This section describes the Ph.D. and M.S. degree requirements. Typically, an ISP doctoral student will earn an M.S. degree on the way to obtaining a Ph.D.
The degree requirements described here are subject to change by decision of the faculty of the ISP. A student has the option of either meeting all of the requirements when he or she entered the ISP or meeting all the prevailing requirements of the program. Please check back here periodically for changes and speak to your adviser or the ISP Director if you have any questions about degree requirements or related issues.
To earn the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the ISP a student must successfully complete all of the following:
The student's Ph.D. adviser must be a member of the ISP faculty. Note that each new student is initially assigned an administrative adviser. A student's administrative adviser will not necessarily be the student's Ph.D. adviser.
To obtain a doctoral degree, students must also be in good standing and at full student status (not provisional).
To remain in good standing, doctoral degree students must attend all but two of the scheduled AI Forum talks and sign in so they get credit. In case of extenuating circumstances the student should see the ISP Director.
General:
Curriculum:
| Courses | Masters Degree | Doctoral Degree | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First year students |
ISSP 2020 Topics in Intelligent Systems ISSP 2030 Advanced Topics in Intelligent Systems |
required | required | |
| Core | ISSP 2160 / CS 2710 Foundations of Artificial Intelligence | required | required | |
|
ISSP 2170 / CS 2750 Machine Learning ISSP 3712 / CS 3740 Knowledge Representation ISSP 2230 / CS 2731 Introduction to Natural Language Processing |
2 required | 2 required | ||
| Theory | Applied or mathematical statistics |
BIOST 2041 Introduction to Statistical Methods 1 BIOST 2042 Introduction to Statistical Methods 2 |
1 required | 1 required |
| Theory of computation, algorithms |
CS 2110 Theory of Computation CS 2150 Design and Analysis of Algorithms ISSP 3520 / CS 3120 Theory of Learning Algorithms |
1 required | 1 required | |
| One additional course. Any of the courses listed above are acceptable. | not required | required | ||
| Advanced courses | Four advanced courses, numbered 2000 or higher and approved by Ph.D. adviser. | required | required | |
This assumes that a student already has training in a health-care field; if this is not so, then the faculty will select a set of courses that teach the student basic medical knowledge, and the student may take these courses as electives.
Prerequisites (may be required if not taken already)
Curriculum:
Students should form a preliminary evaluation committee consisting of three faculty, two of whom must be ISP faculty. The student's Ph.D. adviser is the chair of the committee, and must be an ISP faculty member.
The committee assesses the student’s performance on the following two tasks:
For this requirement, the student must complete a research project, approved by the student's preliminary evaluation committee, involving (1) significant research, design or development work, (2) a written report, and (3) an oral presentation.
Normally, the preliminary evaluation research project is completed by the end of the summer term of the second year. Students who have not defended their research project by end of the fall term of their third year in the program will be placed on provisional status in the program, unless there are extenuating circumstances that warrant an extension, as judged by the student’s preliminary evaluation committee.
Although not a requirement, it is strongly suggested that the student submit the project report for publication in a refereed journal or conference. Thus, the scope of the preliminary evaluation research project is intended to be at the level of a paper that is of publishable quality in a peer-reviewed AI journal or conference.
The steps to completing the project are as follows:
Submit a project proposal to your committee for their approval
Perform the work, and write a project report
Submit your project report to your committee at least two weeks in advance of your oral presentation of the work
Present your work in a talk given to your committee. As a guideline, you should give about a 30-minute talk and leave about 30 minutes for questions and discussion. The ISP faculty should be invited to the oral presentation. General questions relating to the field of AI are appropriate at this examination. The oral presentation may take place in an open forum, such as the ISP AI Forum, followed by a closed session with just your committee and any other ISP faculty who wish to be present.
The committee will evaluate the project and presentation. The following criteria should be considered: the project and presentation should represent independent research, design, or development work, they should be technically sound, and they should be relevant to the ISP; the student should display breadth of knowledge, understanding of the significance and motivation of the work, and understanding of the relationship of the work with prior work; and the presentation should be clear. The committee will combine that evaluation with an evaluation of the student’s progress in coursework to arrive at an overall evaluation of one of the following:
Students who pass the preliminary evaluation will need a card signed by their committee to obtain credit for passing. Contact the ISP Program Secretary at least two weeks before the oral portion of the preliminary evaluation, so the card can be available at the meeting to be signed.
For the Ph.D. Comprehensive Examination, students should follow these steps:
Form a Comprehensive Examination committee consisting of at least three faculty, two of whom must be ISP faculty. The student's Ph.D. adviser is the chair of the committee and must be an ISP faculty member. The faculty on a given student’s Comprehensive Examination committee are often the same as the faculty on that student’s Preliminary Evaluation committee, but they need not be.
Choose three major subareas of AI from the ISP list of sub-areas. Biomedical Informatics students should choose "Biomedical Informatics" as one of the subareas.
Work with the committee to finalize the reading for the three chosen subareas. Have the committee approve the list.
Work with your committee members (or their designated administrative assistants) to set the following dates for the examination:
The date and time the written examination is distributed to you.
The date and time you return the examination, which by default is nine days after receiving it. Your committee can designate an examination period of less or more than nine days, and through your adviser you may request that they do so.
The date and time you orally defend your examination answers before your committee. You should schedule 2 hours for your oral exam defense, although typically less time will be needed.
