{"id":1453,"date":"2026-05-25T17:02:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T17:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faculty.fiu.edu\/~jrodrig\/?page_id=1453"},"modified":"2026-05-26T22:33:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T22:33:40","slug":"d5-request-for-oral-defense","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/faculty.fiu.edu\/~jrodrig\/d5-request-for-oral-defense\/","title":{"rendered":"D5: Request for Oral Defense"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"justify-text wp-block-paragraph\">This page describes how to get preliminary approval for your dissertation and subsequent approval to hold your oral defense. The request is made to all stakeholders, the dissertation committee, the program, the college, and UGS. We referred to it as the &#8220;D5&#8221; process as shorthand. The D5 process announces that a dissertation will be completed and defended by the end of the term in which it is initiated.  The somewhat confusing deadline is necessary to allow all stakeholders time to review the dissertation, which represents a substantial body of original research, analysis, and conclusions, before approving the oral defense of the dissertation, presented to the entire committee. This is why a draft needs to be prepared before attempting this request. The draft of the dissertation does not need to be a final, polished work, but one that is &#8220;defensible&#8221;. A defensible draft needs to describe all of the research and analyses conducted, all of the error estimations are finalized, all figures and tables are included, and most importantly, the manuscript is proofed, run through as many grammar and spell checkers as needed. Also, make sure the manuscript is formatted according to FIU standards; search for samples online. Note: <strong>Do not rely on panthersoft&#8217;s PDF converter. Render pdf your self and upload that.<\/strong> Again, DO NOT initiate this request unless you plan to graduate this term. Once started, all deadlines, which are a bit confusing (see below), must be adhered to strictly. A student who successfully navigates this task will be rewarded with a freshly minted Doctoral degree, which will make his or her parents proud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"justify-text\"><strong>When:<\/strong> As soon as the student has a defensible dissertation ready but given the somewhat strict and immutable deadline, planning should start early one term before one plans to initiate the D5 process. A detailed step-by-step process is detailed below. Pay careful attention.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Step-by-step procedure:<\/strong> (<a href=\"https:\/\/gradschool.fiu.edu\/online-dissertation-milestones\/#toggle-id-3\">UGS corresponding webpage<\/a>)\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"justify-text\"><strong>Student<\/strong>: The defensible draft of the manuscript is complete and ready to submit to the advisor and committee for review. All major sections are written, proofed, and formatted close to, if not identical to, what is expected by FIU.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"justify-text\"><strong>Student: <\/strong>The student emails or hands the draft of the dissertation to his or her advisor and committee for review. This should be done before the idea of submitting the D5 flashes through your mind. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"justify-text\"><strong>Faculty Advisor:<\/strong> Once the manuscript is deemed defensible. The advisor takes the draft and submits it to FIU&#8217;s iThenticate system for review. Instructions on how to configure iThenticate are included here.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"justify-text\"><strong>Faculty Advisor: <\/strong>The advisor reviews the iThenticate output and declares, in writing, that there are no indications of plagiarism or academic misconduct. If there are large positive matches in the iThenticate report, the memo should address these and comment on how these are not indications of academic misconduct. The memo should be attached &#8220;PDF added&#8221; to the iThenticate report and emailed back for the student so that he or she can upload to Panthersoft.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"justify-text\"><strong>Student, Faculty Advisor, and Committee: This first all-important step will determine the TRIGGER date for all D5-related deadlines below. This date is NOT easily changed; if it is,<\/strong> the whole process needs to be redone. The date selected<strong> must be <\/strong>before t<strong>he last day to defend<\/strong> listed on this <a href=\"https:\/\/gradschool.fiu.edu\/calendar-deadlines\/#doctoral\">UGS webpage<\/a>. UGS determines these dates and posts them on their website every semester.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"justify-text\"><strong>Student (panthersof):<\/strong> Finally, the student initiates the request for an oral defense by selecting the &#8220;<strong>Preliminary Approval of Dissertation and Request for Oral Defense<\/strong>&#8221; in my.fiu.edu. The student uploads the <strong>Dissertation draft<\/strong> manuscript, the correctly formatted <strong>Defense announcement<\/strong>, (check the UGS website for instructions on how to create one), and the <strong>iThenticate report+memo<\/strong> sent earlier by the advisor. As the defense date, time, and place are listed in the Defense announcement, they cannot be changed without updating that document, which will require a restart of this entire process. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Student (Onestop):<\/strong> The student <strong>applies to graduate<\/strong> this term through OneStop. Check online for instructions.