Upon YÖK decision dated on 31 March 2020 and with 75850160-104.01.02.04-E.24625 reference number, Article 2/c which states that thesis defence and qualification exam can be held online using digital tools provided that it is conducted in an auditable environment and recorded, and alternatively it is possible to postpone defence and qualification exam to future dates or to freeze this semester, GAU Institute of Graduates Studies and Research has met on-line and made a below decisions accordingly;

1- Upon request master degree and PhD defenses can be held either on-line or face to face.

- For on-line defense meetings, the last date of the thesis defence application is extended until 15th May 2020, Frida,  and the last date for on-line thesis defence is 12 June 2020 Friday as announced previously by the Institute of Graduate Studies and Research,

- The deadline for application for face to face thesis defence is Friday, 31 July 2020 and the last date of thesis defence is Tuesday, 01 September 2020, 

- Online Thesis Defense meetings are required to be recorded, and the Zoom ID and Password of the host of the meeting will be provided on the revised forms including Thesis Submission and Defense Request Form, Thesis Defense Jury Schedule Form and Thesis Defense Report Form.

- If thesis supervisor and jury members have e-signature, they must sign the forms, otherwise forms are going to be signed and submitted to the Institute after the normalization of life 

- With or without e-signature, all forms should be sent to the Institute to laleguvenli@gau.edu.tr 

- All jury members and the students’, who are going to defend their thesis online, should be informed that the defence is going to be recorded,

- Unrecorded thesis defences’ are going to be considered as invalid by the Institute of Graduate Studies and Research,

- If there is a need to screen the recorded meetings, it should be done under the supervisors control and a staff from the Institute,

- Before the thesis defence, a member from the Institute Board is going to be log in to the on-line defence to check if the jury members are fully available, to give directions about the on-line procedure and log out from the defence,

- After the on-line thesis defense, the comments about the thesis must be recorded verbally and at the same time all the comments must be written to the Thesis Defense Report,

- In order to put the thesis grade on the system, both recorded on-line thesis defence and the Thesis Defence Report must be submitted to the Institute of Graduate Studies and Research.

2- Thesis monitoring can be held online

3- Qualification exam;

- For students who demand to attend an online qualification exam, the exam will be held.  

- Recording on-line qualification exam and informing this to the students,

- Written exam which is done in normal conditions, is going to be held as an oral exam in case it is on-line, 

- Students who prefer to have the face to face exam, must sit to qualification exam until, Tuesday 1st September 2020

- Students can freeze the semester if they do not want to take the exam.