BU CS Systems Group: Subject/Comprehensive and Oral Exam – Qualifying Exam Guidelines June 14, 2017 The content of this document has been derived from multiple sources. Introduction ------------ “All PhD candidates must pass a written or oral comprehensive examination administered by the department. In addition, every PhD candidate is required to pass an oral examination in a distinct area of computer science. These examinations must be completed by the end of the third year of study.” http://www.bu.edu/academics/grs/programs/computer-science/phd/ As per the CS department milestone guidelines: http://www.bu.edu/cs/graduate/phd-program/phd-program-milestones/ PhD candidates are required to pass both an in-depth Subject exam and an Oral Exam. In the systems group the advisor and candidate may opt to do a combined Qualifying Exam as described in this document. To be eligible for this option the student must have taken the CS Operating Systems (CS552) class, obtained a passing grade, and permission from the advisor. As per the department and college requirements this combined exam must be completed by the end of the third year of study. Exceptions may be granted on a case-by-case basis with the approval of the system faculty. Background ---------- To be a successful PhD student, the candidate needs a much broader set of skills than obtained solely through class work; including the maturity as a researcher to cope with significantly more uncertainty than is typically seen in course work. Additional skills include the abilities to evaluate the current literature, to select promising directions for future work, and to follow some of those directions through to the nuggets of new contributions. Our expectation is that the foundations for these skills should already be in place and evident by the beginning of the second year of PhD studies. Specific skills that we expect to be developed by a PhD candidate include: 1. The ability to apply the basic tools of the field in potentially new ways, along with the self-understanding of what they themselves know and what they have yet to learn. 2. The ability to identify significant research contributions from a larger set of published papers, and justify that selection (for example, on the basis of significance of the results or the novelty of the approach). 3. The ability to relate papers to one another, and to other research in the literature. 4. The ability to critique the research methods used in papers, including the strengths and weaknesses of these methods and likely threats to validity, whether these are acknowledged in the papers or not. 5. The ability to identify limitations, and possibly errors, of the results reported in the papers, along with their implications. 6. The ability to suggest alternative approaches to addressing the research challenges posed in these papers. 7. The ability to identify and prioritize lines of investigation for further research, based on an understanding limitations of the research described in the papers, important open problems that the papers fail to answer, and the likelihood of being able to make progress on such issues. Guidelines ---------- Working with their supervisor, the student should have selected 5-10 research papers to be emphasized at their qualifying oral. These should be important papers in one research area of relevance to CS. This research area need not correspond to the student’s eventual choice of PhD topic. Students do not have to be committed to a thesis topic prior to this committee meeting. The student will be examined on the points 1 through 7 listed in the background section above. It is expected that students will have read and understood more than just the selected papers, but it is not expected that the student master all relevant literature at the time of this exam. In order to help focus the initial questioning, the student will prepare a short position paper (less than 10 pages, double spaced, in a reasonable font) on points (1-7) above. It will often be the case that the student has begun research in this area themselves, in which case s/he is expected to briefly describe his/her progress so far. In addition, it is the student’s option to discuss the expected overall scope of the questioning with his/her supervisory committee several weeks prior to the exam. At the beginning of the Qualifying Oral, the student will be asked to give a 15 to 20 minute talk to introduce her/his position on the research described in the selected papers and briefly outline any research they have already started. This will be followed by one or more rounds of questioning by the supervisory committee. During this questioning it is critical that the student demonstrates an understanding of CS tools and techniques that are relevant to pursuing research in the area. The supervisory committee will provide one of the following examination results: 1. Pass. 2. Conditional Pass. The student is given one or more concrete tasks to complete by a specific deadline (no further than a year later). This may include an written exam. The chair of the qualifying examination must report to GRS whether or not the student has cleared the conditions by the deadline. If the student fails to clear the conditions by the deadline, then they will be considered to be making unsatisfactory academic progress and this may result in failure. 3. Fail. Student must either withdraw from the program or have their registration terminated. After Completion ---------------- After passing the Qualifying examination you will proceed to the thesis proposal stage during which point you will be required to meet the college’s dissertation prospectus requirement: http://www.bu.edu/academics/grs/programs/phd-degree-requirements/ Dissertation Prospectus ----------------------- At a stage in the research prescribed by the student’s department or graduate program, the student develops a dissertation prospectus with the help of his/her readers or dissertation committee. The dissertation prospectus must be approved by the readers, the director of graduate studies, and the department chair/program director. Once approved, the dissertation prospectus approval form is submitted to the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences office on or before the date specified at the Graduation Information website. Although the length of the prospectus will vary from discipline to discipline, it cannot exceed 20 double-spaced (or 10 single-spaced) pages of 12-point type, excluding the bibliography. The format of the prospectus and specific procedures for meeting the general guidelines described at the GRS Forms, Policies & Procedures website vary from department to department. Note the above may be out of date and should confirm the most recent version of the college requirements.