For kandidaten

Important information and preparations for the PhD candidate.

Your responsibilities:
You must apply for a digital defence. You do so by contacting forskningsadministrasjon@aho.no. In doing so you must also decide if you need to use an office at AHO during your defence, or if you can conduct the defence from home or an office elsewhere.

If you need to use a blackboard during your defence, we recommend using a tablet/iPad with a pen as a virtual board, and share that screen during the Zoom session. You may be able borrow a tablet/iPad from AHO, if needed. Contact the IT department to see if that is possible for you.

Together with the the research administration and the IT department, find a suitable date and time when you and your opponents are available. For some defences a preliminary date is already agreed upon. The research administration will assign a chair of the defence and a technician to facilitate your defence.

The technician will be the host of the Zoom defence meeting, but you will be a co-host, which means you can control your own microphone and must mute/unmute yourself. During the defence, remember to share your screen to show slides or other digital material. 

Prior to your defence you should familiarise yourself with Zoom as a tool, if you have not already done so. Make sure that your microphone and video works well, and that you have access to a stable Internet connection.

Two days before the defence, you will have a practice defence in Zoom with a technician and the chair of your defence. If possible, the opponents will also take part in the practice session. 

You must either record your trial lecture prior to the defence, or set up a time for a live video conference with your opponents and the chair of the defence, so that the trial lecture can be evaluated by the opponents in advance. 

During the defence we recommend that you shut down all other programs on your laptop, so that the only things running are Zoom, a digital copy of your thesis and your presentation of your work.

Anyone who wishes to attend your defence can do so by connecting to the Zoom session using the Zoom meeting ID, and get access to your thesis. Both will be available on the defence announcement site.

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.

If you have any questions regarding your defence, please AHO research administration.