We may speculate on what a satisfactory solution of the problem within the confines of UNIMARC could consist in. If we accept Freedman’s diagnosis that the contribution of <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rend="italic">praeses</hi> and <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rend="italic">respondens</hi> to the content of the dissertation is is in the majority of cases not clear, the most accurate strategy seems to consist in coding both roles as ‘individuals related to the work in an unspecified manner’. I anticipate that this might not be a feasible solution, since a work should have an author (even an anonymous one). However, the attribution of author roles to both <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rend="italic">praeses</hi> and <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rend="italic">respondens</hi> or the distinction between ‘thesis supervisor’ and ‘author’ or ‘author’ and ‘opponent’ may not be correct for some works either. Thinking outside the box, the most desirable outcome would be a change of the standard acommodating these particular roles in early modern dissertations, although this is probably not a realistic expectation and would still leave us with legacy data not taking the distinction into account.