edinburgh university thesis submission

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Final submission & graduation

Information on the final submission process and graduation.

At the end of the examination process, PhD and MPhil students are required to submit the final version of their thesis to the College Office Postgraduate Section in order to meet the requirements to be awarded with their degree.

College Office postgraduate section

Final submission documentation checklist

Students are required to submit the following Final Submission Documentation to the College Office in order to become eligible to be awarded and graduate:

• Thesis submission for examination is now  electronic only ; all PGR theses are submitted to the College PGR Office (not the IGS office). The University's DataSync file hosting service is the preferred method for submission of the electronic version. For more information please check the How to submit tab here .
• Every student must incorporate a signed declaration in the thesis. The declaration must state: (a) that the thesis has been composed by the candidate, and (b) either that the work is the candidate's own, or, if the candidate has been a member of a research group, that the candidate has made a substantial contribution to the work, such contribution being clearly indicated, and (c) that the work has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification except as specified. Students must ensure the declaration has been signed and dated by themselves. You can find more information here .
• One electronic version, submitted on to PURE.  You should go Pure at www.pure.ed.ac.uk and log-in via EASE. Further information about this is available on the College SharePoint .  Please note that you are not required to submit a declaration form when submitting via PURE. 
• One completed Access to a Thesis form.  If you require your thesis to be restricted, the form must be signed by the Deputy Head of Graduate School.  If you are unsure if access to your thesis should be restricted, speak to your supervisor.  You must sign the second page of this form even if the thesis is not to be restricted. 

One completed Abstract of Thesis form. This must be completed on one side of A4 only (see example abstract form). Please note, if the abstract does not initially fit on the form, the form can be reformatted (i.e. the size of the font can be changed and unnecessary lines deleted) - see Reformatted Abstract form.

One completed   Lay Summary of Thesis Form The thesis must include a lay summary, which is not counted in the word count. The lay summary must be no longer than can be accommodated in single space type on one side only of a single form obtainable from the College Office. Lay summaries should conform to the requirements of the Regulatory Standards for the Format and Binding of a Thesis. In addition, the lay summary should be incorporated at the beginning of each copy of the thesis. Guidance for Lay Summary

Provide College Office with a current mailing address .  The College Office will send your award letter to the address you have provided on your EUCLID record listed as 'contact/ term-time address'. If this address is not correct then it is your responsibility to update this information. You can do so via the Student Personal Details channel on MyEd. Please see the following link for instructions on how to do this: 

         Change Student Record Details

When you have received your Award letter from the College Office you are then eligible to graduate during the next graduation diet.  You must register to graduate at least 21 days before the Graduation diet begins. 

Please note, there is a deadline for registering to graduate - usually 21 days before the first graduation day of the graduation diet. There is no registration fee for graduation (regardless of whether you will be attending or not). If you do not register in time, you will automatically be registered to 'graduate in absentia' (not attending the ceremony).

Further information on Graduations can be found on the Student Administration 'Graduations' pages. If you have any questions about Graduations please contact the Graduations team: [email protected]

Student Administration graduation pages

Useful links

Postgraduate Assessment Regulations for Research Degrees

Code of Practice for Supervisors and Research Students

Graduations - Student Administration

Plagiarism prevention and detection - Information Services

SUBMITTING YOUR THESIS

All students producing theses/dissertations in the School of Informatics are asked to produce an electronic archive of their thesis. These theses are an extremely valuable resource for other researchers and for students doing projects in the future. The electronic archive enables them to make a stronger contribution, building on work that has gone before, and appropriately putting their work in context and acknowledging previous contributions.

The list of archived MSC theses can be viewed at http://www.informatics.ed.ac.uk/publications/thesis/msc.html.

For this reason, you are asked to also submit a PDF document electronically.

There may be some people who have good reasons why their theses cannot or should not be made part of an electronic archive. Those people should ensure that their supervisor knows the reasons and tick the appropriate box on the submission page. Nevertheless they must still submit the thesis electronically so that it is available in that form for the external examiners.

You are asked to make an submit of your thesis in pdf format as follows:

1. Create the PDF file

Most word processing packages have the option to save a file as pdf, so generating your thesis in pdf format should be straightforward. For example, if you are using LaTeX, on a DICE machine you can use pdflatex to convert your thesis directly from latex to pdf as follows:

This will produce a file <thesis>.pdf in the same directory.

Take care to ensure that all figures, tables and listings are correctly incorporated into the pdf file you plan to submit.

2. Submit the PDF

Use the online form to submit the PDF form of your thesis. You will need to specify the name of your PDF file on this web form.

This form requires you to nominate a "project directory" that contains appropriate supporting evidence for the project examiners, as well as to provide the location of a pdf file containing your project report. The project directory should contain sufficient additional material to allow the project examiners to come to a decision on matters such as: level of completion of the project, the quality of the project and the amount of work required to complete the project.

The marking guidelines and form used to grade projects are based entirely on the content of the report. The additional material will be used to assess the accuracy of claims in the report.