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"justify-text\"><strong>Faculty (panthersoft):<\/strong> The faculty review the dissertation draft carefully and approve the D5 through panthersoft. All of the required documents are available in the panthersoft form, including the announcement, the iThenticate report, and most important of all, the defensible draft of the dissertation. Approval is required by all members of the committee, including the advisor, in panthersoft. It is up to the student to ensure everyone does this in time. <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"justify-text\"><strong>GPD (panthersoft):<\/strong> The GPD reviews all of the documents in the D5 panthersoft form, but can only do this officially after everyone on the committee has approved the form first in panthersoft. Since dissertations are long documents that require a significant amount of time to read, the GPD will review drafts in parallel with the committee but only if asked by the advisor and the student ahead of time. <strong>Approval of the D5 form through panthersoft by the GPD is required no later than 4.5 weeks, NOT 3 weeks, before the defense date<\/strong>. The GPD and the college Dean need time to review the dissertation draft before approval and subsequent submission to the Graduate School.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"justify-text\"><strong>Program (GPD) Deadline:<\/strong> The deadline reported on the UGS website, 3 weeks before the defense, is immutable. But as mentioned above the GDP and the Dean of the College need to review it before it goes to UGS for approval. Thus, the 3-week deadline is actually up by 1.5 to 2 weeks. The confusion comes from the fact that this deadline is NOT fixed; instead, it is <strong>&#8220;triggered&#8221;<\/strong> by the day on which the dissertation defense is scheduled and not some fixed date every term. But it is easy to figure out: <strong>simply count 4.5 weeks back from the date that you scheduled your defense<\/strong>. That is the date that the GDP needs to have a copy of the dissertation in hand, so that he can review and approve it. Once approved by the GDP it lands on the College Dean&#8217;s desk in time so that he or she can approve it before it goes to UGS in time for <strong>their immutable 3 weeks before the defense date<\/strong> deadline. Provided below a little JavaScript to do the calculation for you, just in case you are still confused. Just enter the agreed-upon dissertation defense date in the date thingy below.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"max-width:400px;\">\n  <label>Enter your defense date here:<\/label> \n  <input type=\"date\" id=\"userDate\" onchange=\"calculateDate()\">\n\n  <p id=\"result4\" style=\"margin-top: 15px;\"><\/p>\n  <p id=\"result3\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<script>\nfunction calculateDate() {\n  const input = document.getElementById('userDate').value;\n  if (!input) return;\n\n  let selectedDate = new Date(input);\n\n  \/\/ Create separate copies so calculations don't interfere\n  let dateMinus4Weeks = new Date(selectedDate);\n  let dateMinus3Weeks = new Date(selectedDate);\n\n  \/\/ Subtract days\n  dateMinus4Weeks.setDate(dateMinus4Weeks.getDate() - 32);\n  dateMinus3Weeks.setDate(dateMinus3Weeks.getDate() - 27);\n\n  \/\/ Display results\n  document.getElementById('result4').innerText =\n    \"Dissertation draft needs to be with GPD by: \" + dateMinus4Weeks.toLocaleDateString();\n           document.getElementById('result3').innerText =\n    \"D5 Panthersoft approved by GPD by: \" + dateMinus3Weeks.toLocaleDateString();\n\n\/\/ Make 4-week result bold\n document.getElementById('result4').style.fontWeight = \"bold\";\n\n}\n<\/script>\n\n\n\n<script data-wp-block-html=\"js\">\n\n<div style=\"max-width:400px;\">\n  <label>Select a date:<\/label><br>\n  <input type=\"date\" id=\"userDate\" onchange=\"calculateDate()\">\n\n  <p id=\"result\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<script>\nfunction calculateDate() {\n  const input = document.getElementById('userDate').value;\n  if (!input) return;\n\n  let selectedDate = new Date(input);\n  selectedDate.setDate(selectedDate.getDate() - 28);\n\n  document.getElementById('result').innerText =\n    \"4 weeks before: \" + selectedDate.toLocaleDateString();\n}\n<\/script>\n\n<\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This page describes how to get preliminary approval for your dissertation and subsequent approval to hold your oral defense. The request is made to all stakeholders, the dissertation committee, the program, the college, and UGS. We referred to it as the &#8220;D5&#8221; process as shorthand. The D5 process announces that a dissertation will be completed &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.fiu.edu\/~jrodrig\/d5-request-for-oral-defense\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">D5: Request for Oral Defense<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-1453","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.fiu.edu\/~jrodrig\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.fiu.edu\/~jrodrig\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.fiu.edu\/~jrodrig\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.fiu.edu\/~jrodrig\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.fiu.edu\/~jrodrig\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1453"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.fiu.edu\/~jrodrig\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1565,"href":"https:\/\/faculty.fiu.edu\/~jrodrig\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1453\/revisions\/1565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faculty.fiu.edu\/~jrodrig\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}