Recommendations and reports

Examiners’ recommendation

After the oral exam, examiners can make any applicable recommendation defined in regulation and which is aligned with the relevant award criteria to the Research Degrees Examination Board (RDEB).

A: Award unconditionally

• The student has met the criteria for the award of the relevant degree.

B: Award with minor errors

• 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 RDEB notification of the outcome to email their corrected dissertation to the internal examiner (or independent chair if there is no internal examiner).
• The internal examiner (or independent chair or another University of Bristol academic if there is no internal examiner) must assess and approve the correction of minor errors.

C: Require the correction of errors or omissions of substance

• 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 RDEB notification of the outcome to email their corrected dissertation to the to the internal examiner (or independent chair if there is no internal examiner).
• All examiners must assess and approve the correction of errors or omissions of substance.

D: Permit the student to resubmit in a revised form.

• 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 RDEB notification of the outcome to resubmit to University, which will include a new plagiarism review.
• A resubmission requires a re-examination involving all examiners.

E: (Doctoral students only) Award the relevant research master’s degree unconditionally

• 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.

F: (Doctoral students only) Award the relevant research master’s degree with minor errors

• 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 RDEB notification of the outcome to email their corrected dissertation to the internal examiner (or independent chair if there is no internal examiner).
• The internal examiner (or independent chair or another University of Bristol academic if there is no internal examiner) must assess and approve the correction of minor errors.

 G: (Doctoral students only). Permit the student to resubmit in a revised form 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 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 RDEB notification of the outcome to resubmit to University, which will include a new plagiarism review.
• A resubmission requires a re-examination involving all examiners.

 H: Fail

• 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.

Examiners can make a recommendation using the permitted timeframes as a guide. For example, there might be numerous errors that are individually minor in nature but when taken together form a significant undertaking. In these cases, examiners can decide to recommend errors or omissions of substance rather than minor errors, as gives the student more time.

Examiners can only recommend a resubmission once and so recommendations D and G are not permitted for a re-examination following a resubmission.  

Joint final report

After the oral exam, the examiners complete a Research degree examiners' final report (Office document, 75kB). The report must include a recommendation and a rationale that comments on both the dissertation and on the student’s performance in the oral exam. If the recommendation substantially differs from the views expressed in the preliminary reports, examiners must explain the difference in their joint final report.

If there are corrections or a resubmission required from the student, the examiners must copy and paste the combined guidance they have sent to the student into the joint final report. The examiners must include a statement confirming if an annotated copy of the dissertation detailing minor errors has been given to the student.

If a Covid-19 statement is included in the dissertation, examiners must comment on their consideration of this statement in the joint final report.

For doctoral candidates (and for MScR candidates in the Faculty of Life Sciences), examiners can nominate the student for a prize for outstanding excellence in a dissertation.

The independent chair (if appointed) must compete a separate Independent Chair report (Office document, 62kB) confirming that they oversaw the examination and that it was conducted in accordance with the University’s regulations and procedures.

Submitting reports

The internal examiner (or independent chair if there is no internal examiner) emails the joint final report, the preliminary reports, and the independent chair report (if appointed) to the School PGR Director (in most schools this is via the School PGR team).

The School PGR Director reviews the reports, signs the declaration on the joint report, and arranges for all reports to be emailed to the Academic Quality and Policy Office to arrive no later than two weeks after the oral exam. Reports sent to the Academic Quality and Policy Office will be processed for consideration by RDEB.