Projects often build on work previously carried out, in some cases re-using code and data from earlier projects. We would like your project materials to be available for further use in research, private study or education, if requested. However, if you decide that you do not want your project materials re-used, please tick the relevant box.

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Open Content

This guide brings together information about Open Access Resources and Open Educational Resources. It aims to make Open Access resources easier to find and use for study, teaching and research.

Finding open Theses and Dissertations

University of edinburgh and uk theses.

Edinburgh Research Archive - Full text electronic copies of most University of Edinburgh PhD theses can be found online in the Edinburgh Research Archive (ERA). The collection comprises 23,500 items and includes MD theses from the 1700s through to PhDs recently awarded in 2020.

EThoS: e-theses online service - This service from the British Library aims to provide a national aggregated record of all doctoral theses awarded by UK Higher Education institutions, and free access to the full text of as many theses as possible for use by researchers.

Google Scholar Search

If you know the details of the thesis you wish to consult then an effective way to find the full text is via  Google Scholar. Search for the full title in quotes, followed by the author last name, and/or date if known. 

International theses

DART-Europe is a searchable database of electronic research theses held in European repositories. It covers around 586 Universities in 29 European countries.

EBSCO Open Dissertations   is a free database with records for more than 1.4 million electronic theses and dissertations from more than 320 universities around the world. 

Global ETD Search  from the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) contains around 6 million records, the majority of which are open, but some may not be publicly available.

Open Access Theses & Dissertations  currently indexes around 5 million open access theses and dissertations from 1100 institutions worldwide.

Making your thesis open access

Theses and dissertations from the University of Edinburgh are published online in the Edinburgh Research Archive  (ERA). In 2020, UoE theses were downloaded 829,804 times from ERA (source IRUS-UK download report).  The University has an expectation that a PhD thesis is a document available for public consultation. As such, unless a legitimate reason for restricting access to the thesis exists, all PhD theses will be made publicly available on the internet. Masters dissertations are not routinely made available online, but exceptional dissertations can be made open access.

PhD and other doctoral theses

Masters dissertations.

Only Masters Dissertations from the School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences and the School of Geosciences are routinely deposited in the Edinburgh Research Archive (ERA). If you are from a different School you can make your master dissertation open access by depositing in ERA. You can do this by logging in with your EASE credentials, then selecting your Schools Thesis & Dissertation Collection and follow the prompts for submitting a new item to the collection.

Thesis and Assessment

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Your thesis

As a research degree student, you must submit your research thesis for examination. You should aim to submit at the end of your standard period of registration, but it must be submitted before the maximum end date of your registration. You can find out more about writing your research thesis, and the required format in section 6 of the Research Degrees Framework.

What do I have to submit for examination?

You need to email the Research Degrees team at [email protected] copies of: A PDF file of your thesis (Due to Covid-19 restrictions soft-bound paper copies of your thesis are not being accepted at this time) a completed Candidate’s Declaration Form (RD15)

The viva exam

All MPhil, DBA. Prof Doc and PhD students are examined by having a viva voce (oral) examination. If you are registered for MRes you may be examined on the basis of the thesis alone, although examiners can decide that you should have a viva as well. You can find out more about the assessment of research degrees in section 7 of the Research Degrees Framework.

How are the exam arrangements approved?

Your Director of Studies is responsible for the examination arrangements, which includes the appointment of examiners.  Examination arrangements should be approved at least three months before you plan to submit your thesis. For approval your Director of Studies must submit a: completed application for approval of examination arrangements (RD12)brief CV for each proposed examinercopy of your thesis abstract Directors of Study can use our checklist to help with completing the application.

What happens after the viva?

You will receive formal notification of the outcome of your assessment in writing. This includes full detail on any amendments required by the examiners, and information on how, and when you can resubmit your thesis.

Who approves the award of a research degree?

The final recommendation of award made by your examiners must be considered and formally approved at a meeting of the University’s Research Degrees Committee. The date of that meeting will be recorded as your formal completion date. If your award has been approved by the University Research Degrees Committee you are eligible to graduate at the next ceremony for the conferment of awards, providing you: apply to graduate submit the final approved copies of your thesis before the graduation ceremony have no outstanding fees to pay

How do I submit the final approved version of my thesis?

The final version of your thesis should be submitted after the examiners’ recommendation of award has been approved by the University Research Degrees Committee (RDC) and before you plan to graduate. You must submit: one hard bound copy of the thesis and a completed thesis submission form (RD20) in person or by post to: Research Degrees Team Research, Innovation and Enterprise H18, Merchiston Campus Edinburgh Napier University Edinburgh, EH10 5DT (Due to Covid-19 restrictions hard-bound copies of your thesis are not being accepted at this time) and a digital full-text electronic copy of the thesis by emailing [email protected]

You can find more information on Completion and Graduation in section 8 of the Research Degrees Framework.

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How to submit your PhD thesis

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University of Edinburgh theses full-text online

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