Doctor of Philosophy Official Degree Requirements - May 15, 1993

May 15, 1993

This document lists the combined requirements of the Graduate School and of the Department of Computer Science (COMP) and supersedes all previous issues. Reference is occasionally made for further details to the Graduate School Handbook (GSH). Page references are to the 1992 edition.

ADVISING

When a student enrolls, a faculty member is appointed to serve as the student's temporary program adviser. By the end of the first semester, the student should select a new adviser whose  research interests are closer to those of the student. As the student's research interests change  and narrow, he or she should change advisers as appropriate.

ADMISSION TO DOCTORAL PROGRAM

Admission to the doctoral program is by a vote of the faculty and is determined by the following: the grades on the Ph.D. qualifying exam, course grades, admissions information, accomplishment on assistantships, and other testimony from the faculty. A doctoral student is expected to receive a grade of at least H- in at least half of the courses taken.

COURSES

Each student must complete (by passing, by special examination, by transfer of credit, or by  waiving) the Ph.D. core courses. The Ph.D. core consists of the M.S. core plus 321.

COMP 122 (3 hrs) Algorithms and Analysis
COMP 151 (3 hrs) Numerical Computing
COMP 181 (3 hrs) Models of Language and Computation
COMP 212 (1.5 hrs) Operating Systems
COMP 213 (1.5 hrs) Files and Databases
COMP 214 (1.5 hrs) Translators
COMP 216 (1.5 hrs) Digital Logic Techniques
COMP 217 (1.5 hrs) Programming Languages
COMP 261 (3 hrs) Computer Architecture and Implementation
COMP 321 (1 hr) Technical Communication in Computer Science
COMP 345 (0.5 hr) Software Engineering Seminar (subset of COMP 145)

One of:

COMP 230 (3 hrs) Data-Base Management Systems
COMP 232 (3 hrs) Real-Time Systems
COMP 240 (3 hrs) Advanced Compiler Design
COMP 242 (3 hrs) Advanced Operating Systems
COMP 243 (3 hrs) Distributed Systems

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In addition, the student must have programmed and documented a program product. Ways to accomplish this include writing a large program in industry, or being a programmer (not simply a manager) on a team in the Software Engineering Laboratory (COMP 145), or writing a program product as part of an M.S. or Ph.D. thesis project.

Decisions as to the courses required beyond the core will be left to the student's doctoral committee with the approval of the Committee on Graduate Programs. The following guidelines are for the committee's use and to indicate to the student the amount and kind of course work that are likely to be required. These will fall into the following categories:

1. Courses supporting the doctoral dissertation. These should include some courses supporting in depth the specific dissertation topic and others in the general area of computer science in which the thesis falls that more broadly support the thesis. A typical program will include one or two courses of narrow support and two courses of broad support. These graduate level courses may be taken while an undergraduate and may have been counted towards an undergraduate degree.

2. Secondary concentration. The student should take some advanced work in an area of computer science not particularly related to the doctoral dissertation. It is expected that this will include one or two courses.

3. Mathematical skills. The student should have had in his or her educational background (including undergraduate education) by the time he or she receives the Ph.D. an upper mathematical course from at least two of the following six areas.

Modern algebra
Probability or Statistics
Graph theory and Combinatorics
Abstract linear algebra
Geometry
Mathematical logic

4. Supporting program. The student should have studied, while a graduate student, material from outside computer science but relevant to computer science. We expect that this will include two related courses (or in some cases one), but that the total number of courses in the area of  secondary concentration and supporting program will normally be at least three. Courses taken as a graduate student to meet requirements in category 3 can count toward this requirement.

5. Minor. The election of a minor field is optional and infrequent. If a minor is elected, it must  include at least 15 hours of courses that are taught by departments other than COMP (and not merely cross-listings of COMP courses). The minor must also meet all the requirements described in GSH 8.

A prescribed course or an elective may be waived on the basis of experience or prior study, either formal or informal. Such a waiver normally reduces the total course requirement; a substitute course need not be taken unless more than two prescribed courses are waived on a basis other than graduate study. In that event, the Committee on Graduate Programs may prescribe, after  consultation with the student and his or her committee, a course to be substituted for each waived course beyond the first two. To waive a prescribed course, the student must secure the approval of his or her adviser and of the designated instructor, on form CS-2 (obtainable from the Graduate Studies Secretary). To waive an elective course, the student must identify a specific course (UNC or other) that would be acceptable as an elective if taken, and then secure the waiver from the  instructor designated by the Committee on Graduate Programs.

