Program Requirements

1. Eight (3-credit hours) courses at the 500 or 600 level, in the discipline, excluding independent studies. In addition, two (3-credit hours) courses at the five-hundred or six-hundred level from the Technology Management Department are required to satisfy the Information Technology Globalization Track requirement. Only courses with at least B grade can be counted towards satisfying the course requirements.
2. A two-semester teaching practice requirement (3 credit hours each), for which students are to register with no fees. The students will be expected to teach lower undergraduate level classes, and/or assist professors as teaching assistants (i.e., perform a significant teaching role), thus giving Ph.D. graduates experience for an academic teaching career.
3. At least 15 semester hours of dissertation research, culminating in a dissertation proposal defense and dissertation defense.
4. Comprehensive examination: written and oral (proposal defense).
5. Publication of at least two journal papers, or one journal paper and two refereed conference papers, within the course of the Ph.D. topic research. These publications are not required to be single-authored by the student and they might be co-authored with members of the dissertation committee. The journals and conferences are expected to meet quality metrics established by the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

Both full and part-time students are encouraged to apply for the Ph.D. degree, which should be completed within a maximum of seven calendar years. A Ph.D. student (part-time or full-time) is expected to devote the necessary time to courses and research to make satisfactory progress toward the degree. Satisfactory progress includes active participation in the research and teaching environment of the School of Engineering. The student advisor and dissertation committee should advise the student as to her/his progress in the program. Full-time students are required to register for at least 9 credit hours each semester while part-time students are required to register for at least 6 credit hours per academic year (spring and fall semesters).

A Ph.D. candidate must complete at least 30 credit hours of course work, not including the dissertation, beyond the MSc. degree. Upper level undergraduate remedial courses cannot be used to fulfill the course work requirement.

A Ph.D. student is expected to maintain a G.P.A. of 3.0 or more. If the G.P.A. falls below 3.0, the student is automatically placed on probation. Continued probationary status for two semesters may lead to dismissal of the candidate from the program. No grade less than B is acceptable towards the course work requirement.

A Ph.D. student is expected to present her/his research findings in public seminars. S/he is also expected to interact and participate in professional discussions and meetings such as conferences and workshops. To fulfill these requirements, a Ph.D. student is expected to present one seminar before the dissertation defense. The seminar of his/her research topic for the dissertation serves as the oral (proposal defense) part of the comprehensive exam. The Ph.D. Director awards a Pass/Fail grade after consultation with the Ph.D. director student’s dissertation advisor. The student is required to register for one seminar course.

Ph.D. candidates are required to finish a set of 4 courses out of a list of 7 core courses. The Department of Computer Science and Engineering publishes a list of core courses every two years. The list is available through the Ph.D. Program Director. For the academic year, 2017 – 2018, the list of core courses include CPSC 606 Quantum Computing, CPEG 585 Computer Vision, CPEG 560 Advanced Robotics, CPSC 590 Parallel Processing, CPEG 562 Cryptography and Cryptanalysis, CPEG 547 Field Programmable Gate Arrays and CPSC 552 Data Mining.

One of the major checkpoints in the Ph.D. program that assesses the breadth and depth of the student is the written and oral (proposal defense) comprehensive examination. Passing the Written Comprehensive Examination is granted when the student achieves at least a 3.5 GPA in the 4 core courses with at least B grade in each course.

The seminar requirement represents the oral (proposal defense) section of the exam. The outcome of this examination will be of fail or pass. A student can re-take this examination no more than once. A student who does not pass the comprehensive examination in two attempts will be dismissed from the program.

After selecting a dissertation advisor, the student is required to define a problem of merit, carry out a literature search and prepare a course of action to solve the selected problem. The candidate is expected to produce a dissertation proposal. The dissertation advisor in consultation with the Ph.D. program Director, recommends a dissertation committee for the student. The dissertation committee includes at least three members in addition to the dissertation advisor. At least four members of the dissertation committee must be from a professorial rank within the school. Additionally, an external examiner is appointed as well. It is expected that the dissertation Supervisor and at least 50% of the committee membership has to be from professorial ranks of the Computer Science and Engineering Department. The external examiner is one whom has been distinguished in the field of computer science and engineering. S/he might not hold a professorial rank. Ph.D. Program Director and the Dean of the School of Engineering must then approve the dissertation committee.

When a student passes the written comprehensive examination, s/he will be admitted to Ph.D. candidacy. This serves as another significant milestone in progress towards the Ph.D. degree.

The Ph.D. program is an on-campus program that has a two years residency requirement. Residency can be demonstrated by taking on-campus classes, satisfying the teaching requirement, and attending seminars and meetings in the School of Engineering.

The student is expected to work on the accepted topic and come up with original results. S/he has to report the results in the form of a Ph.D. dissertation. The student is encouraged to document the intermediate results in the form of technical reports. S/he is also encouraged to publish these results as they are discovered, in the international professional literature, i.e., refereed conference proceedings and journals. Proof of good work is the acceptance of the results by reputed journals. Intermediate results can also be discussed in departmental seminars. The completed dissertation must be distributed to the dissertation committee members at least two weeks before the dissertation defense. The committee will read it and certify that the dissertation is a work of substantial merit and that it can be defended. It is the responsibility of the student that the final draft of the dissertation addresses all legitimate concerns of the committee members.

After having secured approval from the dissertation committee members regarding the worthiness of the dissertation, a student will proceed with a request for the dissertation defense examination. The chairman of the dissertation committee will chair the examination. The student will schedule a convenient time for a public defense. It is the responsibility of the student to find a time that is suitable to all the members of the dissertation committee, at least two weeks before the defense. At the end of the defense, the decision of the dissertation committee will be pass or fail. It is the responsibility of the dissertation advisor to see that the comments and the criticism of the audience are addressed adequately in the final version of the dissertation. Based on the recommendation of the dissertation committee, the Ph.D. Director, and the Departmental Chairman, the Dean of the School of Engineering will recommend the Ph.D. degree subject to the satisfaction of all other formal requirements.