College Contacts FAQs- Thesis Examination Process

You can access the overview of submissions and examination for students within your College by logging in to our dedicated Service Now page. You will need to log with your University credentials.

Once you have logged in you proceed to the college view by clicking the ‘College Contacts’ tile.

This will display the TPS reference number, Student ID, Candidate’s Name, Submission deadline, Submission Date, Corrected Thesis Due Date and the state of the examination.

N.B- Submission Date and Correction Deadline will be blank until this information becomes available within the process.

You will only be able to view records of students who are within your college; a record will only appear once a student has completed a Notice of Intention to Submit form.

You can use the filter in the top right corner to search for ID numbers and names, there is a filter to show all records in TPS, ‘In progress’ or ‘Completed’ records, as you prefer.

If you conduct a search whilst you have selected ‘In progress’ or ‘Completed’ records, it will only look to see if the record is in that state.

Yes, please do refer to this information to advise students and supervisors on the academic situation of their examination, reminding them that the information may be with RSA awaiting to be processed and this will be reflected on their record in due course.

Students have access to a personal view of their examination, and you can also direct them to their student view. Supervisors will be able to access records for students for which they are listed as the primary supervisor in TPS. 

There are several states that a student’s thesis examination can be in, and these are defined as below:

Verification- The student has submitted their notice of intention to submit form, and the Research Student Administration (RSA) team are creating the nomination of examiners form.

Examiner Nomination- RSA have sent the nomination form to the School and are awaiting information relating to the examiners.

Examiner Approval- RSA have received the nomination of examiners form back from the School and the examiners have been added to the record ready for examination.

Thesis Submission- The student has provided their submission forms to RSA following submission to Canvas and RSA have processed these.

Examination- The thesis has been sent to the examiners and is currently being examined.

Post-Examination- The examiners have returned their reports to RSA, and a result has been issued by email, with a deadline for completing any corrections.

Post-Examination- Further Corrections- After review of the corrected thesis the examiners have indicated further corrections are required. The student has been permitted a further opportunity to complete these by the University Research Progress and Awards Committee.

(Please note a further opportunity to complete corrections is subject to approval by the Research Progress and Awards Committee)

Final Submission- The corrections have been completed, and the student now need to provide a copy of their e-thesis to the library repository. N.B This does not apply to Master of Research (MRes) courses.

Closed Complete- All requirements of the award have been completed, where appropriate this includes, the receipt of the e-thesis by the library.

Closed-Resubmission Required- The examiners have indicated a result of revise and resubmit. A new record will be created for the resubmission.

Closed- Thesis Rejected- The examiners have indicated a result of ‘reject’, without the opportunity to resubmit.

We advise that students submit their Notice of Intention to Submit form 3 months before their planned submission. This will formally begin the nomination of examiners process.

If they submit this form closer to their submission, the examiners may not have been appointed prior to submission which will delay examination.

A student only needs to submit one notice of intention to submit; if the planned submission date changes, provided they intend to submit prior to or on their maximum period of registration, they do not need to submit another form with a new date.

If they require additional time to submit after their maximum period of registration they will need to apply for an extension.

If a student declares that they are working, or have previously worked, for the University of Birmingham. RSA will need to carry out a check with HR regarding their employment. This is to determine whether they require two external examiners in line with 3.2 of the Code of Practice on Assessment of Research Degree Theses.

Their state will be updated once we have this information and have provided the School with the nomination of examiners form.

We would expect the School administration team will set up access to the appropriate submission pages on Canvas and send the nomination form on to the supervisor to complete.

RSA expect to be in receipt of the nomination of examiners form 2 months after it has been sent out to the School.

The deadline for return will be indicated in ‘Nominations Deadline’ field of the student record.

The completed form should be sent to the PGR lead or Head of School to approve the nomination prior to the form being returned to RSA.

Where RSA have not been in receipt of the nomination form and the deadline has passed, we will conduct weekly chases of the supervisor, with the School contact copied in, for this information, escalating as necessary.

If you are aware of any circumstances that are resulting in a delay to the return of this information please contact pgrstudentrecords@contacts.bham.ac.uk and we can note this on the record.

The nominations will need to be approved by the PGR lead or Head of School, the form may still be with them prior to being sent on to RSA.

If a nomination has been made that does not meet the criteria outlined in Section 4 of the Code of Practice on Assessment of Research Degree Theses, a case will have been made for consideration by the University Research Progress and Award Committee. Cases can take up to two weeks to be considered. The nominations will be processed once a response has been received.

The word count limit set out in 7.4.2(d) of the University Regulations cannot be exceeded. There is no tolerance to this.

When declaring their word count, students should ensure that they have excluded: abstract, acknowledgements, contents pages, appendices, tables, diagrams and figures (including associated legends), the list of references, bibliography, footnotes and endnotes.

Any submissions over the word count cannot be considered for examination.

The word count limit will be recorded in the ‘Maximum Word Count’ field on the record.

There is no minimum word count limit.

We will be unable to update the record if the student hasn’t informed us of their submission.

