Doctor of Philosophy Official Degree Requirements - January 2006

January 2004

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 2002 edition. Apparent errors in the present document should be called to the attention of the Director of Graduate Studies.

Admission to Doctoral Program
Admission to the doctoral program is by a vote of the Department faculty and is determined by performance on the Ph.D. Qualifying examination, course grades (we expect H- or better in at least half of the courses taken), admissions information, accomplishment on assistantships, and other testimony from the faculty. Admission is considered following the administration of the Qualifying exam.

Advising
When a student enrolls, a faculty member is appointed to serve as the student's temporary program adviser. As the student's research interests become defined, the student should change to a research adviser as appropriate. Changes in adviser should be reported to the Student Services Manager.

Administration
The Graduate Studies Committee (a standing committee of the Department faculty, chaired by the Director of Graduate Studies) interprets degree requirements, approves plans of study, and acts on petitions from students to the Department and to the Graduate School.

A full-time Student Services Manager maintains student records, answers student queries, and directs student requests to the Graduate Studies Committee and to the Graduate School. All student requests should be made through the Student Services Manager, usually on forms obtainable online or from the Manager, whose office is Sitterson 135.

Course Requirements
Each student is responsible for mastering the content of the following distribution areas by taking four or more courses from those listed below, including at least one course from each area. The student's mastery of content will be determined by the course grade in any four courses satisfying the distribution requirement: a P- or better must be obtained in each course, and an a Calingaert score of 0 or higher must be obtained on the four courses combined.

Formal

• COMP 202 (3 hours) Algorithm Analysis
• COMP 244 (3 hours) Programming Languages
• COMP 247 (3 hours) Distributed and Concurrent Algorithms
• COMP 250 (3 hours) Scientific Computation
• COMP 281 (3 hours) Computational Geometry

Systems

• COMP 204 (3 hours) Software Design and Implementation
• COMP 234 (3 hours) Computer Networks
• COMP 240 (3 hours) Compilers
• COMP 242 (3 hours) Operating Systems
• COMP 243 (3 hours) Distributed Systems

Diverse

• COMP 203 (3 hours) Parallel and Distributed Computing
• COMP 206 (3 hours) Computer Architecture and Implementation
• COMP 235 (3 hours) Images, Graphics, and Vision
• COMP 261 (3 hours) Elements of Hardware Systems

The Calingaert Score is a weighted average of course grades, where the weights are chosen so that a score of 0 reflects an average letter grade between a P+ and an H-. The weights for the letter grades are as follows:

For example, the Calingaert Score for three courses with letter grades P+, H-, and H would be (-1 + 1 + 3)/3 = +1.0 (assuming the three courses carry the same number of credit hours). The name recognizes Dr. Peter Calingaert, professor emeritus, who devised the measure when he was Director of Graduate Studies.

In addition, each student must demonstrate mastery of the subjects considered to be essential or required preparation for our graduate program. The following UNC-Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) courses define the required preparation for our program (for a more detailed description of the course contents, consult the UNC-CH course catalog).

Computer Science

• COMP 120 Computer Organization
• COMP 121 Data Structures
• COMP 122 Algorithms and Analysis
• Any two of the following
  1. COMP 130 Files and Databases
  2. COMP 140 Compilers
  3. COMP 142 Operating Systems
• COMP 144 Programming Language Concepts
• COMP 181 Models of Languages and Computation

Mathematics, Statistics, and Physics

• MATH 33 Calculus of Functions of Several Variables
• MATH 81 Discrete Mathematics
• MATH 147 Linear Algebra for Applications
• MATH 191 Introduction to Numerical Analysis (Scientific Computing I)
• PHYS 102 Electronics II
• STAT 126 Introduction to Probability

Typically most of this material will have been part of the student's undergraduate education, but it is entirely normal to include one or more courses in the Ph.D. Program of Study to satisfy this requirement. Each student must detail their Background Preparation (Form CS-1) showing when and where the material above was mastered. In case of uncertainty about the material required, consult the instructor of the course or the instructor(s) of courses that include the material as a prerequisite. The program adviser and the Graduate Studies Committee review background preparation.

Each student is required to take the Technical Communication in Computer Science course, COMP 321, unless the requirement is waived on the basis of prior study or experience. To waive the course, the student must secure the approval of his or her adviser and of a designated instructor.

