For opponents

The responsibilities of the opponents in relation to a digital public defence.
In addition to your regular responsibilities in relation to a public defence, some additional preparation is needed for a digital defence. Before the defence you should familiarise yourself with Zoom, which will be used for all communication purposes during the defence.

• Keep in mind that using Zoom on a Remote Desktop does not work. You must have the Zoom desktop client installed on the laptop or computer you are using. 
• You do not need to have your own Zoom licence to join a Zoom meeting. You can use the link to the Zoom meeting provided by the host of the defence.
• Make sure your microphone and camera work, and that you have a stable Internet connection.
• Two days before the defence there will be a practice session in Zoom for the candidate, the chair of the defence and a technician. If possible, you should also take part in this practice session. 
• If the candidate chooses to conduct the trial lecture as a video conference in Zoom, you must also be present for this, to evaluate the lecture. If the candidate records their trial lecture, you will be given a link to the recording, in order to watch and evaluate the trial lecture. 
• During the defence your microphone should be muted when you are not speaking, to reduce background noise. Whenever you need to speak, remember to unmute your microphone.
• During your part of the examination you may choose to share your screen in order to show material, such as slides containing questions or excerpts from the digital version of the thesis. To make this as simple as possible, we recommend that you limit yourself to as few different sources as possible, and make screenshots of the pages in the thesis that your questions pertain to, rather than jump between slides and thesis. 
• After the formal defence is finished and the audience has been invited to ask questions ex auditorio, you and the rest of the committee (and the chair of the defence if you as the committee want him/her to participate) will be sent out into a breakout session to discuss the performance of the candidate. Do not disconnect from Zoom! When the committee have reached an agreement, return to to main session by clicking "Leave Breakout Room" in the bottom right corner.
• If the candidate wants to perform their trial lecture as a live video conference, you must also take part in this over Zoom.
• If technical issues occur that simply cannot be resolved right away, the chair of the defence will pause the defence until the issues can be solved. If it still cannot be solved, the defence may need to be called off and rescheduled.
• After you have returned to the main session and the chair of the defence has announced your decision regarding the candidate, you may disconnect from Zoom.

If you have any questions please contact the AHO research administration at disputas@aho.no