In Finland at the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture the supervisor (most often an external reader) gives his/her comments first. After that, two pre-examiners are nominated. Most often the two examiners come from outside of our School. Neither can be involved in the research nor have co-authored publications or worked closely together with the doctoral candidate. Examiners must have a PhD but if the work includes artistic or design productions a third one may be nominated on the basis of artistic merits (this is often a person who has evaluated the original artistic works e.g. exhibitions published before the written manuscript is ready).
The pre-examiners may ask for revisions or reject the work. When they give permission to proceed, the manuscript is published as a book and a public defence is arranged with one or two opponents. The opponent must come from outside of the School and have a doctoral degree. During the public defence (often with a large audience) the candidate and the opponent discuss the dissertation, normally for two hours but it may even take four hours.
We have had around 100 dissertations examined so far, 45 % of them are written in English. Around 25-35 % of the examiners/opponents came from abroad, and 75-65 % from another Finnish university. Only in a very few cases we have "hired our own", as Derek Miller put it, and if we have done so there has been special reasons.
Best
Pia
Pia Sivenius
Research Coordinator
Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture
PO Box 31000, FI-00076 Aalto, Finland
Mobile +358 50 548 2974
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-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Birger Sevaldson
Sent: 28. marraskuuta 2012 10:57
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: SV: External Examination of US PhDs
Ok Derek, thanks for the clarification, We try to be international as well as local; at our institute i think roughly one third is from abroad and 70% from other institutions. We only try to hiring back people when there are good reasons.
But its always a challenge as well as an opportunity to be in the periphery.
Best
Birger Sevaldson (PhD, MNIL)
Professor at Institute of Design
Oslo School of Architecture and Design
Norway
www.birger-sevaldson.no
www.systemsorienteddesign.net
www.ocean-designresearch.net
________________________________________
Fra: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [[log in to unmask]] på vegne av Derek B. Miller [[log in to unmask]]
Sendt: 28. november 2012 09:27
Til: [log in to unmask]
Emne: Re: External Examination of US PhDs
In reference to Birger's note, I was not commenting on the examination process (in the quoted line), but rather referring to the tendency of universities to hire back their recently-graduated Ph.Ds.
In one way, this is quite understandable for small countries with languages only spoken there (i.e. Norway, Sweden, Slovenia, Finland, Israel, etc.). However, this creates problems as well as it tends to reify certain ideas within the research community at the school, leading to a "school of thought" in the pejorative sense. That's what I meant by "hire their own."
In the sorts of countries I mentioned, there is no easy fix. But clearly, it puts an added impetus to ensure that the education and review processes are well-informed by cooperative relations with other universities.
_________________
Derek B. Miller
Boston and Oslo
Int'l phone: +1 617 440 4409
email: [log in to unmask]
On Nov 28, 2012, at 8:33 AM, Birger Sevaldson wrote:
> Derek wrote: "in Europe, it is FAR more common for schools to "hire their own""
>
> In Norway the University Law prescribes a committee with two external examiners and one internal acting in an admin role though this one also needs to have a PhD. The committee must be aprooved by the research board of the school and the examiners can't be involved in the research and can't be too close to the candidate. In addition at our place (The Oslo School of Architecture and Design) we need to have an external reader before the examiner committee starts its work. This reader needs also to be aprooved by the research board. The recommondations of the reader are crucial and the committe for the dissertation is only appointed by the research committee after the candidate has responded to the readers comments. The committee first decides if the candidate is allowed to go forward to a defence of the thesis or if more work is needed. The latter decission happend quite often.
> The final defence is public and is often jam packed. The defence is devided into three parts, a trial lecture on a given theme that is given by the committee three weeks before the defence, a short presentation of the thesis and the defence discussion that can go on for hours. The whole thing lasts a whole day.
>
> In scandinavia the systems vary but i think all countries do have external examiners and public defenses and i know Finland practices also a reader system but here the reader decides if the thesis is good to go for the defence.
>
>
> Birger Sevaldson (PhD, MNIL)
> Professor at Institute of Design
> Oslo School of Architecture and Design Norway www.birger-sevaldson.no
> www.systemsorienteddesign.net www.ocean-designresearch.net
> ________________________________________
> Fra: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and
> related research in Design [[log in to unmask]] på vegne
> av CAMERON TONKINWISE [[log in to unmask]]
> Sendt: 27. november 2012 18:49
> Til: [log in to unmask]
> Emne: Re: External Examination of US PhDs
>
> Thanks for the feedback so far.
>
> For clarification, I understand that most US PhDs allow if not
> encourage externals on the Advisory Committee. I am specifically
> interested in situations in design and related areas where the final
> assessment of the dissertation requires someone to read and evaluate
> the disser- ration who has not encountered the research or the
> researcher throughout the process of the production of the research -
> so an external final examiner rather than an external advisor from the
> beginning.
>
> Cameron
>
>
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