Doctor of Philosophy Computer Science (PhD)
Yaohang Li, Graduate Program Director - Admissions
Michele Weigle, Graduate Program Director – PhD
In the ODU PhD program, research is led by our graduate faculty who have interests in bioinformatics, machine intelligence and data analytics, networks, systems, security, parallel algorithms and computing, scientific computing, stochastic modeling, and web science and digital libraries. The research groups are described on the Department of Computer Science Research webpage.
Admission
Students entering the PhD program in the Computer Science Department should meet the minimum university graduate admission requirements (https://www.odu.edu/admission/graduate). Students may be admitted directly to the PhD program with either a bachelor's or a master's degree. Prior to applying for admission, students are encouraged to visit the department's website and ensure that their research interests match with that of a faculty member. Students are expected to show proficiency in Problem Solving and Programming, Introduction to Computer Architecture, Advanced Data Structures and Algorithms, Introduction to Theoretical Computer Science, and Operating Systems at an undergraduate level. Those entering the PhD program with deficiencies in these areas will have to make them up.
Curriculum Requirements
A candidate for the doctoral degree in computer science must meet all of the following requirements in addition to the university requirements outlined under the Academic Information section in this Catalog:
- Complete a minimum of 78 credit hours beyond the bachelor’s degree or 48 credit hours beyond the master’s degree (credits include those for formal coursework, breadth requirements, and dissertation/research work). All credit hours must be in computer science unless recommended by the student’s PhD dissertation advisor and approved by the GPD.
- Develop a dissertation topic that is approved by the student’s PhD advisor.
- Pass the candidacy examination. After this step, and after formal courses are complete and the topic for the dissertation is approved by the advisor, the student is considered to be a PhD candidate.
- Write and defend the dissertation prospectus (proposal).
- Attend at least 10 departmental colloquium events and take the 1 credit hour CS 690 Colloquium.
- Complete 24 credit hours of CS 899 (Doctoral Dissertation).
- Successfully defend the dissertation.
The above must be completed within eight years after admission to the PhD program. Note that students with a degree in a discipline outside of computer science will be required to take prerequisite undergraduate courses that will not be counted towards the 78 credit hours requirement.
Course Requirements
All students must take and pass CS 800 Research Methods (P/F graded course) during their first year in the PhD program (or within one year of completing required undergraduate prerequisites).
Students with a master's degree in computer science or related field must complete at least 48 credit hours of coursework as specified below:
- A minimum of 24 credit hours of post-master's coursework at 800-level that meets the breadth course requirements. 3 credit hours of coursework at the 600-level may be included here.
- 24 credit hours or more of dissertation work (CS 899).
- A maximum of six hours may be transferred into the PhD program from post-master's coursework done elsewhere.
Students without a master's degree in computer science or related field must complete at least 78 credit hours of coursework as specified below:
- 12 credit hours of MS level coursework (500-level or 600-level) approved by the student's PhD advisor and the GPD, which must include CS 600 and CS 665.
- A minimum of 42 credit hours of coursework at 600-level or above, of which at least 30 credit hours must be at 800-level and meet the breadth course requirements.
- 24 credit hours or more of dissertation work (CS 899).
- Demonstrate proficiency in Problem Solving & Programming, Introduction to Computer Architecture, Advanced Data Structures and Algorithms, Introduction to Theoretical Computer Science, and Operating Systems at an undergraduate level
Since internship is not a degree requirement, the courses CS 667, CS 668, and CS 669 do not count towards PhD course requirements.
Additional Requirements
Advisor
Upon admission to the PhD program, a faculty advisor will be assigned to the student for general guidance. The student, however, is expected to find a dissertation advisor by the time he or she completes formal coursework. The guidelines for advising are outlined under Student Advising in the University Requirements for Graduate Degrees section of the Graduate Catalog.
Breadth Course Requirements
Excellence in breadth is assessed through graduate coursework at ODU and evaluated by multiple faculty members. To demonstrate this, a student must take four (4) CS graduate courses at the 600 level or above that meet the following conditions:
- For breadth: At least one course in three (3) different research areas (“Foundations” does not count as a research area)
- For depth: At least three (3) courses at the 800 level. For instance, a student may take four 800-level courses, or three 800-level courses and one 600-level course, as long as three of the courses satisfy condition 1.
- Earn a GPA of at least 3.5 across these four courses.
- The four courses must be regular courses that also earn a letter grade (thus CS 697, CS 800, CS 891, CS 896, CS 898, and CS 899 do not count towards this requirement). Most CS 895 Topics courses will count towards this requirement, and those eligible will be assigned to an appropriate research area.
- Courses transferred from another university do not count towards this requirement.
See the Department of Computer Science webpage or contact the GPD for information on the course to research area mapping.
Candidacy Examination Process
Upon completing formal coursework (not counting CS 899 credits), before becoming heavily involved in dissertation work, and no later than three years after acceptance into the PhD program (preferably during the first 24 months after admission into the program), the student must pass the Candidacy Examination process. Students may satisfy this requirement by passing the Candidacy Examination or by completing an acceptable Research Event. Both options require a written and an oral component.
Option 1: Candidacy Examination
The topics and papers covered in the Candidacy Examination are set by the student’s PhD advisor and other members of the appropriate research area committee. The student will be provided a set of 5-10 papers to review in their research area.
Written Component: The student will write a summary of the papers, highlighting their contributions to the research area, noting how they are related and how they are different. The student must also propose areas for potential future work. Ideally, this document could form the basis for the related work section of the student’s dissertation proposal. The written summary should be 15-20 pages in the standard ODU dissertation format.
Oral Component: After the written component has been approved by the area committee, the student will give an oral presentation (about 20-30 minutes long) on the subject to the area committee. At the end of the presentation, the area committee may ask questions to further assess the student’s understanding of the papers. At the end of the examination process, the committee will make a pass/fail decision and report this to the GPD.
