Formate of PhD thesis, based on the Norwegian model

1
Formate of PhD thesis, based on the Norwegian
model

• Fanny Duckert, University of Oslo
• Trine Hvoslef Eide, University of Life Sciences

2
PhD thesis as a monograph

• Advantages
• Well known tradition
• Space for reflections and in-depth analyses

• Disadvantages
• Takes a long time
• No academic merit until thesis has been approved
• Few readers
• Writing skills not easily transferred to article
  writing

3
Article based PhD thesis

• Advantages
• Teaching writing skills relevant for journals
• More chance of getting thesis or parts of it
  published
• Easier for the students to divide the work into
  chewable pieces
• Academic merits for the candidate during the
  process, as works are published
• Increased research output for the university

• Disadvantages
• Not applicable for all academic fields
• May delay the PhD candidate if too strict demands
  on articles to be published/accepted for
  publication before submittal of thesis
• More demanding on supervisors
• Already published papers cannot be corrected
  after examinors comments

4
PhD thesis as a compilation of journal articles
(3-5)

• Formate
• Usually 3-5 publishable articles. It varies to
  what extent they actually have to be
  published/axepted for publication. Some
  instiutions demand all, some none. (Usually it is
  demanded that at least one should be accepted for
  publication, in order for the candidate to have
  been through the referee process at least once).
• If co-authors on the articles, the PhD candidate
  has to be the first author on the majority of the
  articles, but may be second author of 1-2. The
  supervisor will be the last of the authors.
• If co-authors, a declaration signed by all
  authors on what part of the article each author
  has contributed must be enclosed

5
Formate (cont.)

• In addition to the articles the thesis must
  contain
• An introduction where the literatur is reviewed,
  the research design described, the main results
  given (summary of the articles),- ending up in a
  discussion which binds the thesis together

6
Examination

• Both the monograph and the article based PhD
  thesis have to be examined by a board containing
  external examiners