Randjärv case changes the rules

Photo: Ove Maidla / Postimees

After internal audit, University of Tartu Rectorate and Office of Academic Affairs reacted decisively and imposed a new order to protect doctoral students, from now on, from possible arbitrariness by committee once allowed to defend theses. Starting January 1^st 2014, new rules regarding issuance of Doctoral level degrees are in force. Underneath, Postimees lists chief changes.

1. Supervisor of a dissertation no longer has the right to participate at decision-making over any issue related to the dissertation, i.e. at voting (earlier, the ban only concerned defence); neither may he lead meetings where such issues are discussed.

2. The content and meaning of decisions by committee to allow theses for defence have been specified; requirements are added to take minutes of decisions and to substantiate negative decisions. The time-limit during which committee has to decide has been altered – six weeks instead of one months as before, during which the committee does its internal review of thesis.

3. The limit, according to which only persons not working at University of Tartu could be appointed as opponents and pre-reviewers, has been abolished. The committee will be competent to see to it that, as opponents and pre-reviewers are appointed, no conflict of interests arise. As before, one reviewer needs to be from outside Estonia.

4. Starting January 1^st 2015, defence meetings will be recorded as audio or video files. The corresponding regulations and technical solutions are developed during 2014.

5. The content of committee decisions at defence meetings has been specified. As an important change, the committee will no longer assess, at defence, conformity of the thesis – as this has already been settled when allowing the work to be defended.

6. The actions by committee upon suspicions of plagiarism have been specified. As suspicions in plagiarism or fraud arise at defence, the committee will not pass a decision; even so, the defence will be carried out. Later, should the suspicion prove unfounded, there will be no new defence; rather, the committee shall decide regarding the results of the defence.

7. Provisions, missing in the former regulation, have been added regarding repeat defence of the same Doctoral thesis. The initial «not defended» result will not be followed by exmatriculation; rather, repeat defence can be applied for. Should repeat defence be refused, the applicant has the right to submit a new thesis and make use of any remaining academic time. Repeat defence is available when defence fails for some reason i.e. the issue not being nonconformity of the thesis (which was to be determined, by committee, as it decided to allow the thesis to be defended).

8. The body of settling appeals shall be changed. Pursuant to current regulation, appeals submitted due to violations of procedural rules were settled by an independent disputes committee composed of students and teachers, formed according to organisation of study rules. Now, the appeals will be settled by a three member committee composed by Vice Rector for Academic Affairs, the members of which need to possess Doctoral degree or corresponding qualification.