Zhongnan University of Economics and Law Doctoral and Master's Degree Thesis Review Management Method (Trial Implementation)

Chapter 1: General Provisions

Article 1: In order to further standardize the review of doctoral and master's degree theses at our university, effectively enhance the quality of these theses, and improve the system for quality assurance and supervision of degree and graduate education, this method is formulated in accordance with the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the State Council's Overall Plan for Deepening Educational Evaluation Reforms in the New Era, the Ministry of Education, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance's Opinions on Accelerating the Reform and Development of Graduate Education in the New Era (Jiao Yan [2020] No. 9), the State Council's Degree Committee, the Ministry of Education's Several Opinions on Further Strictly Regulating the Quality Management of Degree and Graduate Education (Jiao Yan [2020] No. 19), and in line with the spirit of relevant documents from our university and its actual situation.

Article 2: The Office of the Academic Degree Evaluation Committee of the University (hereinafter referred to as Degree Office), under the leadership of the University's Academic Degree Evaluation Committee, is responsible for organizing, supervising, inspecting, and coordinating the review work of doctoral and master's degree theses for each training unit. Each training unit, under the leadership of the Degree Evaluation Subcommittee (hereinafter referred to as Subcommittee) and led by the person in charge of graduate work, organizes graduate work secretaries and other relevant personnel to be responsible for the specific work related to the review of doctoral and master's degree theses.

The university establishes a university-level expert group for guiding the quality of graduate degree theses (hereinafter referred to as the university-level guidance group), mainly undertaking the responsibilities of supervising, inspecting, and evaluating the quality of doctoral theses. Each training unit establishes a college-level expert group for guiding the quality of graduate degree theses (hereinafter referred to as the college-level guidance group), mainly undertaking the responsibilities of supervising, inspecting, and evaluating the quality of master's theses.

Chapter 2: Submission Conditions

Article 3: Doctoral and master's degree candidates of our university must meet the following conditions before they can submit their thesis for review:

(i) As verified by the Graduate School's Training Office, completion and satisfaction of the related requirements of the graduation process.

(ii) The thesis must have passed the pre-defense, text-copy ratio review, and format standardization review prior to the defense.

(iii) Agreement for submission must be obtained from the supervisor and the supervisory team.

Article 4: Before the submission of doctoral and master's theses, the supervisor, supervisory team, and training unit must strictly review and ensure the quality of the theses submitted for review. The supervisor is the primary person responsible for the quality of doctoral and master's theses. Before submission, the supervisor and supervisory team should carefully review and strictly control the quality, and clearly sign their agreement or disagreement to the submission. Each training unit must establish a related pre-review system, strengthen the pre-review inspection before the submission of the thesis, and ensure the quality of the thesis before submission.

Chapter 3: Review Methods

Article 5: The review of doctoral and master's degree theses is divided into two methods: double-blind review and non-double-blind review. Double-blind review means that the degree candidates and their supervisors are anonymous to the review experts, and vice versa. Non-double-blind review means that the degree candidates and their supervisors are not anonymous to the review experts.

Article 6: The Degree Office is responsible for conducting double-blind reviews of doctoral theses. The Degree Office delegates to the Degree Thesis Quality Monitoring Platform of the Ministry of Education's Degree and Graduate Education Development Center (hereinafter referred to as the Thesis Quality Monitoring Platform) to randomly match at least three external experts or doctoral supervisors with the same or similar academic fields as the candidate to conduct the blind review. Before the double-blind review, the thesis supervisor may propose a list of experts to avoid reviewing the thesis they supervised (limited to 3 people).

Article 7: The Degree Office is responsible for conducting random double-blind reviews of master's theses. The Degree Office delegates to the Thesis Quality Monitoring Platform to randomly match at least three external experts or master's supervisors with the same or similar academic fields as the candidate to conduct the random double-blind review. Before the double-blind review, the thesis supervisor may propose a list of experts to avoid reviewing the thesis they supervised (limited to 3 people).

Article 8: The random double-blind review of master's theses includes two methods: random review and focused review. Random double-blind reviews should randomly select theses from secondary disciplines at a rate of no less than 30%. The focused review mainly targets candidates applying for master's degrees who are from new specialties, supervised by new supervisors, those who have been disciplined, those supervised by a supervisor with more than six graduate students in the current year, those supervised by a supervisor whose previous year's thesis had quality issues, those with a text-copy ratio over 15% in the pre-defense review, single-degree master's candidates, master's students exceeding the standard study period, and other candidates who need to be randomly reviewed according to work needs.

