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Academic Requirements

CISE Ph.D. program

To earn a Ph.D. degree, a student must satisfy a minimum of 90 graduate-level credits beyond the bachelor’s degree.

Up to 30 credits from a prior master’s degree in Computer Science or Computer Engineering taken either at the University of Florida or from another accredited institution may be transferred and counted towards the Ph.D. degree. Students must apply for the credit transfer during their first term of enrollment. Approval by the graduate school is necessary for the credit transfer.

Beyond the first 30 credits counted toward the Ph.D. degree, students must complete at least 30 credits at the University of Florida campus. Additionally, students must satisfy the following requirements before earning the degree:

OrientationEvery entering Ph.D. graduate student must attend the New Graduate Student Orientation, usually given right before or at the beginning of Fall and Spring semesters. Communication skillsThe Graduate School requires all Ph.D. candidates to be able to use the English language correctly and effectively. This requirement directly addresses the need for candidates to demonstrate oral and written communication skills. Ph.D. checklistStay on track with our semester-by-semester checklist.

Individual Development Plan

The Individual Development Plan (IDP) is a series of documents that doctoral students at UF must complete with their faculty advisors each year.

The IDP is designed to identify students’ professional and personal goals, highlight areas of weakness, and help students work with their advisors to create attainable steps for fulfilling long-term goals.

The IDP is housed in Canvas, the University of Florida’s e-learning management system.

Ph.D. supervision

Each Ph.D. student must form a supervisory committee no later than the end of the second semester of enrollment.

  • Within 2 semesters of entrance, submit a signed supervisory committee form identifying the chair of your committee.
  • By the end of your 3rd semester, the supervisory committee must have at least four members. The chair and at least one other member must hold Graduate Faculty status in the CISE department, and three members must be from CISE. At least one other member must be external, holding no ties to the department.

Students must maintain a committee satisfying these requirements at all times during their enrollment once the committee has been formed. If a student’s committee becomes incomplete at any time, the student must remediate this within 2 semesters. Failure to maintain a supervisory committee will lead to dismissal from the PhD program.

An annual evaluation of the research progress/potential of each Ph.D. student will be performed by the Graduate Affairs Committee in conjunction with the chair of the student’s supervisory committee. This evaluation will be done at the end of the Spring semester. Copies of this evaluation and of the student comments are placed in the student’s academic file. The student and the supervisory committee chair receive notice after the student has been in the CISE graduate program for 5 years without advancing to candidacy. Proper actions and close monitoring will take place afterward to ensure that the students are making progress towards the Ph.D. degree.

Qualifying exam & candidacy

The exam uses a survey covering the literature of an area in computing. This could be in the student’s dissertation area or a general area of computing. The student, advisor and the student’s Ph.D. committee members determine (and approve) the set of papers. The external Ph.D. committee member is not required to participate in this process.

Merely summarizing a set of papers is not enough to count as a Ph.D. survey. The write-up should include clear identification of the main research problems in the field and the main suggested solutions (with their advantages and disadvantages). Students should also compare/contrast their survey with existing surveys in the field (if such surveys exist in a similar format).

Students must successfully complete the Ph.D. qualifying examination within the first 6 semesters of enrollment during their Ph.D. program. This does not include Summer semesters. Failure to do so will lead to dismissal from the Ph.D. program.

Complete faculty and student information on the Qualifying Exam Supervisory Committee Form. If you are unsure what to enter for Term of First enrollment, review your profile in GIMS or contact Adrienne L. Cook.

Note: for Ph.D. minor approval, use the Ph.D. Minor Qualifying Exam.