Decisions as to other courses required beyond the background and distribution areas and the technical communication course are left to the student's doctoral advisory committee with the approval of the Graduate Studies Committee. Because proposed Plans of Study are considered individually, and one student's circumstances are not the same as another's, precedent is not controlling.

The following are minimum requirements. The student's committee may impose further requirements as it judges appropriate. Unless otherwise specified, "course" means a 3-hour graduate-level course not used to satisfy the distribution requirement. Two 1.5-hour courses may be accepted as equivalent to one 3-hour course. Taken "as a graduate student" does not necessarily mean at UNC-CH, and it permits the course to have been taken as a UNC-CH post-baccalaureate Continuing Education student.

• Primary concentration. Three or four courses of which at least two support in depth the specific dissertation topic and at least one supports more generally the area of computer science in which the dissertation topic falls. The courses do not need to be related to each other, except in that they support the dissertation. These courses may have been taken as an undergraduate and may have been counted towards an undergraduate degree.

   

• Secondary concentration. Two courses that are clearly not in the area of computer science in which the dissertation topic falls. These courses may not have been taken as an undergraduate.

   

• Mathematical skills. One course at upper undergraduate level or higher in each of two approved areas. An area is approved if it (a) appears on the following list, or (b) is designated by the student's committee as specifically supporting the dissertation topic, or (c) is approved by the Graduate Studies Committee on the basis of a cogent argument by the student. These courses do not need to be related to each other, and may have been taken as an undergraduate. A nonexhaustive, illustrative selection of UNC-CH courses normally approved appears after the name of each area in the list.

  abstract linear algebra (with emphasis on "abstract")	MATH 137 (normally preferred), 147
  geometry	COMP 257; MATH 131, 180
  graph theory and combinatorics	MATH 148, 190
  mathematical logic	PHIL 101, 111
  modern algebra	MATH 134, 138 (normally preferred)
  probability and statistics	MATH 120; STAT 101, 102, 126, 127

   

• Supporting program. Two courses outside computer science, each of which is either a foreign language course or a course that supports the dissertation topic. (Two foreign language courses should normally be in the same foreign language.) These courses must have been taken as a graduate student, but do not need to be at a graduate level. They may include either or both of the courses taken (if as a graduate student) to satisfy the mathematical skills requirement.

   

• Minor. The election of a formal minor 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 are not merely cross-listings of COMP courses). The minor must also meet all the requirements described in GSH 2.7.

   

Relevant graduate courses from other accredited institutions or from other graduate programs at UNC-CH can be transferred to satisfy any of the foregoing course requirements (GSH 2.19). Course transfers must be approved by the Graduate Studies Committee and by the Graduate School. The Graduate School may require the student to pass an examination on the course content before approving the transfer. The transfer of courses to meet a distribution requirement will generally require an examination. Courses taken at Duke University, N.C. Central University, N.C. State University, UNC-Charlotte, and UNC-Greensboro count as home courses requiring no formal transfer (GSH 2.28).

Program Product Requirement
Each student is required to have programmed and documented a program product. A nonexhaustive list of ways to meet the requirement includes: (1) having been a programmer on a team in the Software Engineering Laboratory course (COMP 145), (2) having written a large program in industry, and (3) having written a program product as part of an M.S. thesis or Ph.D. dissertation project. The student must file Form CS-13 to document completion of the requirement.

Foreign Language
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.

Qualifying Examination
The Ph.D. Qualifying examination (QUAL) is a series of three oral examinations of 45-55 minutes each. These examinations test the ability of the student to integrate material across subfields of computer science, to think sharply, to think formally, and to be creative. The examination may be waived by the faculty in case of exceptional performance in coursework and strong faculty support. The examination is generally attempted early in the fall semester following the first year of full-time study. If not passed, a second attempt may be made at the conclusion of the spring semester following four semesters of full-time study.

Registration. The Examination Committee solicits student registrations for each offering of the QUAL. A student interested in admission to the Doctoral program can register for the exam, or apply for deferral of the exam (on form CS-10), or elect to forfeit the offering. Permission to defer the exam is generally only granted in case of extensive need for remediation courses, or substantial language difficulties, or other extenuating circumstances.

