At least two recent threads here have concerned the DSc, which, in some cases, is considered to be a degree that is higher than the PhD. My belief is that someone who is not internationally known as an authority in his or her field has a near-zero chance of qualifying for this higher degree. Is my belief correct? Thanks very much . . .
I believe that once upon a time I was reading through a university website (sorry, I don't remember which one) and it said that if an individual who had already earned a PhD subsequently earned a second PhD (from that school) they could have the choice of having either nomenclature (PhD v. DSc) being attached to their second Doctoral degree. If I can find the reference I'll let you know. Jack
So I decided to do a quick check and plugged"Dsc degree" into Google. Hundreds of websites came back at me, I've listed three of them below. http://hkkk.fi/~pertut/program.html http://www.scifac.ru.ac.za/saqa/dsc.htm http://www.rmuohp.edu/body_degree.html None of them are in agreement with each other and none of them are in agreement with what I said in my earlier post. From this I am happy to conclude that there is no universal definitions that adequately distinguish these two degrees. It just seems to depend on the school. Jack
In one of the other threads that discussed this, it was Jack, I believe, who made the very good point that it's extremely institution-specific... which I suspect is true in both the US and the UK. In the US, the US Department of Education (USDE) web site contains an area that explains the US educational system and lists/explains different kinds of degree designations. Doctoral program get their own page there; and both the doctor of philosophy and the doctor of science degree designations are listed there... but with no mention of one tending, as a matter of practice, to be inherently "higher" than the other. Maybe it is different in the UK... I dunno. Or maybe it's institution-specific there, too. Now... if you really want this conversation to get interesting, ask people like uncle janko (who are known to have strong feelings about it) to talk about what is and is not a "Doctor of Arts" degree!
I believe that the situation is indeed quite different in the UK -- that's why I was hoping to get some input from British academics on the question.
I understand, but just from what I remember of some of my travels through UK institutional web sites, there did seem to be some institutionally-specific variance. What may be the case is that a sufficient number of institutions all do it the same way that it's reasonable to utter the general statement that "that's how it's done in the UK." My point is that I'm not sure it's some kind of hard-and-fast rule handed down by government officials or anything like that; and that it may be more of an "as a matter of practice" sort of thing. But, again, I could be wrong. And I'm trying to avoid researching it, so I admit my opinion is based purely on anecdotal evidence... which is a bit less, it seems, than what you're looking for. Let's hope that someone extremely knowledgeable about the UK system will chime-in here and set things straight.
I certainly don't claim to be an academic, and I'm not extremely knowledgable, but as someone who has studied under the British (& Irish) system, I'll attempt to chime in! Basically the "higher" doctorates (i.e. DSc, DMus, LLD, DD etc) are assessed at a post-PhD level. Usually a candidate will have a PhD (but this is not, strictly, neccessary) or equivalent degree, and will submit evidence of significant post-doctoral level research to earn the higher doctorate, usually in the form of scholarly books published, and articles. As far as I understand it, the requirement is to show that significant research and publication has taken place beyond the level expected for a PhD. As a generalisation, there is a requirement that the candidate is already a graduate of the University in question in the same faculty (i.e., must be a BD before supplicating for DD, BSc for DSc, BMus for DMus). Most universities also allow members of staff to supplicate for higher degrees. There are some arrangements (I believe) for a graduate of one University to supplicate at another for a higher doctorate under certain conditions. Higher doctorates are more usually awarded honoris causa or jure dignitatis, and it is now fairly rare for them to be awarded, although I do know one academic who recently supplicated (successfully) for a DSc from Aberdeen (he was already a BSc, MSomething and PhD + a few other things). To put the proverbial cat among the pigeons, I do wonder at the similarities between this approach to awarding a doctorate, and the PhD by published works that Knightsbridge award? That should start some fur flying! ;-) Regards, Peter