Your committee will provide a list of written questions. Unless an exception is made by your committee, you will have nine days to provide the written answers to these questions. At the end of those nine days, you should distribute your answers to each of your committee members. Be sure to check that they have each received your answers.
An oral examination will take place after the comprehensive committee has read your answers; the committee should be given a minimum of three days to read your answers before the oral examination. The ISP faculty (only) will be invited. You will be asked questions by your committee about your answers on the written examination, and more broadly, about your knowledge of the material in the three areas of concentration you have chosen.
At the end of your oral examination, your committee will evaluate your performance as one of the following:
An evaluation by the comprehensive examination committee of "fail" will be considered by the ISP faculty at large, who will make a determination about the status of the student in the ISP, including whether the student is allowed to re-take the examination or whether he or she is terminated from the program.
Student’s who pass the comprehensive examination will need a card signed by their committee to obtain credit for passing. Contact the ISP Program Secretary at least two weeks before the oral portion of the comprehensive examination, so the card can be available at the meeting to be signed.
A selection of successful comprehensive examinations with reading lists, questions and answers can be found here.
Note: According to University guidelines the comprehensive examination should be passed at least eight months before the scheduling of the final oral dissertation defense.
In pursuing the Ph.D. dissertation, students should follow these steps:
Find a dissertation adviser and form a dissertation committee. The dissertation committee consists of at least four faculty members. At least three of your committee members must be ISP faculty; the chair of the committee is the student's Ph.D. adviser and must be an ISP faculty member. Committee members must also have Graduate Faculty status. See a current list of faculty with Graduate Faculty status here. The School of Arts and Science policy regarding the composition of doctoral dissertation committees can be found here. The committee members need not be the same as those faculty who served on a given student’s preliminary evaluation committee and comprehensive examination committee. If any of your committee are from outside the University or are not part of the Graduate Faculty, you will need to have them approved to serve; this consists of submitting their Curriculum Vitae and a letter explaining your choice of this person to the ISP Program Director who will add a letter to the Graduate Assistant Dean to this packet. Please submit this request for the Director's approval with supporting material to the ISP Program Administrator. This must be approved in writing by the A&S Assistant Dean before the individual can be a member of your committee.
Write a dissertation proposal. Present the proposal to your committee. Your committee must approve your proposal. You will need a form signed by your committee and the ISP Director to complete this process. Contact the Program Administrator at least two weeks before meeting so the form can be available for signature at the meeting.
Carry out the research. Write the dissertation.
Announcement of your dissertation defense must appear in University Times. Send information to the ISP Administrator at least five weeks before your oral defense date. This information will be sent to the University Times. The announcement includes the student name, the title of the dissertation, and the time and place of the defense.
Have an oral defense which is open to the University at large. You will need a card signed by your committee to obtain credit for passing the dissertation requirement. Contact the Program Secretary two weeks before your defense, so the card can be available for signature at the meeting.
Credit for doctoral research is ordinarily obtained through the course ISSP 3000 Research and Dissertation Ph.D. or Full-time Dissertation Study. Students who have completed all course requirements, passed the Ph.D. comprehensive examination, completed 72 credits of graduate student, and are working full-time on their dissertations are encouraged to register for Full-time Dissertation Study.
To earn the Master of Science (M.S.) degree in the ISP, a student must do the following:
To remain in good standing, masters degree students must attend all but two of the scheduled AI Forum talks and sign in so they get credit. In case of extenuating circumstances the student should see the ISP Director.
New students are initially assigned an administrative adviser. A student's administrative adviser will not necessarily be on the student's M.S. project committee or be the student's M.S. adviser.
Students should form an M.S. research project committee consisting of three faculty, two of whom must be ISP faculty. The student's M.S. project adviser is the chair of the committee, and must be an ISP faculty member.
For the M.S. research project requirement, the student must complete a research project, approved by the student's M.S. committee, involving (1) significant research, design or development work, (2) a written report, and (3) an oral presentation.
Normally, the M.S. Research Project is completed by the end of the summer term of the second year. Students who have not defended their research project by end of the fall term of their third year in the program will be placed on provisional status in the program; students with extenuating circumstances can appeal their case to the ISP faculty through their adviser, preferably well in advance of the deadlines just described.
Although not a requirement, it is strongly suggested that the student submit the project report for publication in a refereed journal or conference. Thus, the scope of the M.S. research project is intended to be at the level of a paper that is of publishable quality in a peer-reviewed AI journal or conference.
The steps to completing the project are as follows:
Submit a project proposal to your committee for their approval.
Perform the work. Credit for conducting research toward the M.S. research project is ordinarily obtained through the course ISSP 2000 M.S. Research.
Write a project report and submit it to your committee at least two weeks in advance of your oral presentation of the work.
Present your work in an oral presentation before your committee. As a guideline, you should give about a 30-minute talk and leave about 30 minutes for questions and discussion. The ISP faculty should be invited to the oral presentation. General questions relating to the field of AI are appropriate at this examination. The oral presentation may take place in an open forum, such as the ISP AI Forum, followed by a closed session with just your committee and any other ISP faculty who wish to be present.
The committee will consider the written document, the oral presentation, and the overall project in order to arrive at one of the following evaluations:
An evaluation by the M.S. committee of "fail" will be considered by the ISP faculty at large, who will make a determination about the status of the student in the ISP, including whether the student will be allowed to continue in the program.
A card signed by the committee is needed to obtain credit for passing the M.S. research project requirement. Students should contact the Program Administrator two weeks before the oral presentation so that the card can be available at the meeting to be signed.