PhD Advisor
The student's PhD advisor is their guide and mentor. They will advise students, encourage them, promote their work and keep them on track. (Eventually, the PhD student may become more of an expert than their advisor in the student's chosen field.)
Students are assigned an advisor during their first year. Students may change advisors with college approval, but are required to always have an advisor in order to maintain satisfactory academic progress.
View College of Information Science Core Faculty
Annual Review
Students and their advisor will complete an annual review of student performance each academic year (typically in April). The annual review form should be submitted to the director of graduate studies for review.
The Graduate Committee reviews each student to ensure satisfactory academic progress. Additional information about satisfactory progress and program requirements can be found in the PhD Handbook and the annual review form. If the major advisor and the committee agree that progress is unsatisfactory, the student will be placed on internal academic probation. The student will then work with the advisor to create a one-year action plan to bring the student back to the expected performance level and get approval from the Graduate Committee. By the following academic review, the student must have successfully completed the action plan and made satisfactory academic progress to remain in the program.
Comprehensive Committee & Examinations
In general, the College follows the standard requirements set forth by the Graduate College on Comprehensive Examinations. Comprehensive exams should be taken after all coursework has been completed for both the major and the minor.
The student will form a major Comprehensive Exam Committee in advance to scheduling the exam. The College of Information Science requires a minimum of four (4) faculty members to serve on the committee. This requirement is greater than the Graduate College minimum of three (3) members. Any Special Members must be approved in advance by the Graduate College. Please work with the Director of Graduate Programs to submit required approval information.
Students must complete their Comprehensive Exam Committee Appointment Form on GradPath forms. This form should be submitted a minimum of three (3) weeks before the exam is scheduled. Afterwards, students will submit their Announcement of Doctoral Comprehensive Exam Form in GradPath a minimum of two (2) weeks before the exam is scheduled. See GradPath forms for guidance.
Students will pursue an essay-format exam before scheduling their oral examination. We recommend completing the Comprehensive Exam Cover Sheet with the major advisor and committee members to the areas to be covered on the exam. Students must pass the written part of the comp exam to take the oral exam. Students have 1 chance to retake either part of the exam if they fail at their first attempt. A second attempt at the exam must be taken within six (6) months of the first attempt.
Essay-Format Exam
An option for students who entered prior to Fall 2018 and the only option for all students who entered Fall 2018 or after:
Dissertation/Proposal Committee
Once students have an approved doctoral Plan of Study on file; have satisfied all coursework, language and residence requirements; and have passed the written and oral portions of the Comprehensive Examination, they may appoint their dissertation committee for defense of the dissertation proposal and final dissertation defense.
This committee should include at least four faculty members, one more than Graduate College requirements for committee composition. Two of these members may come from outside of the College of Information Science and all must be tenured, tenure-track or other approved equivalent (Graduate Faculty or Special Member). Students follow Graduate College guidelines for special provision members.
To form the committee, students complete the Doctoral Dissertation Committee Appointment Form through GradPath.
Dissertation Proposal
After passing comprehensive exams, students may enroll in dissertation units (INFO/LIS 920) with the advisor’s approval. Before dissertation work starts, a dissertation proposal must be developed by the student and approved by the student's dissertation committee after a proposal oral examination. The proposal examination should be completed no later than nine (9) months after completion of the comprehensive exams. Students have one (1) chance to retake the oral exam of the dissertation proposal if the first attempt fails.
Written Proposal Format
The written proposal is distributed to committee members in advance of the dissertation defense for multiple rounds of comments. A dissertation proposal has a typical length of 20-40 pages and commonly includes a cover page, introduction, literature review, research questions, data and methods, research plan and timeline, risk factors, and expected results. Please see the PhD Handbook for further written proposal details.
Oral Defense of Proposal
- Lasts 1-3 hours
- Includes a candidate presentation
- Includes a question-and-answer session
- Includes committee deliberation (closed to the public)
- Is good practice for the dissertation defense
Approval of the proposal is recorded in GradPath.
Dissertation Defense
Once a student has passed their dissertation proposal oral examination, they may begin writing their dissertation. A Dissertation in the program may be in 1 of 2 formats: (1) Article-based format: a dissertation consists of at least three (3) thematically related published/accepted for publication articles, as well as an introduction and a conclusion that integrate the articles and demonstrate an overarching theme; (2) Monograph format: a dissertation as one (1) monograph.
Once committee members deem the dissertation appropriate for examination, an oral examination (dissertation defense) will be held.
The Dissertation Committee Form and the Announcement of Dissertation Defense Form must be submitted in GradPath a minimum of three (3) weeks before the scheduled defense. To schedule your defense and get assistance with booking a physical space, please follow up with the College Program CoordinatorsDirector of Graduate Programs for assistance. Students should also e-mail their title and abstract to the Director, Graduate Programs three (3) weeks in advance to advertise within the College.
Sample Dissertation Outline
- Introduction
- Literature Review
- Theoretical Framework
- Research Questions
- Research Plan (Data, Methods, Evaluation, etc.)
- Assessment of the Success of the Research/Risk Factors
