Ph.D. Preliminary Examination
Eligibility
The oral Preliminary exam should be taken within the specified time limit and as soon as a thesis proposal is ready, with approval from the thesis advisor. The exam is expected to be taken 3-4 semesters after passage of the Qualifying exam. The Preliminary exam should however, be taken no later than the 5th semester after passage of the qualifying exam.
All Ph.D. candidates whose native language is not English, regardless of US citizenship, must also pass the Test of Spoken English (TSE) or the Speak exam, administered by the university, prior to attempting the Prelim.
Committees
Dissertation committees must have at least four voting members; at least three and no less than half of the voting members must be members of the Graduate Faculty; and at least two of the voting members must be tenured.
Committees that consist of four members of the extended Department of Computer Science (DCS) faculty, who are also members of the UI Graduate Faculty, and have at least two tenured DCS regular faculty members, need only verification by the Academic Office.
Committees with other composition require the approval of the Department Head or his or her designate. In all cases the committee must fulfill the Graduate College requirements, and at least half of the committee members must be regular DCS Faculty. Students are encouraged to seek committee members of suitable standing outside the department or the University, wherever feasible.
Questions concerning whether or not the proposed doctoral committee meets College and Department requirements should be directed to the Academic Office before making the formal request for examination.
Regular and Extended Faculty
Regular faculty includes all people with a full-time or part-time tenure track (assistant/associate) professor appointment in the DCS.
Extended permanent faculty of the DCS includes the regular faculty, as well as people with non-visiting (assistant/associate) professor appointments in DCS that carry one (or more) of the following modifiers: adjunct, affiliate, research or emeritus.
Scheduling
Formal requests for an examination must be made no later than 3 weeks prior to the exam (no exceptions), including justification for a committee that requires approval from the Department Head. The Academic Office must know the date and time of the exam and the names of the Prelim committee to make the formal arrangements with the Graduate College for the committee to be officially convened and called to the exam. All committee members must be present at the examination (teleconferencing may be permitted, with prior approval). No Prelim may occur without these arrangements being made.
The student's thesis proposal outlining the scope of the research to be pursued and describing any preliminary results must be presented to the committee members at least three weeks before the Prelim. At the exam, the committee requests the student to present the proposed work.
It is the committee's task to determine, by means of questions to and discussions with the student, whether the scope, level, and originality of what is proposed are appropriate to a Ph.D., and to suggest any apparent modifications to the research plan. In rare cases, the committee may recommend that the student not continue.
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