Article 9: The review of confidential doctoral and master's theses, whose procedures have been processed according to the secrecy protocol, should follow the university's regulations related to confidential graduate students and confidential theses. If the National Education Steering Committee for Professional Degree Graduate Students has specific regulations for the review of professional doctoral and master's theses, those regulations should be followed. The review of theses by international students and students from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan should refer to the university's regulations on degree granting and management of international graduate students.

Article 10: Members of the candidate's supervisory team, cooperative supervisors, and part-time supervisors cannot serve as reviewers of the candidate's thesis.

Article 11: Before the submission of the thesis for review, the training unit to which the candidate belongs should compile and prepare the pre-review materials as required, and must submit them to the Degree Office before the specified date. The training unit can arrange for the graduate student to participate in the defense only after all review reports have been returned and the review results are satisfactory. If the expert review reports cannot be returned in time within the specified period, the Degree Office and the training units may add an equal number of experts to conduct the review according to the original submission method.

Chapter 4: Handling of Review Conclusions

Article 12: Based on the scores given in the expert review reports (hereinafter referred to as “S”), the review conclusions for doctoral (master's) degree theses are divided into four grades: A, B, C, and D. Specifically: Grade A (S ≥ 85 points); Grade B (70 points ≤ S < 85 points); Grade C (60 points ≤ S < 70 points); Grade D (S < 60 points).

Article 13: The usage rules for the double-blind review conclusions of doctoral theses are as follows:

(i) Initially, the thesis is sent to 3 experts. If all review results are Grade B or above, it is a pass in the double-blind review, and the candidate can participate in the thesis defense.

(ii) If there is at least one Grade C and no Grade D in the review results, university-level guidance group experts will conduct a comprehensive assessment of the thesis quality based on the double-blind review experts' opinions, and conclude either “double-blind review passed, agree to make certain modifications and participate in the defense after review by the supervisor and supervisory team,” “requires substantial revisions before re-review due to significant shortcomings relative to doctoral thesis requirements,” or “cannot participate in the defense due to major discrepancies from doctoral thesis requirements.”

(iii) If there is at least one Grade D in the review results, the thesis generally requires substantial revisions and the defense must be postponed for at least half a year. If the degree candidate and supervisor have significant disagreements with some expert conclusions due to academic disputes or other special reasons, the candidate may apply for a re-review. The request must be made in writing within one week of the announcement of the blind review results, detailing the reasons for the re-review, and submitted to the university-level guidance group after review by the supervisor, supervisory team, and college subcommittee. The university-level guidance group experts will conduct a comprehensive assessment and conclude either “requires substantial revisions before re-review due to significant shortcomings relative to doctoral thesis requirements” or “cannot participate in the defense due to major discrepancies from doctoral thesis requirements.”

(iv) For theses where the university-level guidance group experts conclude “requires substantial revisions before re-review,” the candidate must make substantive changes to the thesis, pass the pre-defense text copy ratio review and format standardization review again, and, after review and approval by the supervisor and supervisory team, submit to the subcommittee for record before participating in a re-review organized by the Degree Office. In the re-review, if the opinions of the two additional experts are both Grade B or above, the re-review is passed, and the candidate can participate in the thesis defense. Otherwise, the re-review is not passed, and the defense must be postponed for half a year.

(v) If there are two or more Grade D results in the review, the defense must be postponed for at least one year.

Article 14: The usage rules for the double-blind review conclusions of master's theses are as follows:

(i) Initially, the thesis is sent to 3 experts. If all review results are Grade B or above, it is a pass in the double-blind review, and the candidate can participate in the thesis defense.

(ii) If there is at least one Grade C and no Grade D in the review results, college-level guidance group experts will conduct a comprehensive assessment of the thesis quality based on the double-blind review experts' opinions, and conclude either “double-blind review passed, agree to make certain modifications and participate in the defense after review by the supervisor and supervisory team,” “requires substantial revisions before re-review due to significant shortcomings relative to master's thesis requirements,” or “cannot participate in the defense due to major discrepancies from master's thesis requirements.”