The faculty responds to a registration for the QUAL in one of three ways: (a) recommendation to proceed with the QUAL, (b) recommendation against proceeding with the QUAL (and hence a forfeit of the examination), or (c) a bypass (waive) of the QUAL. Outcome (b) may result from a Calingaert score below -1.0 for courses taken to date in the program or a lack of faculty support, while outcome (c) may result from a Calingaert score greater than 2.0 in courses taken to date in the program and strong faculty support for admission to the Doctoral program. These are guidelines, rather than strict rules. Unless informed otherwise, the Examination Committee will assume that only students recommended to proceed with the QUAL will participate in the exam offering.

Scope. The scope of the examination is set for each student by the Examinations Committee on the basis of the student's selection of six courses that define the topic areas of the exam. Normally these are six courses taken in the program to date. The courses on the list must meet the following requirements:

• All courses must be UNC-CH COMP courses numbered 100 or higher carrying 3 hours of credit.
• At least one of the courses must involve "formal thinking". Courses in this category include 122, 181, and any course in the Formal area of the distribution requirements, but others may qualify as well.
• A course not taken for credit in our program may be included in the list, provided it is not a prerequisite of another course in the list. This means, for example, that COMP 122 (the undergraduate algorithms course) may not be included if COMP 202 (the graduate algorithms course) is on the list, unless COMP 122 was taken for credit.

Final approval of the submitted list rests with the Graduate Studies Committee.

Administration. Each examining committee normally consists of three faculty members. Each student takes questions from three different committees. Each committee reports a grade and also comments on the examination performance of each student. Each committee has a specified area of course work to base their questions upon, but they are also 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. Each committee will need to be able to ask questions that are different for some students than for 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 examination format allows.

The examination can be attempted twice, unless permission is secured for an additional attempt by a petition approved by the faculty. A forfeit counts as a failed attempt.

Doctoral Written Examination (Integrative Paper)
In the Department of Computer Science, the Integrative Paper (IP) serves as the Doctoral Written Examination. It is identical to the written form of the M.S. Comprehensive Examination. If failed, the examination may be retaken, once only (except by petition). For the Ph.D. student, the grading of the paper can lead to declaration of a weakness.

The integrative paper is a survey of three or more technical papers that span three sub-fields of computer science and have a common thread. The paper is written in one semester following the schedule below and is organized as an issue-based survey, approximately 5,000 words long, emphasizing the integration of concepts found in the subject papers. Faculty members can suggest suitable collections of papers, but students may propose a collection of subject papers as well. In the latter case, the student is responsible for finding a faculty member willing to certify the collection (and act as "proposer" in what follows).

Two members of the graduate faculty, at least one of whom is a member of the Computer Science department, must agree to read the IP for style and content. These two faculty members (one of whom acts as the proposer of the collection of papers) must approve the selection of papers, taking into consideration the general area of the student's research and the courses proposed by the student to satisfy the distribution requirement.

In an initial meeting that includes the student and both faculty members, the student should review the papers and discuss the issues to be addressed in the IP. The faculty should clarify expectations and agree on the scope of the IP.

A detailed outline of the IP that is acceptable to both the faculty and the student serves as a contract to write the IP. This agreement is recorded on form CS-09 (part I) and must be filed within the first five weeks of the semester in which the IP is to be written. Progress of the paper is tracked on this form by the student and the committee.

The Graduate Studies Committee reviews the papers and sub-fields cited on form CS-09 for compliance with the IP rules.

The writing of an IP is an individual effort, bound by the honor code, and should follow the rules of academic research. For example, sources must be properly cited.

It is expected that the survey may undergo up to two rounds of revision to satisfy both readers. The IP requirement will be considered satisfied when both faculty members have accepted the paper. If the paper has not been accepted before the Graduate School deadline for reporting exam grades (generally week 14), the student is considered to have failed the IP exam. The student may take the examination a second time in a subsequent semester. In this case, the student must start all over again with a fresh set of papers.

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 Graduate Studies Committee.

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. If, after 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.

If failed, the examination may be retaken, once only (except by petition), after a lapse of at least three months (GSH 2.20).

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 2.33 and the Graduate School document A Guide to Theses and Dissertations). The adviser and at least two other members of the student's committee will read carefully the entire dissertation.

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 on the research problem. The committee will either approve or reject the plan at this meeting. The student is responsible for arranging the time and place of the 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 and committee. The student is expected to call a committee meeting at least every six months to discuss the progress of the dissertation, and to submit a one-page summary of progress each semester to the Director of Graduate Studies.

