uk) within 14 days of the oral examination.
21.28. If the School PGR Director has a close link to the student (for example, if they are the student’s supervisor, examiner, or independent chair), they must nominate another senior academic in the school to review the reports. The School PGR Director or the Head of School can also appoint a nominee if the School PGR Director will be unavailable for a period.
21.29. Once received by the Academic Quality and Policy Office, examination reports are usually considered at the next scheduled meeting of the Research Degrees Examination Board.
21.30. Examination reports are confidential and must not be shared with the student or their supervisors until they have been considered by the Research Degrees Examination Board.
