Hello!

My doctoral supervisor tells me that my oral thesis defence will have to be done online via Skype or FaceTime or something, since I'm in Canada, my external examiner is in the US, and my internal examiner is in the UK.

Does anyone have any experiences with doing a defence in this manner? What software or equipment did you use?

Would you recommend this approach or is it better to push for doing it in person?

Do you have any advice or anything else to share?

Thanks!

International Brigade, eh?! But how would it work, logistically, to do it in person? And might they say that this was implicitly agreed to when you started? Sorry- slightly devil's avocado ;)

Forgot to ask, how comes an 'internal' examiner is 4,000 miles away!

I've done an annual viva via skype on my laptop. It was fine. I just did a group call and kept looking at them for signs that the call was breaking up or they couldn't hear me etc. Obviously it's easier to do it in person though as you don't need to worry so much about these things.

I think it's going to be difficult getting everyone together, cost-wise and time-zones and time away etc.