Internal Procedures and Recommendations Regarding the Defense

Detailed information regarding the doctoral thesis defense is available in MU Study and Examination Regulations (Section 31, 33, 34).
This page only presents internal procedures and recommendations regarding the defenses:

• The Doctoral dissertation thesis is submitted by the student either in the form of a monograph, including the student's original results, or as a collection of published or accepted scientific articles with a detailed unifying introduction. In the first case, the length of the monograph should usually be at least 80 pages, excluding the references and possible appendix material. In the second case, the unifying introduction of the collection of articles should be around 20–30 pages long (we do not specify a hard lower page limit on the articles since papers in CS are often published in a very “condensed” format). For dissertations designed as an introductory text with attached copies of the articles, it is necessary to submit together with the dissertation the statement of at least the key co-authors of the attached articles and supervisor (for more details, see SZŘ MU Section 31). If the thesis contains results or articles with co-authors, the student must clearly state their share of the work on the results or articles (in CS, the order of co-authors is often just alphabetical).
• There are two additional necessary prerequisites for the dissertation thesis defense:

• The first one is that the student has published (or got accepted for publication) at least two refereed research publications on a high-quality international forum. According to the common international standards in computer science, we accept as a high-quality publication not only research papers in journals with a good impact factor, but also (and primarily!) refereed research contributions at international conferences that are recognized as high-quality by some of the established international CS conference rankings (such as CORE rank B or higher). Note that the lower bound of two high-quality publications is only the bare minimum (and the number of publications for a typical doctoral dissertation is higher than that) and, depending on the actual situation, more publications could be required in individual cases; e.g., when the student’s share of the publications is not major or when none of the publications is of top quality.
• The second necessary prerequisite for the student is to prove sufficient international experience, in the form of a research internship at a foreign institution in the combined duration of at least one month or, in special cases, in the form of a provable intense international research collaboration.

Internal reader - it is a student's choice whether to use the offer of service of an internal reader. It is a service of the faculty for students, students are no obliged to use this offer. A student who plans to submit a phd thesis in the current year will inform the Office for Doctoral and International Studies - sendig abstract and list of publications. This office will arrange the process by asking the Chairmen of the Doctoral Board and Doctoral Committees who subsequently determine an internal reader (it may be an internal reader of phd thesis proposal), who reads the doctoral thesis and gives his/her opinion before the official handover. Student then according to that opinion and observations may modify or revise the doctoral thesis and submit it later.

Please note that it usually takes about 6 months from submission of your PhD thesis to the defense.

• Deadlines for final submission of a doctoral thesis
  If you want to defend your doctoral thesis in semester:
  „Autumn“ - you have to submit the phd thesis including application to defense and all annexes by the end of September.
  „Spring“ - you have to submit the phd thesis including application to defense and all annexes by the end of March.
  Academic calendar
  
  
• Student enrols the course DODIS Dissertation defense into the IS and submit to Office for Doctoral and International Studies the following documents:
  1) Application to the Doctoral Thesis Deffense
  2) Two hard copies of the thesis
  The phd thesis must be produced on white (not recycled) paper format A4. The doctoral thesis must be bind in hard cover. The title page will include Masaryk University, Faculty of Informatics (or even the faculty logo), the full title of the thesis, PhD thesis, name of the student, Brno and the year.
  3) Supervisor's report
  4) Supervisor's proposal for external reviewers
  5) Abstract
  6) Structured curriculum vitae
  7) List of publications (if the student participates on joint publications, his/her contribution must be specified in %) – the absolute minimum are two publications in non-predatory journals with IF or in standard sessions of refereed conferences of rank B or higher. This list must be an integral part of the doctoral thesis and will be, together with the text of the thesis, made public in the list of theses at the MU webpages.
  
  
• Doctoral thesis is uploaded by student to the IS Archive of Thesis.
• The Doctoral Board proposes a chairman, members of the defence committee and external reviewers to the Dean. The Dean appoints the committee based on this proposal.
• The phd thesis is delivered to the external reviewers who are given two months to return a review.
• Having received the external reviews, the date of the defense is set.
• The defense is usually held in the FI conference room, which is equipped with a board, a data projector and laptop. Student is required to come at least 10 min. before the actual defense (if the conference room is locked, a key is available in the Dean’s secretary’s office), prepare and test the equipment which will be used. Student prepares the defence presentation in a suitable font and colour, so that it is readable even for the committee members sitting further away from the board.
  The actual defense presentation lasts for 25 minutes. Then reviews are read and discussed, and a discussion amongst committee members and guests follows. The public part of the defense is followed by a non-public part where the committee debates the defense and votes on the result of the defense by secret ballot. Student is informed about the result as soon as the vote is finished. The defence is evaluated failed/passed/passed summa cum laude. If the doctoral thesis fulfil the requirements Dean's Award the committee votes about proposal for evaluation „distinguished“ by a secret ballot.
• If a student is interested in, s/he may load to archive the final revised version of his/her phd thesis (completed according to the comments of the readers and committee) after the defense. The original defended version of the doctoral thesis also remains in the archive!

The doctoral study ends on the day of a successful defence. Student is awarded a Diploma and a  Diploma Supplement at a graduation ceremony organised by the RMU twice a year. Please check regularly your emails at mail.muni.cz, where Ms. Jitka Šnejdrlová will send you information about a graduation ceremony. If a student is unable to attend a graduation ceremony, please inform her at: jsnejdrlova(at)rect.muni.cz .

If a student fails a defense, it is possible to repeat a defence no more than once. The committee sets the rules for the repeated defense and the Dean sets following a recommendation of the Specialist Board, an alternate date of a repeated defense. It is also permitted to interrupt studies until the alternate defense day. Permission to interrupt studies is given by the Dean (upon the student’s request) and the interruption of studies is not counted into the whole period of studies.