{"id":8077,"date":"2020-05-26T12:58:28","date_gmt":"2020-05-26T00:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/?p=8077"},"modified":"2021-03-25T15:38:44","modified_gmt":"2021-03-25T02:38:44","slug":"my-experience-with-a-doctoral-thesis-in-format-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/?p=8077","title":{"rendered":"My Experience with a Doctoral Thesis in Format Two"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Editor’s note: this article, published in 2020, makes reference to a previous edition of the AUT Postgraduate Handbook that is now out of date. The most recent edition can be downloaded here<\/a> (student login required).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Kia Ora! My name is Prabakar, from the Faculty of Design and Creative Technologies. I have recently defended my Format Two thesis (manuscript format) successfully amid various challenges, including COVID-19! It has been a roller-coaster journey for me to write and get the Format Two thesis examined. I had to experiment with a few things to see how it came out, as there are fewer exemplar materials available for the less-common Format Two thesis than the traditional Format One (monograph) thesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

When to opt for Format Two:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is your choice! You and your\nsupervisors should discuss how you are going to present your work. I chose Format\nTwo because my research topic had various research outcomes that answered\ndifferent research questions. Each question has a strong connection to my\nresearch topic. During my research tenure, I managed to publish all my research\noutcomes as articles in four reputable publications (IEEE journals) and five\npeer-reviewed conferences (IEEE conferences). I also had an article-in-preparation\nwhen I started to write my thesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I struggled to write my thesis as\na monograph (Format One) due to the nature of my research outcomes. Thus, I\nliaised with my supervisors and opted to present my thesis under Format Two in\na cohesive manner. The student should indicate in his\/her PGR9 (confirmation of\ncandidature form) that he\/she is going to opt for Format Two style thesis\nsubmission. If they had changed their mind during the course of the research,\nthey could update this in their PGR8 (progress report), with valid\njustifications. Their changes will need to be approved by the school and Graduate\nResearch School (GRS). You will be declaring the type of the thesis in the\nPGR12 (lodgement of thesis for examination form) as well. Doctoral students using\nFormat Two are also required to have a minimum of two manuscripts submitted to\na peer-reviewed journal before submission for examination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What publications\/manuscripts can\nbe included in a Format Two thesis:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are regulations prescribed on\npage 101 of the 2020 Postgraduate\nHandbook<\/a> on the types of manuscripts that are allowed for inclusion.\nManuscripts may be, \u2018in preparation for submission<\/em> to a peer-reviewed\njournal\u2019 or \u2018submitted<\/em> to a peer-reviewed journal, or \u2018published or\nin-press or accepted <\/em>by a peer-reviewed journal. Peer-reviewed conference\npapers can be considered to be equivalent to a journal in some disciplines. For\ninstance, conference papers in the ICT field may have a higher ranking than a journal\narticle. The regulations state that \u201cmanuscript(s) must be resultant from work completed\nduring the student\u2019s enrolment and supervision in their research degree.\u201d\n(p.101) At least two manuscripts from the lot (included in the thesis) should\nhave been submitted to peer-reviewed journals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How a Format Two thesis is\nexamined:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The PG Handbook states that \u201cresearch\nthat has been published or accepted for publication does not ensure a pass in a\ndoctoral degree. Examiners will judge a student\u2019s research on its original\ncontribution to knowledge and scholarship. The thesis must stand on its own\nmerits as a thesis and will be assessed on its totality\u201d (p.103). As the\nchapters are stand-alone research articles, it may appear broken in terms of\nthe flow of the thesis. Some examiners may not like this and some may be unfamiliar\nwith the thesis format. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Usually, there are two examiners.\nSometimes, if the examiner\u2019s reports vary a lot between the two, your thesis\nwill be sent out to a third reviewer. This happened in my case. Once all three\nreports have arrived, the GRS will see if there is a majority (in their\nprovisional suggested outcome) and if the majority is inclined towards outcome\n1-3, then your oral examination will be scheduled. If the majority is outcome\n4-5 (although outcome 5 is rare), then the GRS will contact you with the next\nsteps. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oral examination:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This component of the Format Two examination\nis very different from the traditional Format One thesis examination. As most\nof your work is peer-reviewed already, you may not be questioned as intensively\nas you would in a traditional oral examination. Examiners may ask for\nclarification on missing parts of your work and\/or ask why you have opted for a\nparticular set of methodologies. Although the examiners may request changes to\nany part of the thesis whether the articles have been previously published or\nnot, changes have a limited degree of freedom. Journal publications do not\nusually have revisions, unlike books which have editions. Thus, amendments\nrequested by the examiners will be addressed differently, with the help of the\nexamination convenor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Examples from AUT open\nrepository:<\/strong>  https:\/\/openrepository.aut.ac.nz\/handle\/10292\/13038<\/a>\nand https:\/\/openrepository.aut.ac.nz\/handle\/10292\/13036<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to structure a thesis in Format Two:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check back\nlater this week on Thesislink for Part 2 of this post, which will go into\ndetail on how to structure a thesis in Format Two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s note: this article, published in 2020, makes reference to a previous edition of the AUT Postgraduate Handbook that is now out of date. The most recent edition can be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25777,"featured_media":8079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,8],"tags":[205,206,108,65,175],"class_list":["post-8077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-authentic","category-category-3","tag-format-2","tag-manuscript-format","tag-oral-exam","tag-publication","tag-student-voices"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/Book.jpg?fit=400%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p83npQ-26h","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/25777"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8077"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8670,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8077\/revisions\/8670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesislink.aut.ac.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}