Due to limitations in the Thesis Processing System (TPS) if they submit their thesis prior to the nomination of examiners form being returned, RSA are unable to change the state from ‘Examiner Nomination’ until this information has been provided.

Upon receipt of the nomination form, the record will be moved to the ‘Thesis Submission’ state.

The plagiarism check is a School process where a nominated academic will review their submission. The School will notify the necessary parties, including RSA, of the outcome of this.

Once the thesis has passed the plagiarism check the School administration team should inform RSA and provide a copy of the thesis for examination. The date we receive this will be recorded in the ‘Turnitin Check’ field of the record.

If this field is blank RSA have not yet received this confirmation from the School, we would expect to receive this within 2 weeks of your submission. If you believe this incorrect, please contact us. Please note that the record is updated manually, and may not reflect receipt of the Turnitin check until up to 10 working days after the email being sent, depending on capacity.

We will chase for this but need to have been notified of the submission for it to appear on our overdue reports.

Various factors could cause a delay in sending out the thesis for examination, the most common are-

• RSA have not been in receipt of the nomination of examiners and do not hold details of who to send the thesis to for examination.
• RSA have not received the student’s submission forms.
• RSA have not received confirmation from the School that the submission has passed the plagiarism (Turnitin) check, along with a copy of the thesis.
• Taught requirements will need to have been completed and reflected on the student’s academic record by the School.
• The student has a financial hold on their account for unpaid tuition fees; they will need to contact Accounts Receivable to arrange payment.

We aim to send out a thesis within 7 working days of receipt of all the documentation related to thesis submission.

Please note that in busy periods of the year we may have many theses to send out and there may be a delay to sending your thesis out within this timeframe.

We ask examiners to complete the examination of the thesis, including the viva, within 8 working weeks of the thesis being sent out to them.

If they are unable to examine with in this timeframe they should notify the student of any delay, either directly or through their supervisor.

The ‘Thesis Sent’ and ‘Report Due Date’ fields on the record will indicate when the thesis was sent for examination and when RSA expect to be in receipt of the examiners’ reports.

It is the responsibility of the internal examiner to arrange the viva and notify the student of the arrangements. If two external examiners have been appointed, it will be the responsibility of the Chairperson to make these arrangements.

The supervisor should liaise with the examiners about arrangements if the student has not heard anything from them about the viva.

If RSA have been notified of the viva date by the examiners this will recorded in the ‘Viva date’ field on the record.

A viva is not mandatory for a masters level thesis but may be held at the discretion of the examiners. In these circumstances, the student will be contacted by their internal examiner with any arrangements for the viva.

The examiners will provide an informal result to the student at the viva; this will be formalised when RSA email with the result and deadline for any corrections.

RSA will send this result once we have been in receipt of all the examiners pre- and post-viva reports.

Any timeframe for corrections will be calculated from the date that we write to the student with the result.

N.B. If the viva takes place in the week prior to a University closed period, they may not receive their result until the University re-opens.

The date RSA expect to be in receipt of all reports is indicated in the ‘Report Due Date’ field on the record. Where RSA have not been in receipt of the examiners reports for the thesis examination and the 8 working week deadline has passed, we will conduct weekly chases for this information, escalating as necessary.

We appreciate it is frustrating for students to be waiting for results and endeavour to provide these as soon as possible once they become available.

You will be copied into any communications to the student relating to their examination result.

They will need to submit minor corrections to their internal examiner; or a nominated external examiner, if they had two external examiners.

They will need to submit major corrections to all their examiners.

In all instances, Research Student Administration should be copied in via pgrstudentrecords@contacts.bham.ac.uk so that we are aware that they have submitted on time. Students should not submit corrections to Canvas.

The deadline for submitting their corrections is indicated in the ‘Corrected Thesis Deadline’ field of their record.

Upon receipt of the corrected thesis, RSA will contact the examiners and provide them with a deadline by which to review these. This will be 4 working weeks for minor corrections and 6 working weeks for major corrections.

The deadline for the examiners to return this by will be indicated in the ‘Corrections Certificate Due’ field of the record.

If they have not copied in RSA to the corrections submission this may cause a delay in receiving confirmation from the examiners whether your corrections have been completed. It may also result in an ‘out of time for corrections’ email being sent after the ‘Corrected Thesis Deadline’ has passed if this information is not known by RSA.

If a student submits corrections directly to the School, please forward it to RSA as soon as possible.

Where RSA have not been in receipt of the outcome of the corrected thesis the ‘Corrections Certificate Due’ deadline has passed, we will conduct weekly chases for this information, escalating as necessary.

We appreciate it is frustrating for students to be waiting for results and endeavour to provide these as soon as possible once they become available.

You will be copied into any communications to the student relating to their examination result.

When we write to the student to confirm completion of their award we will indicate a standard month by which to submit their final copy of the e-thesis to the library. It is a requirement for graduation to have submitted the e-thesis to the library.

If this requirement is missing ahead of the deadline, a reminder email will be sent out to the student to provide this to the library. If they miss the deadline, they will be deferred to the next set of ceremonies.

The ‘Final e-thesis Submitted’ field on the record will be filled when the library have receipted this.