Bharathidasan University has brought research programmes in the ambit of online technology by deciding to hold all meetings related to Ph.D. in the virtual platform, in view of COVID-19 pandemic.
Having set a precedent by launching online initiative early on to utilise digital space effectively for continuity of academic programmes through virtual classes by disseminating best practices of eLearning by the university departemnts, Vice-Chancellor P. Manisankar has extended the initiative to research programmes to benefit more than 7,000 scholars.
Faculties of Science, Engineering and Technology, Languages, Arts, Management and faculties of other disciplines should get their act together to offer a solution to the research scholars who were in a fix due to the requirement to go through many meetings on a periodic basis during the course of their doctorate programme, Registrar Gopinath Ganapathy said in a press release.
About 300 scholars have been awaiting public vice voce examinations since March. Many scholars are yet to complete the Doctoral Committee (DC) meetings which were partial requirements of research programme. These scholars, Research Advisors, Doctoral Committee members and other stake holders are now a relieved lot.
The Research Section of BDU will henceforth permit the Research Advisors to convene all the meetings related to PhD - Right from Registration to Results declaration online.
Initially, the corresponding Departments convene the Department Research Committee (DRC) for offering admission to all scholars. Then they need to undergo Doctoral Committee (DC) meetings convened by the respective Research Advisors (RA). Prior to submission of thesis the scholars need to submit the synopsis in a forum with a minimum of 30 attendees. Finally, the scholars would defend their theses and research work in a Viva-Voce examination publicly with a minimum of 30 attendees, Prof. Gopinath Ganapathy said.
All these meetings are now switched to online platform with immediate effect. Research Supervisors are instructed to use any online virtual meeting tools such as Zoom or Google Meet or Microsoft teams or Cisco Webex any tools of their choice, the Registrar said.
As a proof, the Supervisors and the Scholars must record the whole meeting and submit the same in a memory drive for further verification. Usually, the signatures of all attendees would be considered as a proof for the veracity of the meeting. Instead of signatures, the video recording would be considered as a proof with the list of participants as it is one of the features of the online tool itself.
However, all other documents have to be submitted to Research Section only in the form of hard copies, the Registrar said.
