PhD thesis. Instructions for clearing scientific stubs. Part 2

A huge amount of documents. Electronic resources are buggy and fall. Secretariat instructions are contradictory and incomplete. All this increases the time required for the formation of the final set of documents required for admission of the thesis to the defense. Why is it worth cooking as soon as possible? Here are the specific reasons.
Suppose you are not the cadre of your supervisor, and he is not the cronies of the chairman of the Dissovet. Even worse, if you defend yourself not in the advice of your university, but somewhere on the side. You are competing with the comrades and “your people” of the dissovet where you are going to defend yourself. Their number is never exactly known. Do not think that the dissovet rubber is protected and everything is protected there. The number of places for protection is limited. This is especially dangerous in the pre-New Year period. You may simply not be accepted, because all protection dates may already be distributed a few months in advance. Consequently, the date of protection will transfer, and you will fall under the punitive reforms of the Higher Attestation Commission (read in one of the stumps). Looking ahead to say that theoretically you can not defend at all. Even with the finished dissertation on hand.

Tip: the protection schedule can be made several weeks / months in advance. Hurry to write disser, prepare all documents as soon as possible. The sooner a dissovet will make plans for your defense, the better. And he will start building these plans when you demonstrate: everything is ready, it remains to refine minor details.

At the preparatory stage for the thesis, you will have to work with a huge amount of various papers. The tempted ones will confirm that it takes weeks / months of continuous bureaucratic work to execute paperwork. And 99% of the paperwork is done by you personally, and this is exactly what most of the time is spent on. Filling out forms, applications, cover letters ... The information you have to enter the same, but in different forms! And the form of these unbelievable amounts! It is impossible to imagine the scale of this disaster, just looking at the list of necessary documents.
That's not all! In parallel, HAC is developing electronic document management. At a minimum, this means for the dissertation student the need to scan all documents in the file. So what? Is it difficult? It is difficult, because, as a rule, your business is not kept in your hands. It lies in the secretariat, where long lines of people can be lined up, who also “just pick up the case” (a separate stump is devoted to this problem of queuing). You can say: what problems? As soon as all documents are ready, I will scan them all entirely!
It is not always possible to wait for all documents before scanning. The fact is that in the electronic system VAK can be regulated when you need to upload documents. A simple example: reviews - before protection, transcript - after protection. The date of sending electronic scans is recorded by VAK. So if you please:
• defend in a long line to the secretarial;
• pick up the case;
• pull reviews;
• scan reviews;
• defend in a long line to return the case, as they are obliged to do so;
• to defend in a long line to the scientific secretary of the council;
• pass scans to him. Only an academic secretary can send an e-mail to VAK.

How many such trips do you need? Well, before the reviews you need to submit a review of the supervisor, scans of preliminary meetings of the council ... You may be required to submit it at a specific time, and you will have to stand in lines again and again.

Tips:
• Prepare yourself for the ordeal: preparing documents for the protection of your disar. You are exhausted by the difficult stages of pre-defense. They are over, but new adventures are ahead. This time bureaucratic. Do not relax! Keep the pace of total immersion. Suppose you have passed the most crucial stage - pre-defense, but you are not a candidate yet. It is necessary to have time to get into the cage of the defenders.
• Buy yourself a good MFP with a large supply of paper and cartridges. Even if you print at work. The home device will save you from surprises associated with forgotten documents, sudden corrections of documents, etc.
• Prepare documents as quickly as possible! Everything that can be prepared in advance - must be prepared in advance. Prepare documents related to the post-protection stage even before protection. So you will save a huge amount of time.
• Meet! As already noted, you will have to stand in line. Chat with people. It may happen that you will stand next to a successfully defended dissertation. And he will be happy to share with you his invaluable experience in submitting documents.

