To determine the effectiveness of this approach, we compared the quality of theses written by students enrolled in this course versus theses by students who simply worked one-on-one with faculty members.
To assess the quality of theses written by students in the two groups, we used BioTAP's rubric (Reynolds et al., 2009).
Some medical schools have developed student-oriented courses and programmes to overcome the perceived difficulties and improve the quality of theses and promote their publication [ 7, 8, 17].
To determine whether there were any differences in the quality of theses written by students enrolled in the course (n = 47) versus those who were not (n = 143), we compared the consensus scores for each group.
The next phase of our research will compare the quality of theses written by students who used BioTAP to engage with their faculty supervisors and readers but who did not take the course versus theses written by students who took the course structured around BioTAP.
Amongst our Editorial Board we discussed how best to support the dissemination of the summary of high-quality PhD theses in our field.
Although there is never any ultimate guarantee of the quality of a thesis, the measures taken concerning Judy's thesis are strong indicators that it warranted the award of a PhD, being comparable in standard to the hundreds of other PhDs awarded by the university every year.
Instead, ask as many undergraduates as can be collared about the accessibility of faculty; the opportunities to do independent research, design a major and write an honors thesis; quality of the library and laboratories, and availability of internships.
And finally, when you get a good result, ensure that your experimental output is up to thesis quality.
It can come in all shapes and sizes, from small disagreements about the order of experiments to massive conflagrations over the quality of the thesis and financial support.
