Dear All,

I have passed my viva with major correction to be done no later than 6 montths. I have submitted my corrections and I now have been waiting for the results for almost 3 months. I did all the corrections required except one that was not possible although I tried and the reason is that I found there is an ethical breach on my research if I did this particular correction. So if examiners here or PhD students know if this would be okay to not some of the corrections and my examiners wont fail me because of that?

Any reply would be really appricaited!

Best,
Nanaly

You're worrying too much. It's perfectly fine to not have done all the corrections, as long as you provided justification. You should chase up the outcome, it's been long enough now.

Dear TreeofLife,
Your reply made my day to be honest. I thank you for your support. I tried to chase the the examiners and then I stopped as my research exams office and suggested not to annoy the examiners and they might get upset. Although I have now been financially affected and my employer wanted the outcome last Monday.

That's good to know :) Don't chase the examiners yourself, you're not supposed to do that, ask the research office or someone to do it for you. 3 months is a long time to be waiting. Although I guess if that's normal for your uni they won't want to chase them.

I am sorry I did not make this clearer I did not chase them by mysefl. It is the office themselves who did this on my behalf . I have been told that the EE is still examining my revisions.

Well, after thinking I'd officially retired from this forum, here I am again. :-)

What is the "ethical" nature of this correction you feel you cannot adhere to and what is your justification?

I agree wit "Tree of Life" here in that if you feel you cannot do the correction for ethical reasons, you need to provide a solid justification.

It is okay to approach the registrars or (if you feel it is more appropriate) supervisors at your University to ask about progress with the review of your corrections. Three months is a long time, though practically speaking University staff will be busier during term time.

Message me if it is private.


Ian

I've seen your Private Message. Looking also at the above, my understanding is some of your data has been gained in confidence from, let's say, survey subjects.

If the examiner is actually asking to see data in the thesis that reveals the identities of your survey subjects, this is unethical unless the survey subjects have given express, unambiguous permission for their identities to be used.

If the data is, say 52% of subjects disagree with a certain position and 48% agree out of a large sample size of say 500 people, I don't see the relevance of revealing identities and don't see that as practical anyway.

Is he, say, after a list of actual names with responses listed alongside in the thesis? You might want to check against the Data Protection Act to see if this is even legal without permission. The thesis itself my be subject to the Data Protection Act and not be available for public viewing. I would check the legal situation if this is what they want.

Listing of subjects "1" to "500" should be okay, with actual names locked away.

If a small number of subjects have agreed to more in depth interviews for case studies, I see why identities might be relevant for follow-up work once your project is finished. But again, permission has to be given.

Also, if people have moved on and are no longer in contact, how can you chase them up for permission?

Is it a case of examiners glancing at the raw data with names as a verification, but the data without names going into the thesis? That might be okay as long as the names aren't published or copied by the examiners.

I know this is general not knowing what your project is, but I hope I've helped in some way.


Ian

Hi Ian,

Thank you for the informative reply. He does not want to see the names of the participants, and I did not enclose any details about my subjects in my thesis for example their names, their identity are completely coded. However, I also cannot collect their personal data such as their tests scores in their university and use it in my thesis without their' permission. I have only their consent to interview them and to fill out the questionnaires. Now it is very hard to get hold of them as they have already graduated 2 years ago. So is my justification strong?

Best wishes
Nanaly