What happens after the viva

After your viva, you may be required to make corrections to your thesis and have these approved by your internal examiner before submitting the final version. 

Please see the Guide to the thesis submission process on Postgraduate research policies and procedures.

Referral and resubmission

See Resubmit your research degree after a referral

Correcting your thesis

If your examiners recommended that your research degree be awarded subject to editorial and presentational corrections, or minor deficiencies, the award cannot be confirmed until the internal examiner is satisfied that the required corrections have been carried out to a satisfactory standard. 

After successful examination you should begin to prepare the final version of your thesis by undertaking any corrections and returning these to your internal examiner within the following time period: 

• for editorial & presentational corrections: four weeks from the date of the viva  
• for minor deficiencies: 12 weeks from the date of the viva  

Individual pages of the thesis must be fully corrected, and it is not possible to simply provide an errata page. You are advised to consult with your supervisory team throughout this process. The internal examiner does not take a supervisory role during the correction period.  They may, however, provide clarification of the corrections required. If you are unclear about any of the minor deficiencies requiring correction you must seek clarification promptly, and at an early point in the correction period. You should consult with your supervisors in the first instance and, if appropriate, your supervisors may contact the internal examiner for further clarification. 

If you experience any problems completing and returning the corrections to your internal examiner by the relevant deadline, please talk to your Graduate School. If appropriate, you can apply for an extension to the corrections period via the Change Requests in GRAD. 

Approval of corrections

You should submit your corrections to your internal examiner for checking, along with information outlining what corrections you have made. This could be in the form of tracked changes or as a separate list. Please check with your internal examiner what format they would prefer. 

Once the internal examiner has approved the corrections (possibly after consultation with the external examiner) they will confirm this, and your final thesis can be submitted to White Rose Etheses Online.

Submission of your final ethesis

Your thesis should be submitted to White Rose Etheses Online as soon as you have heard from your internal examiner; you should not wait to hear from Doctoral College Operations. See Submit your final eThesis. 

Appealing your award 

See Understand viva outcomes

Publication of the Pass List

See Get your research degree and graduate

Losing IT access 

Your IT account (including access to email, eduroam, library systems, Minerva, m:drive, Office365 and more) will stop working 90 days after the date your name appears on the pass list. You will receive an email with the exact date this will happen. You should prepare for this by letting people know about your change of email address and discussing with your supervisor arrangements for deposit of any research data (which should be covered by your Data Management Plan).

Checklist for finishing 

The checklist below is intended to help you when you finish your research degree. Although not all points in the checklist may apply to you, please work through this list with your supervisor to ensure that you have checked all the important points for you and your degree.