by The Open University
Available in 42 free installments
Owner:
The criteria for an OU PhD (as stated in the Guidelines on Research Degree Examinations for Heads of Disciplines, Supervisors and Examination Panels, EX 10, revised January 1998) are that:
The thesis must be of good presentation style and show evidence of being a significant contribution knowledge and of the student's capacity to pursue further research without supervision. The thesis must contain a significant amount of material worthy of publication. [Emphasis added]
These are interpreted on the examiners? report (EX33 (PhD) revised January 1998) as follows:
5.1 Comment on the presentation and style of the thesis.
5.2 In what way does the thesis show evidence of being a significant contribution to knowledge?
5.3 In what way does the thesis show evidence of the candidate's capacity to pursue further research without supervision?
5.4 How much material worthy of publication does the thesis contain??
So, the OU has four criteria:
good presentation
significant contribution
capacity for independent research
publishability.
More generally, most universities include among their criteria:
original
significant
contribution to knowledge
publishable.
So do most journals. Therefore, you can provide evidence of ‘significance?, ‘originality?, and ‘publishability? in advance of submission, by publishing your work in refereed journals or conferences.
Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence
