The purpose of this paper is to review the issues and challenges associated with examining PhD theses in the modern, rapidly changing academic world. The PhD degree has been described as the “pinnacle of academic qualifications”, but it is under threat in terms of the quality of supervision and the outcome of examinations. By bringing the issues into the open and discussing them, more can be done to safeguard the health of the modern doctorate.,This paper reviews the mainstream academic literature on doctoral degrees from the point of view of the origin and development of the contemporary PhD. Then it offers some reflections on supervision, examination, standards of judgement, benchmarking of results and different routes to the doctorate. The pressures upon the modern university are related to issues encountered in examining doctoral theses.,In modern neo-liberal environments, the PhD degree is under pressure in terms of its quality and rigour. This paper offers a simple conceptual model of the challenges involved in ensuring the quality of PhD examinations and their outcomes. Priorities for the various stakeholders are suggested to ensure that PhD research continues to set the “gold standard” for excellence.,Recognising and confronting the problems with the modern PhD and how it is examined will help guarantee the quality of the degree. A more open debate on the pressures under which supervision and examinations are conducted will help establish rules or guidelines for conduct.,There are remarkably few evaluations of the PhD examination process, which in recent years has become increasingly problematic. The authors adopt a comprehensive approach to the issues and relate them to the societal context in which universities are developing.

中文翻译：

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压力下的博士系统：考官的观点

本文的目的是回顾在当今瞬息万变的学术世界中研究博士学位论文的相关问题和挑战。博士学位被描述为“学术资格的顶峰”，但它在监督质量和考试结果方面受到威胁。通过公开讨论这些问题，可以做更多的工作来维护现代博士学位的健康。然后，它对监督，检查，判断标准，结果基准和通往博士学位的不同途径提供了一些思考。现代大学所面临的压力与审查博士论文时遇到的问题有关。在现代新自由主义环境中，博士学位的质量和严格性受到压力。本文为确保博士学位考试质量及其结果所涉及的挑战提供了一个简单的概念模型。建议各利益相关者优先考虑，以确保博士研究继续为卓越树立“黄金标准”。认识和面对现代博士所面临的问题以及如何对其进行审查将有助于保证学位的质量。关于监督和考试压力的更公开的辩论将有助于建立行为的规则或准则。几乎没有对博士考试过程的评估，这近年来变得越来越成问题。