The requirements for admission to the doctoral program in Computer Science are:

• A baccalaureate or Master's degree in Computer Science, or equivalent degree in a related field as judged by the School's Graduate Committee.
• A minimum of a "B" average on all upper division work and acceptable courses in Calculus and Statistics.
• GRE general test score of 1120 (verbal and quantitative combined), with a minimum quantitative score of 650.
• Three letters of recommendation from persons in a position to judge the applicant's potential for advanced graduate study in computer science.
• Approval of the Graduate Committee.
• Applicants whose native language is not English must score a total of 80 on the iBT TOEFL or 6.3 overall on the IELTS. TOEFL = Test of English as a Foreign Language (www.toefl.org). IELTS = International English Language Testing System (www.ielts.org).

A maximum of 6 (or 36 if part of a completed Master's degree) semester hours earned elsewhere as a graduate degree-seeking student may be transferred to FIU.

Acceptance of transfer credits is dependent upon the following provisions:

• The student received a grade of "B" or better.
• The course was taken at an accredited institution
• The course was relevant.
• The course was listed on an official transcript received by the Graduate Admissions Office.
• The course was completed within six years preceding admission.

1. The student must pass six required courses and at least six elective courses. In addition, the student must earn at least 24 dissertation credits, and 2 credit hours of a seminar course. In total, 75 credits beyond the bachelor’s degree are required.
2. The student must pass the Candidacy Examination, which is a written and oral examination of the student’s knowledge in a broad research area.
3. The student must pass the Proposal Defense, which is an oral examination of his or her dissertation proposal.
4. The student must write a dissertation on his or her research and successfully defend it orally in the Dissertation Defense.

The following six courses are required and must be completed with a grade of "B" or higher:

• CEN 5011 Advanced Software Engineering*
• COP 5614 Operating Systems*
• COP 5621 Compiler Construction
• COP 5725 Principles of
  Database Management Systems*
• COT 5407 Introduction to Algorithms*
• COT 5420 Theory of Computation I*

In addition, at least six elective courses must be completed with a grade of "C" or higher, maintaining a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher. Acceptable courses are listed in Section 9.1. Other courses are acceptable if approved by the Graduate Program Director.

At least 24 dissertation credits must be earned. Other credits can include graduate research and independent studies.

The student must complete at least 2 seminar courses of one credit each.

The Candidacy Examination is designed to ensure that the student has competency in a chosen broad research area, along with the critical thinking skills necessary to undertake Ph.D.-level research. The research areas that may be chosen depend on the research interests and expertise of the current faculty of the School of Computing and Information Sciences; some recent examples include software engineering and formal methods, software engineering and testing, databases and data mining, algorithms and bioinformatics, distributed systems, computer security foundations, and cognitive science.

The Candidacy Examination is based on a reading list of 8 research papers; it consists of both a written exam and an oral exam.

Application to take the Candidacy Exam is made in the first week of the semester in which the student wishes to take the exam. The application is in writing to the Chairperson of the Graduate Committee.

To sit for the Candidacy Examination, a student must meet the following two criteria:

• The student must be in good academic standing and have active status,
• The Graduate Program Director must certify that the student is capable of completing all required course work by the end of the semester in which the Candidacy Examination is given.

Each Candidacy Examination is administered by an Examining Committee consisting of 3 graduate faculty members of the School of Computing and Information Sciences. The Examining Committee is constituted as follows: the student declares a broad area of research interest and suggests 2 committee members (one of whom should be the student’s advisor); the Graduate Committee then chooses a third committee member.

The Examining Committee selects the reading list for the examination. The list will consist of 8 papers that broadly sample research in the chosen area; it includes 5 fixed papers, used in every exam within that area, and 3 other papers chosen based on the student’s particular research interests. The reading list will be made public no later than the second week of the semester in which the exam is to be held.