  1. The student must get the approval of the advisor and the advisory committee to take the exam. Once that is done, the student must inform the Supervisory Committee of the intent to take the qualifiers exam no later than one month before the actual proposed survey submission date. This is to give the committee adequate time to discuss the list of papers and other procedures. Please refer to the Qualifying Exam Flowchart.
  2. The student will be assigned a list of papers and topics for the area survey paper under the direction of the student’s advisor. The advisor may construct the list or may require the student to propose the list. The list must be approved (in writing or via email) by all participating members of the committee. The list cannot include papers by the student (such papers can be included as supporting documents along with the student’s CV). The number of papers can vary depending on the student’s research area. The vast majority (if not all) of the papers must be peer-reviewed reputable publications (e.g., IEEE or ACM conferences or journals, or similar quality). The suggested number of papers is between 30 – 100.
  3. The student will write an original area survey paper under the direction of their advisor and Ph.D. committee.
    1. None of the advising committee members (including the advisor) can add text. They can only recommend modifications/edits.
    2. The survey should be prepared in IEEE Journal format OR ACM Primary Article Template.
    3. The suggested length of the paper, not including references, is 15 to 20 pages. The decision as to appropriate length is left up to each committee
    4. Unless direct quotations of cited sources are used and properly attributed, the entire paper must be in the student’s own words. Plagiarism will be grounds for dismissal from the Ph.D. program.
  4. Submission of materials: The following materials must be submitted to the CISE committee members for review/evaluation, during (and no later than) the time window agreed upon earlier (as explained above in the first step):
    1. Area survey paper
    2. Student’s CV. Optionally, additional supporting documents can be provided, such as published or submitted papers by the student.
    3. Student’s Academic Transcripts
  5. Evaluation Process
    1. The student’s Ph.D. supervisory committee will serve as the committee for the exam (without requiring the external member to serve). The supervisory committee chair will also serve as the student’s qualifying exam chair.
    2. From the submission date (in step 3 above), the committee has 2 weeks to evaluate the survey. The committee will then decide to I. compile a list of questions, II. ask for a ‘major revision’ (which may also be accompanied by a set of questions), or III. fail.
      The committee will send any questions back to the student via email at or before the end of this 2 week period. Any participating committee member can request a meeting with the student to discuss any issues at this time. Any meeting minutes should be kept and used later to aid evaluation
      In the case of I (questions): The student has 1 week to respond to these questions. The committee then has 1 week to review the submitted answers and reach a pass/fail decision. The committee may request minor revisions to the answers or another round of questions if needed. Only two total rounds of questions/answers are permitted. If the committee does not feel that the student’s survey paper and answers are passing after two rounds of questions then the student must submit a substantially revised paper (and updated materials) in a subsequent semester.
      In the case of II (major revision): The student has 2 weeks to address the committee’s questions and resubmit the revised survey paper. The committee then has two weeks to review the revised paper and reach a pass/fail decision. Only one round of major revision is permitted. If the committee does not feel that the student’s survey paper is passing after one round of revisions then the student must submit a substantially revised paper (and updated materials) in a subsequent semester.
      The student should set up a meeting with the committee members (as a group or in individual meetings). The committee should use such meeting(s) to validate the originality of the work and clarify any issues, before making their decisions.
      The committee members make their decisions of pass, fail or major revision, using the submitted material (i.e., area survey, CV, and transcripts), the answers to the committee’s questions, and revised survey (if requested).
    3. A majority of committee members (two out of three, or three out of four) must agree to pass in order to pass the student.
    4. The grades and comments (if any) given by the committee members shall be kept anonymous. The student can see the overall grade and individual comments. The student, however, cannot see individual pass/fail grades or the mapping of the questions to the specific committee members.
  6. The student has two attempts to pass the qualifying exam:
    1. After two failures, the student will be dismissed from the Ph.D. program.
    2. The student can appeal dismissal in the event of a second failure through the Graduate Affairs Committee.