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Courses taken for graduate credit, with grades equivalent to P, B, or better, at other accredited institutions or the UNC-CH Division of Continuing Education may be transferred to satisfy any of the foregoing course requirements. Transfer of a course, unlike a waiver, carries course credit.  Course transfers must be approved by the Committee on Graduate Programs and by the Graduate School (GSH 14-15). The Graduate School may require the student to pass an examination on the course content before approving the transfer. Courses taken at Duke or N.C. State University are under the Research Triangle Universities compact and count as home courses requiring no formal
transfer (GSH 13-14). A full-time student with an assistantship normally takes three courses per  semester.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY

There is no foreign language requirement. The faculty believes, however, that competence in a modern foreign language is an important asset for a computer scientist. Therefore it recommends language study to prospective students. Moreover, assistantship awards and fellowship recommendations are made taking language study here into account, so as not to penalize students for any prolongation of program resulting from language study.

PH.D. QUALIFYING EXAM

The Ph.D. qualifying exam will be in the form of a series of three approximately 45-minute oral exams. These exams will test the ability of the student to integrate material across subfields of computer science, to think formally, and to be creative. The oral exams will be given in one period of at most two days, normally once a year, after finals of the spring semester but before Commencement.

It is expected that the student making normal progress and requiring little pre-core remediation will complete at least three 200-level courses, including at least one 200-level theory course (a course requiring formal thinking) in the first academic year as a graduate student. These students will be expected to take the examination at the end of the spring ending their first full academic year. Students who need to do more remediation, such that they will not complete at least three 200-level courses (including at least one 200-level theory course in the first academic year as a graduate student), must petition during the first academic semester for a delay of the qualifying exam. This petition should lay out the planned schedule of courses until the qualifying exam and the planned time for taking the qualifying exam. Students who take the exam at the normal time or at the time approved by petition and who fail the exam will be allowed to try the exam one more time only, except by petition. It is expected that this second try will be at the offering one year  after the first try.

There will be a number of oral exam committees formed, each consisting of normally three faculty members. Each student will take a question or questions from three different committees. Each exam committee will be asked to report a grade and also to include a few comments on the exam performance for each student. Each exam committee will have a specified area of coursework to take their questions from, but they will also be free to use material from undergraduate background, excepting that for which the student has not yet completed remediation. The questions should normally cross the boundary between courses or at least between areas in a given course. Many questions will include material from at least one core course. Each committee will need to be able to ask questions that are different for some students than others, but where students have the same course background in the area of the committee, they should receive the same questions to as great a degree as the oral exam format allows.

The area of coverage for each student's exams will be the union of his or her undergraduate background in computer science and the courses taken to date as a graduate student. Each student will be assigned to three committees, but the information on which committees covering which courses will be assigned will not be available to the student until the day of the exam.

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DOCTORAL WRITTEN EXAMINATION

This is a comprehensive examination that tests the student's mastery of the M.S./Ph.D. core. It is identical to the written form of the M.S. Comprehensive Examination. It is an exam of minimal comprehensive coverage of the core including the undergraduate component thereof. It tests mastery of definitions, concepts, and approaches. It may but need not have questions integrating material across courses. It is a test of knowledge, so it should require minimal creativity to pass. This exam will need to be passed by all students receiving either the M.S. or the Ph.D. Since it is an exam of minimal comprehensive coverage of the core, the passing level should be the same for M.S. and Ph.D. students. It will be given as a written exam, no longer than six hours long, offered twice per year. If failed, it can be retried, but once only (except by petition). It is assumed that for Ph.D. students, who already will have qualified, this exam will not form a screen, but rather will test when the student has reached a certain stage of knowledge. For the Ph.D. student, the grading of this exam can lead to declaration of weaknesses.

DOCTORAL ORAL EXAMINATION

The Doctoral Oral examination may be taken by any student who has passed the Doctoral Written examination, and whose program of study has been approved by the Committee on Graduate  Programs.

The examination, normally two to three hours in length, will be administered by the student's doctoral committee. The scope of the examination will be selected by the committee, which will inform the student in writing of its selection well in advance. The scope will be limited to testing areas of weakness identified on the Doctoral Written examination, preparation for research, and subjects judged by the committee to be relevant to the area of the student's dissertation. Coverage of waived courses will at most be on the basis of the waiver. If, subsequent to passing the Doctoral Oral examination, the student undertakes dissertation research in a different area, the doctoral committee appointed for the new dissertation may require the student to take a further Doctoral Oral examination on the new area.

At least one week before the examination, the student must apply to the Graduate School for a "Permit to Take the Second Doctoral Examination" (GSH 19). The student is responsible for arranging the time and place of the examination. If failed, the examination may be repeated, once only (except by petition), after a lapse of at least three months (GSH 20).

Upon passing the Doctoral Oral examination and completing all courses in the program of study, the student should apply to the Graduate School for admission to candidacy.