The Candidacy Examination will be held no earlier than 10 weeks after the reading list is published. The written exam is held first; it consists of 3 questions and is 2 hours long. The oral exam is held on a subsequent day within one week of the written exam; it ordinarily takes less than 2 hours. In both exams, the student will be expected to answer detailed questions addressing any aspects of the papers in the reading list, including underlying concepts and techniques, as well as relationships among the papers. During the exams, the student may consult the papers (which may be annotated) but no other resources.

Passing the Candidacy Examination requires a unanimous vote by the Examining Committee. The Candidacy Examination may not be passed conditionally, or contingent upon other factors, such as the completion of additional coursework or the preparation of extra research projects.

The student will be informed in writing of the result of the Candidacy Examination within 14 days. Upon passing the Candidacy Examination, the student must file Form D-2 with the University Graduate School. Note that a student may enroll for dissertation credits only after being advanced to candidacy.

If the student fails the Candidacy Examination, the student can retake it within one year. Passing the Candidacy Examination is requisite to continuing in the graduate program; students who fail the examination twice will be dismissed from the graduate program.

After passing the candidacy exam, the student’s support will be raised if the student is on an assistantship.

Graduate assistants in the Doctoral program will be terminated if they have not passed the Candidacy Examination within three years, unless an extension is granted by the Graduate Program Director.

Students already advanced to Ph.D. candidacy status may only be terminated by a vote of the faculty. Such a decision will be based on the recommendation of the student's Dissertation Committee.

After passing the Candidacy Exam, the student will propose to the Graduate Committee Chairperson a Dissertation Committee. This committee has a minimum of 4 members, at least 3 Graduate Faculty members from the School and at least 1 from outside of the School. The Dissertation Advisor is the Chairperson of the Dissertation Committee and must be a Graduate Faculty member in the School with Dissertation Advisor Status. Form D-1 must be completed.

After the Dissertation Committee has been approved by the Chairperson of the Graduate Committee, the student will write a dissertation proposal. The proposal will be given by the Dissertation Advisor to the student's Dissertation Committee for review. The Dissertation Advisor will also schedule an oral presentation of the proposal in the form of a public lecture. Based on the reviews and on the oral presentation, the Dissertation Committee will make the final decision. Upon acceptance of the proposal, Form D-3 will be completed, to indicate that both a committee and a proposal have been approved. Before the submission of D-3 form, the Graduate School requires the Ph.D. candidate to complete an on-line "Responsible Conduct of Research Certification" training course:

(http://www.ori.fiu.edu/responsibleConduct.html)

The purpose of the proposal is to convince the Committee that the chosen dissertation topic and the student's approach have a reasonable chance of success. We want to minimize the chance that a dissertation will be turned down when almost completed. In particular the proposal should:

1. explain the basic idea of the thesis topic
2. argue why that topic is important
3. state what kind of results are expected
4. make plausible that these results are sufficient for a Ph.D. thesis and that they are obtainable within the given time frame with the available resources
5. demonstrate the student's academic qualifications for doing the proposed work by including a comprehensive survey of the area of specialization.

After the proposal is accepted, the student's support will be raised if the student is on an assistantship.

The dissertation must describe a piece of original and high-quality work and must describe it well. It is on this basis that the School of Computing & Information Sciences certifies the qualification of the new Ph.D. Furthermore, it is the most important basis on which the rest of the scientific community judges the initial achievement and potential of that individual.

The final public oral defense is a public presentation describing the contributions of the dissertation.

The Dissertation Committee makes the final decision whether the student passes or fails based on the content and form of the dissertation, as well as the outcome of the dissertation defense.

Graduate assistants in the Doctoral program are expected to finish the requirements for the Ph.D. within five years.

At the doctoral level all requirements, including the successful defense of a dissertation, must be completed within nine years of first enrollment in the doctoral program.

The result of the candidacy exam is valid for five years unless the Graduate Committee deems it appropriate to extend the time limit up to the period the student is allowed to be a graduate student by the university.