The University of Madras has decided to tighten the rules for inclusion of external examiners for reviewing Ph.D theses.
One of the rules is that of the three examiners one should be from a foreign university. The guide is the second examiner and the third examiner should be a professor from an institution other than Madras University.
Vice-Chancellor P. Duraisamy said the university had decided to adopt the 2016 regulations of the University Grants Regulations. It currently follows the 2010 regulations.
Syndicate member and head of Communications department G. Ravindran suggested that the university should take the best of the 2010 along with the best of 2016 regulations.
The V-C said the new norms were being introduced as instances of one examiner evaluating several theses in a year besides those without the requisite qualification had been noticed.
During a two-hour discussion, the professors offered various views. The V-C said the external examiner should have at least 10 years’ experience, must have published articles in at least two journals listed in the UGC in the last five years and he or she must be from an accredited institution. An examiner could be used only once a year to evaluate a doctoral thesis, he said.
Some Syndicate members said there was a bias against institutions in third world countries. They opposed the conditions as it was difficult to get examiners who had qualification in the same field. On the issue of not having sufficient journals in some subjects like social sciences or languages, Mr. Duraisamy said the professor could have published his article in any listed journal relevant to his field.
University professors, however, said the university paid very low remuneration ($150) per thesis to the foreign examiner and even this payment is delayed. “There is also an unwritten condition that the external examiner for viva be from Chennai in order to avoid incurring travel expenses,” said a Syndicate member who heads a department in an autonomous college.
“Instead of imposing such restrictions and denying the guide the right to find an examiner, the university could blacklist examiners who are found inefficient,” he suggested.
An amendment that the university is mulling is that the guide should not contact the examiner. A professor pointed out: “Usually the guide invites the examiner as he knows the person and his work.”
M. Selvaraj, principal of Guru Nanak College, said since a copy of the theses was submitted to the university it could suggest the external examiner from the bibliography of references provided by the student. “Often the student may have quoted a researcher several times in his theses. The university could select the examiner based on the reference index,” he suggested.
But the VC said there have been instances of how a person would receive a soft copy the first day and the very next day the results of the evaluation are received. He said he wanted to create benchmarks to raise the quality of Ph.D degrees.
