Milestone 8: Final Oral Examination

Doctoral students must successfully defend their dissertation in a Final Oral Examination and for those entering the program after 2013 must graduate within eight calendar years after enrollment in the PhD program . The following are required prior to the Final Oral Examination:

• All course work on the official GPAS completed

• Preliminary written and preliminary oral examinations passed

• Dissertation research proposal is on file with the School of Nursing/Graduate Program Coordinator

• Active student enrollment status is maintained

• Minimum of 24 thesis credits completed (final credits may be in progress)

• Thesis approved by the three selected dissertation readers as ready for defense (electronic Reviewers Report completed).

• Final Oral Examination is scheduled with committee and GPC in OSCAS

Components of the Final Oral Examination 

The final oral examination consists of two parts: 

• A public presentation in which the candidate presents the dissertation and to which the scholarly community is invited 

• A formal closed meeting with only the student and the Final Oral Examination Committee. 

Final Oral Examinations, including the public presentation, may be conducted virtually following the guides below, in-person, or a blended format. 

Public Presentation

The public presentation component of the examination should last 30 minutes. Prepare a 20-25 minute Power Point presentation of the dissertation research. An additional 5-10 minutes will be used for questions. Share the presentation with your advisor in advance of the meeting. Current PhD students are encouraged to attend this public event.  A Zoom connection can be utilized for your public presentation even if the closed portion will be entirely in-person.

Closed Examination

The examination component of the meeting is a closed meeting between the PhD candidate and the final examination committee. It will not exceed three hours. Immediately after the examination, the candidate is excused from the room and a confidential written ballot is taken by the committee chair before discussing the examination. Following the discussion, a second and final vote is taken. The student is invited back into the meeting at this point to discuss the outcome.

Virtual Final Oral Examination Guides

• Virtual Final Oral Examination Guide - Student/Candidate

• Virtual Final Oral Examination Guide - Advisor/Chair

What to bring to your final oral exam?

If your final oral exam will have any in person component, you will want to bring the following items with you:

• Laptop

• Print out of any notes you will need during the presentation or tablet to view the notes on

Examination Outcome

To be recommended for the award of the doctoral degree, candidates must receive a vote of pass with no more than one member of the total examining committee dissenting.

Reporting Examination Results

If the student clearly passed (i.e., the student received no more than one dissenting vote and no recommendations were made by the committee for revisions) or failed the examination, the committee chair records the votes of all committee members using the Final Exam form workflow immediately following the final vote. All committee members will receive an email that informs them of the vote that was recorded on their behalf.

If the committee recommends revisions to the dissertation, the student’s advisor is responsible for ensuring that the student includes the appropriate modifications and required revisions in the final dissertation.

Final Exam Form

Doctoral students will receive an email with a link to initiate the final Exam form workflow after they have scheduled their final exam and been cleared by the Graduate Student Services and Progress (GSSP) to take their final exam. Students should initiate this form as soon as the link is provided by GSSP.

The committee chair should reference the final oral exam workflow guide, committee chair instructions,  and be prepared to complete the form at the final exam following the student’s defense. The chair will need a computer at the final exam in order to complete the form following the defense. The chair must record the votes of each committee member listed on the form. If there are alternates, the committee can record their names and votes on the form. Once the chair submits the form, the student is immediately notified of the committee’s final decision. OTR processes the form and updates the student’s record.

Recessing the Examination

Occasionally there are instances in which the final examination does not proceed well, but in which the faculty feel that the student has an acceptable dissertation that they are capable of adequately defending. While such instances should be rare, it is in both the student’s and the faculty’s interest to follow clearly defined procedures (see below) for recessing and reconvening the final oral examination.

Circumstances that might prompt a recess of the final oral examination would fall into two broad categories involving: primarily non-substantive matters or cases in which the faculty have a serious concern about either the dissertation itself or the student’s ability to defend it, but in which they believe that the situation can be remedied if the student is given additional time to revise the dissertation or prepare for the examination.

• Primarily non-substantive matters: Cases in this category include, but are not limited to, those in which the student’s nervousness prevents them from adequately defending the dissertation. In such circumstances, the examining committee may decide informally to recess for up to one week. The committee and the student should select a date and time for reconvening that is agreeable to all parties. No written notice need be given to the student, although the faculty should give them advice and assurance, as they deem important. The committee chair must contact GSSP to request that the Final Exam form workflow initiated by the student be canceled. The student will need to reinitiate the Final Exam form workflow process when the examination is ready to proceed. 

• More serious concerns: When the faculty has serious concerns about the dissertation or the student’s ability to defend it, but feels the student has the potential to improve the dissertation or their examination performance, the faculty should stop the examination, inform the student of their intent to recess, and discuss with the student the deficiencies that prompted the recess. The chair of the examination committee should send an email to the student clearly stating these deficiencies, outlining the steps necessary to remedy them, and indicating when the committee expects to reconvene and resume the examination. The email should be sent to the student within a week of the recessed examination. The chair must contact GSSP to request that the Final Exam form workflow initiated by the student be canceled. Once a new date is identified for the exam, the student must reschedule their exam and re-initiate the Final Exam form workflow.