Electronic Theses

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Electronic Theses

• Howard Green
• Staffordshire University
• Chair. UK Council for Graduate Education

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Format

• Current Trends in PGR
• Electronic theses some thoughts
• Examining
• Culture changes
• Accessibility

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Current trends in PGR

• Numbers
• Diversity
• Concentration
• Quality assurance and compliance

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Table 1 Total number of Doctorates awarded by UK
HEIs, 1996-2002
Year Total Annual Growth ()
1996 10,800
1997 11,860 9.8
1998 12,660 6.7
1999 13,140 3.8
2000 13,670 4.0
2001 14,115 3.2
2002 14,210 0.6
Source HESA Table 13
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Table 2 The Distribution of Doctorates awarded
by Institution (2000)
Quartile Number of Institutions
Upper 5
Second 9
Third 18
Lower 97
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Some Implications

• Managing
• Tracking
• Supervising
• Examining

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Issues - Diversity

• Full time/part time
• Disciplinary
• Types of doctoral awards and associated outputs.
• Mathematics to Music
• Published works to Professional Doctorates

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Table 3 Mode of Attendance 2001/02
Total Old Universities 47158 44949 92107
Total New Universities 5095 8175 13270
Total Colleges of Higher Education 631 1164 1795
Grand Total 52884 54288 10712
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Table 3 Doctorates awarded 2000/2001 and
2001/2002
Subject Group 2000/2001 2001/2002
Medical and Biomedical Sciences 4175 4515
Natural Sciences and Engineering 5395 5090
Social Sciences 1915 1940
Arts and Humanities 2415 2455
Combined Subjects 215 205
Total 14115 14210
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Table 4 Professional Doctorate Programmes in UK
Universities 1998 to 2000
Year PD Programmes
1998 109
1999 128
2000 153
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Table 5 Professional Doctorates in the different
disciplines - 1998

• Doctor of Education
• Doctor of Engineering
• Doctor of Clinical Psychology
• Doctor of Psychology
• Doctor of Educational Psychology
• Doctor of Counselling Psychology
• Doctor of Occupational Psychology
• Doctor of Clinical Science-Psychotherapy
• Doctor of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
• Doctor of Business Administration
• Doctor of Administration
• Doctor of Finance

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Quality Assurance

• HEFCE/ Joint Funding Councils Improving
  Standards
• QAA Review of PGR Code of Practice

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Examining Current Practice

• Very variable
• Stage 1
• Hard/soft/ring bound
• Some use of E for appendices etc.
• Stage 2 Final
• Bound

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Examination Issues

• Negatives
• Need to print? Cost transfer
• IT skills of external
• Screen reading
• Definitive versions
• Stability and modification

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Examining

• Positives
• Word/text searches
• Plagiarism checks
• Check validity

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Culture Change

• Very slow change process for all PhD work
• Gold standard(s)
• Amending Regulations not a problem??
• As no BS good time to attend to this too?

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Accessibility

• Would help (increased difficulty in getting
  copy)
• Accessible to who?
• Plagiarism?