Dear Mr Lee

I refer to your email of 28 February 2018 and, on behalf of the University, I acknowledge receipt and confirm that your request is being dealt with in terms of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. In terms of the Act, a reply will be sent to you within 20 working days.

Yours sincerely,
Iain Gray

University Data Protection Officer
University of Aberdeen

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Dear Michael Lee

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST FOI 2018-082

I refer to your emails of 28 February 2018 and of 12 March 2018, requesting information relating to Viva success/failure rate for PhD students at the University of Aberdeen for each academic year from 2006 to 2016.

Your request has now been considered under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, ‘the Act’.

1) The total number of viva examinations that took place for that school's students for that year.
2) The total number of viva examinations in which a student successfully passed.
3) Total that failed (please count conversion to MSc as a failure).

and with the following clarifications with respect to your request:

1) Please only consider statistics regarding PhD students and disregard any other form of award that undergoes viva examinations (e.g. EngD, etc).
2) Please count any resubmission result as part of its own category and do not include it in the failure category.

I have provided the relevant information in the attached document - (20180324 FOI2018-082.pdf)

Please note that we log the results for vivas as 'Successfully Passed', 'Passed with Corrections' and 'Fail'- these are the categories I have provided.

Should you be dissatisfied with this response, you have the right under the Act to request a review. A request for review must be made within 40 working days of the date of this reply. It must include your name and address for correspondence and specify the request for information and the grounds for dissatisfaction with the decision. Please send your request for review to our mailbox, [University of Aberdeen request email]. The University will respond to your request for a review within 20 working days of receipt of your request.

If you are unhappy with the outcome of the University’s internal review, you have the right to appeal to the Scottish Information Commissioner within six months of the date of receipt of the University’s review notice. Details on how to make an appeal to the Commissioner are available at www.itspublicknowledge.info/Appeal. Should you remain dissatisfied with the Commissioner’s decision, you have a right of appeal to the Court of Session on a point of law.

Yours sincerely,

Lorna Maguire
University Records Manager
Email: [University of Aberdeen request email]

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