DISSERTATION

The candidate must present a dissertation constituting a worthwhile contribution to knowledge developed by the independent research of the candidate, meeting scholarly standards of organization, presentation, and literary merit, and prescribed standards of form (GSH 22 and the Departmental document Preparation of Theses and Dissertations, revised 1989). A doctoral dissertation committee consists of at least five persons, a majority whom must be full members of  the Graduate Faculty. Other committee members may be faculty from other institutions, scholars from industry, or others whose expertise is relevant to the dissertation (GSH 20). The student names the committee by submitting the "Recommendation for Composition of  Doctoral Dissertation Committee" form to the Student Services Manager. For each proposed committee member who is not on the Graduate Faculty, a curriculum vitae and brief statement justifying his or her inclusion on the committee should be attached.

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A cooperative meeting of the student with his or her doctoral committee will be held to discuss the feasibility of the student's proposed research. At least one week before meeting, the student shall submit to the committee a brief written dissertation proposal defining the scope of the proposed research and the planned method of attack. The committee will either approve or reject the plan at this meeting. The meeting can either precede or follow the Doctoral Oral examination, by either a short or a long interval, at the discretion of the student. The student is expected to call a committee meeting at least every six months to discuss the progress of the dissertation. The adviser and at least two other members of the student's committee will read carefully the entire dissertation.

The student must register for at least three credit hours of dissertation (COMP 394).

FINAL ORAL EXAMINATION

The Final Oral examination normally consists of a public dissertation defense confined to the subject area of the dissertation. The candidate gives a 50-minute presentation of his or her research, followed by questions from the committee and from the audience. If the committee feels it necessary, it may supplement the dissertation defense by a private examination on other material. Before the defense can take place, the adviser and at least two other members of the student's committee must agree that the dissertation is in substantially finished form.

OTHER REQUIREMENTS

A student must earn at least four semesters of residence credit. At least two of these must be earned by continuous registration for no fewer than six semester hours per regular semester or summer session, although registration during the summer is not required for continuity (GSH 8, 17-18). Note that a semester in residence is not identical to a semester of residence credit.

The Department sponsors a colloquium series, which Ph.D. students are expected to attend.

Each student is normally required to have one semester of classroom teaching experience including planning, teaching and grading, here or elsewhere. This requirement is usually satisfied by teaching a one-semester, undergraduate course. Among other ways the student may also satisfy the requirement is by teaching 50% of a three-credit graduate course. The Committee on Graduate Programs may approve exceptions.

Each student is strongly urged, but not required, to spend at least one summer in employment as a professional computer scientist.

The student should apply to the Graduate School for admission to candidacy after passing the Doctoral Oral examination, completing all courses in the program of study, and receiving approval of the dissertation proposal (GSH 21). The student must apply by the deadline to the Graduate School for award of the degree (GSH 22).

All the requirements for the Ph.D. must be completed within eight calendar years from the date of the student's first registration in the Graduate School, whether in Computer Science or in another graduate program. If a student leaves UNC-CH immediately after receipt of the master's degree and returns for doctoral study nine months or more later, the time between the receipt of the master's degree and admission to the doctoral program will not count as part of the eight-year limit. A student may also request a leave of absence for a definite, stated time, not to exceed one year. If the Department and Graduate School approve, the time of the leave is not counted against the eight-year limit (GSH 9).

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If degree requirements change during a student's stay in the Department, he or she has the option of continuing under the old rules or switching and satisfying all the new rules. An exception to any rule may be requested for cause by petition. Decisions made by individual faculty members or by committees may be appealed to the Department faculty as a whole.


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SUMMARY AND REQUIRED FORMS
(obtainable from the Student Services Manager, 133 Sitterson)

On arrival

Submit Initial Student Input form (CS-1)

Submit waiver forms as appropriate (CS-2)

By the end of first semester

Select an appropriate adviser. Thereafter, change advisers as appropriate.

By the end of the second semester

Pass the Ph.D. Qualifying Examination

After completing the course requirements specified in the Ph.D. Program of Study (typically six to twelve months after the Doctoral Written exam)

Submit a Ph.D. Program of Study (CS-6) approved by the student's committee.

Name the remaining members of the Ph.D. committee (Graduate School form)

Request permission to take the second doctoral examination (Graduate School form)

Pass the Doctoral Oral examination

Apply for Admission to Candidacy and submit degree card (Graduate School form).
You may need to submit another degree card at the beginning of your last semester.

Submit a dissertation proposal to the committee

Have a dissertation proposal meeting

Periodically thereafter (about every six months)

Meet with the committee to discuss dissertation progress

When dissertation is in substantially finished form


Pass Final Oral Examination (Dissertation Defense)

Submit completed and signed dissertation to the Graduate School

Just before you leave . . .

Complete Checklist for Departing Students (CS-9)

Turn in office keys and access card to receptionist