Research Degrees Management System FAQs

Research Degrees Examination Management in eVision will change the thesis submission process for postgraduate research students. Various staff involved with postgraduate research assessments will also be impacted by the project. This includes: Graduate Studies Administrators, Directors of Graduate Studies, Supervisors, Examiners, the Research Degrees team in Student Assessments and the Student Systems Support Centre.

Some Professional Services teams who support Postgraduate Research (PGR) assessments will experience minor changes as a result of the project. This includes: Student Registry, Payroll, the University Gazette team, Oxford Research Archive, University Stores and the Print Studio.

This project will enable the implementation of previously-agreed Postgraduate Research (PGR) examination regulation changes that were announced in the 31 October 2024 edition of the University Gazette and are available on the Policy and Guidance on Research Degrees webpage.

Here are the key changes:

• Increasing the length of time available for minor corrections to two months from one month;
• Retention of major corrections as an examination outcome, but providing clearer options for major corrections with re-examination and major corrections without further examination;
• Reduction in the length of time available for reference back decisions from two years to one year;
• Improved guidance including the addition of indicative criteria to each decision, to aid examiners in determining when a particular outcome should be selected;
• The removal of extensions from minor and major correction outcomes;
• The provision for a period of suspension of up to 12 months (with a minimum suspension of 4 weeks) for those with major corrections and reference back decisions;
• Improved clarity on the expectations for supervision of students post-viva, with students receiving major corrections and reference back decisions entitled to the same level of supervision as expected before submission;
• Provision for students to apply for exceptional suspensions and extensions from Education Committee.

A full range of training materials for all users is available on our training project webpages. This includes links to examiner and student guidance.

There are no email notifications in the system for Graduate Administrators / Super Users.

You will need to log in to the Research Degrees tab (which may be in the + icon in your menu) to view examinations at any stage.

This is particularly important for Super Users to see all examinations with a workflow status of 'Awaiting GSA Review' which indicates action is needed, including where a report needs to be referred to DGS/Board or Division. 

For major corrections outcomes, examiners will be able to upload corrections, annotated theses and additional notes in the system, as part of their joint examiners’ report.

The minor corrections process will not change: examiners will continue to correspond with students off-system, via email.

Super Users can edit a report, for example, uploading a new report file from an examiner, or if the outcome is incorrect, by selecting the re-open report option which is available after a report has been sent to DGS/Board or Division. 

Examiners are instructed to record when minor corrections have been issued to the student as part of the Exam Report task. When selecting the minor corrections outcome, they will be asked to provide the date on which the list of minor corrections was issued to the student. Saving the task in this state will automatically inform the student and examiner of the deadline for completion of minor corrections. The workflow status of the examination will also change to Minor Corrections in Progress and GSAs will be able to view the email and deadline dates on the student examination record. Once the examiner has received and reviewed the corrected thesis, they will need to return to the Exam Report task to indicate that the corrections are complete, and to submit the joint examiners’ report.

Internal Examiners will receive a direct link to the Examiner Portal which is accessible via Oxford Single Sign-On (SSO). This link is not valid for external examiners. Once logged in, they will need to click on the Research Degrees Examiner Portal tab to access the portal. Further guidance for examiners can be found here.

External Examiners will log into the system via Oxford Secure Link. Each time they need to access the Examiner Portal, an email containing a link, via which they will need to confirm their email address, will be sent. This link will be valid for 21 days; if they wish to access the Examiner Portal after this time, they should request a new link from the Research Degrees Team.

Externals will then receive a second email, containing a direct link to the Examiner Portal. This link is only valid for five hours. If examiners need to access the Examiner Portal again after this time, they will need to repeat the above validation step in the initial email. External examiners must use the same browser throughout this process and not close their browser while validating their email. Further guidance for examiners can be found here.

The Research Degrees Management System (RDMS) project is delivering Research Degrees Examination Management (RDEM) in eVision. 

You can email the project team at RDMSproject@it.ox.ac.uk with any questions, feedback or concerns.