There is a secretariat of the Institute and the Council. The first collects the documents of all the defending dissertationists. The second is responsible for the interaction of a particular dissovet with the dissertation. The word “secretary” is captivating - it may begin to seem that the secretaries are ready to answer any questions and will help you in every way.
No matter how!
And it's not that people are bad. The point rather in the conditions in which they operate. As a rule, one secretary must interact with hundreds of candidates for thesis. That is, he is very overloaded with work. As a rule, the secretary does not have optimism and willingness to cooperate with the "next" (you). Be prepared to meet irritation in response to your request for clarification.
As already mentioned, long queues can line up to the secretaries. The reason was also named above: one secretary and a huge number of applicants. Analogy: Imagine that the only grocery store in the area. It is located near the subway. You need to buy meat after work. You go to this store ... Then, finally coming home, you realize that you forgot to buy bread. Go back and stand in line again ... Then again at home you remember that you forgot to buy something else. And so on. And the cashier who serves you is open from morning until late evening every day. No shift.
To go to the secretaries for advice, of course, have to. Reduce the number of these hikes to a minimum as follows:
• List all questions to the secretaries. Asking, be guided by this list. Perhaps the secretary will be mad at you. In such an environment, questions are easily forgotten.
• Work through each piece of paper as much as possible. Overcome disgust for this case. If you have something in doubt (even on trifles) - add to the list of questions. As in the development cycle - the sooner you find and correct a mistake, the lower the costs of it.
• Ask the secretary for sample documents. The ideal option is to photograph documents of already defended predecessors. Also ask for the maximum number of electronic forms.
• It is better to walk rarely, but to ask a lot of questions than to walk often and ask a little. Do not "pull" scientific secretaries.
• Get to know people who have already defended a thesis or successfully completed the documents you are working on. The easiest way to do this in the queue (everyone is bored). Do not be limited to one person, let them be as much as possible. In principle, you can ensure that the secretaries only carry documents for signature. All questions will be answered by experienced comrades in turn.
• Do not call by phone. This is more annoying than personal attendance.
• Reception hours are not dogma. Usually secretaries are at work all the time. If you have a crisis situation, you can arrange an appointment at non-reception hours. But do not abuse it.
• Do not forget to give gifts to the secretaries for the holidays.
• Wear a suit that looks solid and beautiful. And you will be more willing to communicate with secretaries.

Recall the failures of public service sites. With sites related to the disser, the situation is even worse. The official site of VAK very often falls. Especially at the end of the year, when many refer to it. On this site may hang an announcement of protection (for master's theses). You need to file it, and then print it out. At the crucial moment (the documents needed to be submitted yesterday!) The site is falling, and you cannot place an ad. And it should be posted for a month for protection or so. Without this, they will not let you do the newsletter. Well, if you have a few months left. And what if it was necessary to send the abstract yesterday? A fallen site will burn several of your nerve cells and put it in a state of obscurity (when will it be repaired ?!)
For open disers there is still a requirement to register with CITIT. For some reason, you can fill out the form only online. Later the form is printed and served as a piece of paper. Nobody needs the electronic version! But you must fill it in online. Edit? Also online! Now imagine: you have all the documents ready (which you had to submit yesterday)! But you need to make a small right in the CITIS form. You type the site address in the browser ... The site is loading ... it is loading ... and it pleases you with a message about preventive maintenance!

Tip: the first thing is to perfectly arrange all the documents, the filling of which in any way depends on Internet resources.

The HAC does not sit still, but periodically issues new resolutions. These decisions tighten the position of the dissenters. Here are a few areas of tightening:
• The time required between the submission of documents (or the preliminary meeting of the council, the submission of an application, etc.) and the thesis defense may be extended. Previously, the author's abstract had to be sent out a month before the defense. This term can be increased by the next resolution. As a result, you will not be included in the list of defenders, and the defense will be postponed to a later time. During this time, anything can happen;
• it will become mandatory to use various online resources for publications and registering a thesis. The more such resources, the higher the probability that one of them will fall and the deadlines for preparing a package of documents will fall short;
• Additional pieces of paper will be introduced, the form of which is not fully approved. We'll have to redo them several times.
• close the dissovet or suspend his work. A few of my friends spent an extra year searching for a dissovet for protection, because the board that was supposed and recommended by the supervisor was closed by a decree.

Tips:
• I repeat the most important advice: prepare the documents as soon as possible! It is almost impossible to predict what troubles the next decree of the Higher Attestation Commission promises.
• Do not lick your dissertation 100% before applying to the dissovet. The main thing is to get on the list of defenders. Pre-defense can also be completed with a disper, ready for 90%. Finish in parallel with the filing of documents.