The goal of this exam is to assess the student’s understanding of the content of the papers and the student’s ability to critically analyze and articulate the important issues raised in the papers. The student should also be able to identify potential areas for future research that build off of these papers.
A pass decision means that the area committee believes that the student is prepared and qualified to undertake PhD-level research in computer science.
A fail decision means that the area committee believes the student is not ready to undertake PhD-level research in computer science. The area committee should provide recommendations to the student on how to improve their performance. A student who fails the Candidacy Examination may retake the exam once or may attempt the Research Event option once. Two failures will result in the student being dismissed from the PhD program. The student may request a different set of papers to be assigned for a retake.
Option 2: Research Event
Students who enter the PhD program with an acceptable MS thesis or are first author on a high-quality academic submission may be able to satisfy the Candidacy Examination process without taking the Candidacy Exam. Each research area committee determines its own set of conferences and journals in their research area that would be acceptable.
Written Component: The written component may be satisfied either through either an accepted publication or a high-quality, but rejected, submission to an approved conference or journal. For either option, the student must be the first author.
- Accepted: The research area committee may approve an accepted publication to count as the written component of the Candidacy Examination process.
- Rejected: The research area committee may approve a rejected, but high-quality, submission as the baseline for the written component of the Candidacy Examination process. In addition to the submitted paper, the student must construct a document that outlines how the student would address the reviewers' comments.
Oral Component: After the written component has been approved by the area committee, the student will give an oral presentation (about 20-30 minutes long) on the subject to the area committee. At the end of the presentation, the area committee may ask questions to further assess the student’s understanding of the research and related work. At the end of the examination process, the committee will make a pass/fail decision and report this to the GPD.
A pass decision means that the area committee believes that the student is prepared and qualified to undertake PhD-level research in computer science.
A fail decision means that the area committee believes the student is not ready to undertake PhD-level research in computer science. The area committee should provide recommendations to the student on how to improve their performance. A student who fails the Research Event option may attempt the Research Event option once more or may take the Candidacy Exam once. Two failures will result in the student being dismissed from the PhD program.
To use the Research Event option, the student must provide the GPD and the chair of the appropriate research area committee a copy of the document proposed to satisfy the requirement. The document will be evaluated by the area committee to determine if it meets the stated criteria. The chair of the area committee will notify the student and the GPD of the outcome of the evaluation (acceptable or unacceptable). If the publication is deemed unacceptable, the student may submit another publication or take the Candidacy Examination. This does not count as an attempt.
If a student is not first author on a submitted paper to an approved conference/journal before they have completed formal coursework, they must take the Candidacy Examination within the next 6 months.
After passing the Candidacy Exam, completing formal coursework, and having an approved dissertation topic, the student must register for at least 1 credit hour each semester (including summer) until graduation.
Dissertation Committee
After the candidacy exam has been passed and dissertation topic approved, the Dissertation Committee is formed to supervise the dissertation research.
A Dissertation Committee is formed according to the following procedure:
- The faculty advisor selects at least three members of the Dissertation Committee in cooperation with the student and the Graduate Studies Committee.
- The Dissertation Committee consists of at least two ODU faculty members. At least one member must be from outside the student's department/school at ODU or a non-ODU academic or professional with special knowledge of the dissertation subject area. No more than one-third of the committee's membership can be individuals external to the University. All committee members must be certified for graduate instruction. The current research interests of the computer science members of the committee should be related to the research goals of the student.
- Additional members may be appointed to the committee. Adjuncts (approved for graduate instruction) and non-university members may be added with approval of the GPD.
- The committee must complete a PhD Dissertation Committee Form. This form is submitted to the GPD by the Graduate Studies Committee and to the Dean of the College of Sciences for approval.
Dissertation Prospectus
The oral examination of the written dissertation prospectus, or proposal, is designed to test the student’s knowledge of background material related to the dissertation topic and to determine if the student has identified a significant problem, has a plan of attack, and is ready to proceed with the dissertation research.
At least one week before the scheduled oral examination time (and preferably two weeks before), the student must provide the examination committee with a written dissertation research proposal. The proposal should contain the following items (not necessarily in this order):
- a comprehensive literature review on the dissertation topic that should in particular discuss limitations of current approaches and open problems in the topic area
- a description of the research problem
- a discussion of how the problem relates to other work in the field
- a detailed research plan, including proposed tasks and a timeline for completion
- a list of expected contributions.
During the examination, the student will give a 45-minute presentation of the dissertation proposal to be followed by questions from the committee. The examination committee will be made up of at least three faculty members, all of whom must be graduate certified. These are typically the members of the student’s dissertation committee. The exam is expected to last no more than 2 hours.
The presentation of the dissertation proposal is open to the public and will be publicized by the GPD at least one week in advance of the exam. Once the presentation has concluded and the audience has asked general questions, the audience will be excused. The examination by the committee will be held in private, but graduate faculty members are welcome to observe the exam.
Dissertation
A minimum of 24 credit hours of dissertation work (CS 899) is required. The work must represent an achievement in research and must be a significant contribution in the field. Students are required to publish (or have in the revision process) at least one paper in a refereed journal or refereed conference proceedings based on their dissertation work.
Dissertation Defense
The examination will be oral and the examination committee must have the completed dissertation at least two weeks before the examination date. In addition to the examination, students are required to give a public oral presentation on their dissertation results.
Time Requirement
PhD students should normally be full-time. A full-time student can be expected to satisfy all the PhD requirements in three to five years when entering with an MS degree or four to six years with a bachelor’s degree. No student (full-time or part-time) will be allowed to study for the PhD degree beyond eight years from the date of admission into the program.