This is the third post in our series introducing you to the teams behind the scenes at GRS, focussing on the Examinations team.
The Graduate Research School (GRS) Examinations team manages the examination process for Doctoral, Master’s, or Bachelor’s with Honours Dissertation, Exegesis, and Thesis examinations.
The Examinations team is responsible for liaising with Faculties, students, supervisors, and examiners regarding the examination process and maintains contact with examiners, acknowledging their availability to examine and expected timeframes on receiving examiners’ reports. The team processes all reports and sends copies to the appropriate Faculty/Examination Boards to discuss and deliberate on the final outcome and grade.
We host all Doctoral oral examinations and pre-meetings in our dedicated examination rooms in WU Building. These are set up with videoconferencing equipment to allow international examiners to participate virtually. We also host some examinations entirely online if the circumstances require it. The Examinations team ensure that everyone involved in an oral examination is hosted well, including providing refreshments for in-person examinations.
Where amendments to a thesis are required after the oral examination, the student will work with their supervisors to ensure that these amendments are completed satisfactorily. Once all amendments have been made, the student and supervisor will complete the PGR14 Form where Doctoral students submit the form to the GRS and Master’s students submit it to the Faculty. The final grade will be released once all amendments have been completed and approved. Students who have completed a Dissertation, Thesis, or Exegesis upload a digital copy to our online research repository, Tuwhera [https://tuwhera.aut.ac.nz/research-repository], where required, in order to be eligible to graduate.
Where postgraduate students are undergoing examination, undertaking amendments, or waiting to graduate, the GRS Examinations team can assist with providing a letter of confirmation on their examination status to Immigration New Zealand or potential employers if required.