The student's doctoral committee consists of at least five persons, a majority of whom must be regular members of the COMP Graduate Faculty. Other committee members may be faculty from other institutions, scholars from industry, or others whose expertise is relevant to the dissertation (GSH 2.19). At least one committee member must hold the rank of Associate Professor or higher. The student names the committee by submitting the "Recommendation for Composition of Doctoral Dissertation Committee" form. For each proposed committee member who is not on the Graduate Faculty, a curriculum vitae and the Graduate School form "Recommendation for Appointment to Membership on the Graduate Faculty" should be attached. The dissertation adviser serves as committee chair, unless the adviser is not a COMP faculty member, in which event a COMP faculty member serves as chair.

The student must register for at least six 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 student presents his or her research for 50 minutes; questions follow 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. The defense should be announced at least two weeks in advance.

Other Requirements
Four semesters of residence credit must be earned. 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 2.31). The residence credit hour requirement requires UNC-CH registration (i.e., no transfer credit). Note that a semester in residence is not identical to a semester of residence credit.

Each student is normally required to have one semester of classroom teaching experience including planning, teaching and grading, here or elsewhere. Enrollment in COMP 321 must be completed before the requirement can be met. This requirement is often satisfied by teaching an undergraduate course in one semester or summer session, and sometimes by teaching half of a three-credit graduate course. The Graduate Studies Committee may approve other ways of satisfying the requirement. The student should document fulfillment of the requirement by filing Form CS-11.

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 approved Plan of Study, and receiving approval of the dissertation proposal (GSH 2.8). The student must apply by the deadline to the Graduate School for award of the degree (GSH 2.9).

All requirements for the Ph.D. must be completed within eight calendar years from the date of the student's first classification as a doctoral student by the Graduate School. If a student is admitted directly to doctoral study, as indicated in the letter offering admission, the eight years begin upon first registration. If a student is permitted by faculty vote to bypass the M.S. degree, or to continue beyond the M.S. degree, the eight years begin at the start of the regular term or summer session that immediately follows the faculty vote or that in which the M.S. is conferred. Although the Department tries to keep track of degree time limits, the Graduate School's interpretation is controlling, and students are responsible for meeting the time limits. As much as two years of time spent in active military service, the Peace Corps, or VISTA will not be counted against the time limit, provided that the Graduate School is informed. Also, a student may request a leave of absence for a definite, stated time, not to exceed one year. If the Department and Graduate School approve, the duration of the leave is not counted against the time limit (GSH 2.35).

If degree requirements change during a student's stay in the Department, the student has the option of continuing under the old rules or switching and satisfying all the new rules. In other words, the student can elect any point in time during his or her stay in the Department and satisfy all the rules in effect at that point.

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.

Summary and Required Forms
The following schedule represents typical progress toward the Ph.D. Degree. The forms referenced can be obtained online or from the Student Services Manager, 135 Sitterson.

By the end of the first year

• Select an appropriate research adviser, if needed. Thereafter, change advisers as necessary.
• Register for Ph.D. Qualifying examination (Form CS-10) to be administered early in the third semester.

By the end of semester 5

• Pass the Doctoral Written examination in the form of a n integrative paper; submit Form CS-9.
• Discuss research plan with at least three (potential) committee members; submit Form CS-12.

By the end of semester 6

• Name the remaining members of the doctoral committee (Graduate School form).
• Submit Plan of Study (Form CS-6) with background preparation (Form CS-1) approved by the committee.

By the end of semester 7

• Submit a dissertation proposal to the committee; hold meeting for approval of proposal or
• Pass the Doctoral Oral examination.

By the end of semester 8

• Submit dissertation proposal and pass the Doctoral Oral examination.
• Apply for Admission to Candidacy for a Doctoral Degree (Graduate School form).

At any time

• Satisfy the program product requirement; submit Form CS-13.
• Satisfy the teaching requirement: submit Form CS-11.
• Submit course waiver forms as appropriate.

Every six months after approval of the dissertation proposal

• Meet with the committee to discuss dissertation progress.

By the end of semester 10

• When dissertation is in substantially finished form, announce dissertation defense, giving two weeks' notice.
• Pass Final Oral examination (dissertation defense).
• Submit completed and signed dissertation to the Graduate School.

Just before you leave . . .

• Return office key(s) and building access card to receptionist.
• Submit "Change of Address" forms to the Registrar's Office and the Payroll Office.