A student may apply for advancement to Ph.D. candidacy by scheduling an oral examination after having passed the Written Qualifying Examination. The decision to advance a student to Ph.D. candidacy is made by the student’s Supervisory Committee. This decision is based on the following:

  • Performance in coursework
  • The opinion of the Supervisory Committee concerning the overall fitness for candidacy
  • An approved Ph.D. dissertation topic

The purpose of the Ph.D. Candidacy Examination is to certify the scope and validity of the student’s proposed research, and the student’s ability to perform the work. A document including a concise introduction to the area of research, relevant work by others, preliminary results by the student, an outline of proposed work, and a bibliography must be submitted to the committee at least two weeks prior to the examination. The student will receive a grade of pass or fail. A failing mark will require another examination when the student is better prepared, at least one semester after the first attempt. A passing mark will often be accompanied by useful comments (to be made in writing by the student’s committee chairman) so the student can better refine future efforts and goals.

After passing the Ph.D. Candidacy Examination, the student is admitted to candidacy. The student may register for Research for Doctoral Dissertation (CIS 7980) only after admission to candidacy. Prior to passing the Ph.D. Candidacy Examination, research must be conducted under the Advanced Research course (CIS 7979).

The Graduate School states that the time lapse between the admission to Candidacy/Proposal be at least two terms. The term the qualifying examination is passed is counted, if the examination occurs before the midpoint of the term.

Ph.D. students earning a master’s degree

Prior to admission to Ph.D. candidacy, Ph.D. students in CISE are allowed to earn a MS-On-The-Way or MS-en-route-to-PhD by satisfying the following conditions:

  1. Meeting all the MS degree requirements (either Computer Science or Computer Engineering),
  2. Obtaining the approval of their advisor (chair of the Ph.D. supervisory committee), and the department chair, and
  3. Notifying the Graduate Academic Advisor of CISE of their intent to get an MS degree one semester prior to the degree semester.

Performance evaluation

All Ph.D. students must make proper progress toward the Ph.D. degree. This includes:

  • Maintaining a good GPA
  • Passing the Ph.D. qualifying exam within the allowable time limit
  • Advancing to candidacy
  • Defending the Ph.D. thesis promptly.

Ph.D. students are evaluated annually by the Graduate Affairs Committee in conjunction with students’ Supervisory Committees. The completed evaluation is sent to the student and the Supervisory Committee chair.

Students who repeatedly fail to make proper progress may be terminated from the Ph.D. program. Students already having advanced to Ph.D. candidacy status may be terminated by a vote of the faculty. Such a decision will also be based on the student’s annual evaluations and a recommendation of the student’s Supervisory Committee.

Ph.D. final examination

All Ph.D. students are required to complete and defend a dissertation of publishable quality. This must be an independent investigation, including a basic research component that constitutes an original contribution to the engineering aspects of Computer and Information Science and Engineering. Projects that solely demonstrate an application of computer technology to a new problem area will not be acceptable. The format of the dissertation must conform to the requirements of the Graduate School. To facilitate this, the Graduate School Editorial Office provides the Guide for Preparing Theses and Dissertations and various seminars. The dissertation must be submitted to the Graduate School in electronic form.

The defense is the final examination in which the student defends his/her research. It must occur after the dissertation has been submitted to the Graduate School and all other prescribed work is done, but no more than six months before the conferring of the degree. The student must be registered for at least three hours (two hours in summer term) of CIS 7980 during the term in which the final examination is given and the term in which the degree is conferred.

The dissertation title, along with an abstract, should be posted on electronic and standard bulletin boards at least two weeks in advance so that interested students and faculty may attend. A general-audience abstract must be submitted along with the announcement to the CISE Student Services Center for posting. The dissertation must be submitted to all Supervisory Committee members at least two weeks in advance of the defense.

The defense consists of two parts: an open part and a closed part. During the open part, the student gives a one-hour presentation on the dissertation work. During this presentation, members of the audience may ask questions. Then the student’s Supervisory Committee chairperson will ask the audience to leave the room to begin the closed section of the defense. The student’s Supervisory Committee members and other faculty may ask the student more detailed questions during the closed section. The student will then leave the room while the Supervisory Committee prepares its decision. The defense may be attempted at most two times.

Time Limitation – All work for the doctorate must be completed within five years after the Qualifying Examination, or the examination must be repeated and passed.

Questions?

Contact a CISE graduate academic advisor.

gadvisors@cise.ufl.edu