(iii) If there is at least one Grade D in the review results, the thesis generally requires substantial revisions and the defense must be postponed for at least half a year. If the degree candidate and supervisor have significant disagreements with some expert conclusions due to academic disputes or other special reasons, the candidate may apply for a re-review. The request must be made in writing within one week of the announcement of the blind review results, detailing the reasons for the re-review, and submitted to the college-level guidance group after review by the supervisor, supervisory team, and subcommittee. The college-level guidance group experts will conduct a comprehensive assessment and conclude either “requires substantial revisions before re-review due to significant shortcomings relative to master's thesis requirements” or “cannot participate in the defense due to major discrepancies from master's thesis requirements.”

(iv) For theses where the college-level guidance group experts conclude “requires substantial revisions before re-review,” the candidate must make substantive changes to the thesis, pass the pre-defense text copy ratio review and format standardization review again, and, after review and approval by the supervisor and supervisory team, submit to the subcommittee for record before participating in a re-review arranged on the “Thesis Quality Monitoring Platform” by the college. In the re-review, if the opinions of the two additional experts are both Grade B or above, the re-review is passed, and the candidate can participate in the thesis defense. Otherwise, the re-review is not passed, and the defense must be postponed for half a year.

(v) If there are two or more Grade D results in the review, the defense must be postponed for at least one year.

Article 15: The validity period of a passed review conclusion is six months. If a candidate who has passed the thesis review does not pass the thesis defense and obtain a degree within six months, all previously passed review opinions will not be recognized, and the thesis must be re-reviewed when applying for a degree.

Article 16: The status of blind review passes for degree theses will be included in the annual assessment of the university's teaching units. Candidates and their supervisors who do not pass the blind review for a degree thesis will be reported at the university's Degree Evaluation Committee.

Chapter 5: Supplementary Provisions

Article 17: For double-blind reviews (including re-reviews) carried out by the Degree Office on behalf of the training units on the Thesis Quality Monitoring Platform, as well as reviews conducted independently by other means, the processing of review conclusions shall refer to Article 14.

Article 18: Each training unit, while adhering to the principles of these methods, may formulate detailed rules for the comprehensive evaluation of master's theses by their college-level guidance group based on the discipline characteristics and quality control requirements of master's theses of their unit. These rules shall be implemented after being recorded with the Graduate School.

Article 19: Graduate students and other relevant individuals must not interfere with the normal process of thesis review. Violations will be dealt with seriously in accordance with relevant regulations.

Article 20: The Graduate School is responsible for the interpretation of these methods.

Article 21: These methods shall come into effect from the date of publication, and the original “Methods for Double-Blind Review of Graduate Degree Theses at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law” (Zhongnan University Degree [2018] No. 8) is hereby abolished.

Supplementary Explanation to the Review Management Methods for Doctoral and Master's Degree Theses at the School of Finance, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law

Regarding Article 14 (items (ii) and (iii)) of the “Review Management Methods for Doctoral and Master's Degree Theses at the School of Finance”, the following supplementary explanations are provided:

Supplementary Explanation 1: Regarding item (ii) of Article 14. If there is at least one Grade C in the review results and no Grade D, the following conclusions will be made:

(i) If there is only one Grade C review result, or there are two Grade C results with an overall average score of not less than 70, the determination is “double-blind review passed, agree to make certain modifications and participate in the defense after review by the supervisor and supervisory team”.

(ii) If there are two Grade C results with an average score of less than 70, or there are three Grade C results with an average score of not less than 65, the determination is “requires substantial revisions before re-review due to significant shortcomings relative to master's thesis requirements”.

(iii) If there are three Grade C results with an average score of less than 65, the determination is “cannot participate in the defense due to major discrepancies from master's thesis requirements”.

(iv) For students applying for a master's degree through the 'second bachelor's degree and soldier's plan' or on the basis of equivalent academic ability, if there are three Grade C review results with an average score of less than 65, the determination is “requires substantial revisions before re-review due to significant shortcomings relative to master's thesis requirements”.

Supplementary Explanation 2: Regarding item (iii) of Article 14. If there is one Grade D in the review results, the following conclusions will be made:

(i) If the average score of the other two reviews is not less than 75, or if there is a difference of more than 40 points in the review results and the other two results are Grade B or above, the determination is “requires substantial revisions before re-review due to significant shortcomings relative to master's thesis requirements”.

(ii) In other cases, the determination is “cannot participate in the defense due to major discrepancies from master's thesis requirements”.