Course Requirement: (105 units)

In the Ph.D. program in Computation, Organizations and Society (COS), each student must complete 105 University units of graduate courses and maintain at least a B average. Course requirements are intended to ensure that all program graduates have sufficient breadth in COS fundamentals as well as depth in one or more relevant areas of their choice. Students must demonstrate breadth in COS fundamentals by completing 48 units in 4 star areas plus a minimum of minimum of 21 units of COS Ph.D. Practicum after year 1, 12 units of the Practicum in year 1 satisfies the breadth requirement. Depth is provided through the remaining 36 units of electives coursework, which can be fulfilled from a broad selection of relevant electives - as well as research and project work. More information about star courses and electives appear below. It is recommended that a majority of the star courses be completed before electives are taken.

General Enrollment

All Ph.D. full time students must be enrolled for a minimum of 48 units per semester.  When not enrolled in specific classes the student should be enrolled in 08-997 Graduate Reading and Research.

Sample Study Plan

The COS curriculum ensures all students have a solid foundation in computational methods, formal methods, society and organizations, and policy. At the same time, it retains enough flexibility to enable students to further specialize in areas that are more closely relevant to their research interests. The following is an illustration of the courses three different sets of students could take:

Sample Schedule

Fall 1 Spring 1
  COS Lab    15-780 Advanced Concepts in AI
   10-701 Machine Learning    10-751 Prob & Statistics for Computer Science
   COS Research    COS Research
Fall 2 Spring 2
   Dynamic Network Analysis      Elective
   Elective    TA-ing
   COS Research    COS Research
Fall 3 Spring 3
   TA-ing    COS Research
   Elective
   COS Research

Sample Schedule

Fall 1 Spring 1
   COS Lab    15-780 Advanced Concepts in AI
   Dynamic Network Analysis       15-750 Algorithms
   COS Research    COS Research
Fall 2 Spring 2
   10-705 Intermediate Statistics    Elective
   Elective    TA-ing
   COS Research    COS Research
Fall 3 Spring 3
   TA-ing    COS Research
   Elective
   COS Research

Sample Schedule

Fall 1 Spring 1
   COS Lab    15-780 Advanced Concepts in AI
   Dynamic Network Analysis       Privacy Algorithms
   COS Research    COS Research
Fall 2 Spring 2
   10-705 Intermediate Statistics    Elective
   Elective    TA-ing
   COS Research    COS Research
Fall 3 Spring 3
   TA-ing    COS Research
   Elective
   COS Research

COS Ph.D. Practicum (21 units)

COS Ph.D. Practicum 08-998 (12 units in first semester and a minimum of 9 units thereafter). First year students sign up for 08-999, "COS Practicum Intro" for 12 units for their first semester, and for each semester thereafter sign up for 08-998, "COS Practicum Advanced" for 3 units. The COS Ph.D. Practicum provides students with insight into the nature of research in COS and practical information on being a researcher, feedback on research, and an opportunity to collaborate with fellow graduate students and faculty. COS Students are expected to sign up for, attend, and present in the COS Ph.D. seminar series, for a minimum of two years, and each semester while in residence.  Students can and should sign up for this seminar multiple times.  Students receive 12 units their first semester and 3 units each following semester they are in this seminar. Further, students are to present a paper each spring semester they are enrolled in this seminar.

The Fall practicum reviews the research in COS with 2 weeks per each of the core faculty.  A short 2 week assignment for each of the two week modules is required.  Senior graduate students provide support and feedback to first year students.  Students in their first year in COS receive 12 units, and students in later years receive 3 units.

The Spring practicum focuses on the practical side of science.  Students gain experience presenting talks, writing and reviewing proposals, reviewing journal papers, writing white papers and so on.  Topics vary each year. All students receive 3 units each year they take this practium.

Star Courses (48 units)

The 4 star courses (48 units) provide students with a basic grounding in core skills needed for research in COS: computational thinking, statistics, and management/policy.  Students are to take a minimum of one 12 unit course (or two 6 unit courses) from each of the required areas.  No course may satisfy more than one requirement, in its entirety. In rare cases the units of a course may be split between two categories such as 6 units in one area and 6 in another. Exactly which courses are taken should be discussed by the student and his/her advisor. Please note the courses listed are illustrative. At CMU new courses are added most years. If there is a course that you and your advisor feel are appropriate simply send an email petition to Dr. Carley asking to count it.

Computation, Organizations and Society (12 Units Star Course Required)
An 08- Ph.D. level (or masters with permission of instructor) course taught by Core COS faculty

  • 08-733 Privacy, Policy, Law and Technology
  • 08-734 Usable Privacy and Security
  • 08-780 Web Commerce, Security and Privacy (must have permission to take as a PhD course)
  • 08-781 Mobile & Pervasive Computing Services (must have permission to take as a PhD course)
  • 08-800 Technology Dialectics
  • 08-801 Dynamic Network Analysis
  • 08-803 Empirical Methods for Socio-Technical Research
  • 08-810 Computer Simulation of Complex Socio-Technical Systems
  • 08-996 COS Independent Study (with a core COS faculty, not your advisor)

Computational Thinking Skills (12 Units Star Course Required)
Address issues of how to reason computationally.  These courses involve the design and development of core algorithms and not just the application of canned programs.

  • 08-810 Computer Simulation of Complex Socio-Technical Systems
  • 10-701/15-781 Machine Learning
  • 15-750 Algorithms
  • 15-780 Advanced AI Concepts
  • 15-781 Machine Learning
  • 15-853 Algorithms in the Real World

Policy and Management (12 Units Star Course Required)
Address issues of management and policy.  Methods courses are not allowed in this area.

  • 08-732 Law of Computer Technology
  • 08-733 Privacy Policy, Law, and Technology
  • 08-810 Computational Modeling of Complex Socio-Technical Systems (if paper uses a model to address a policy or management issue)
  • 15-892 Foundations of Electronic Market Places
  • 19-701 Theory and Practice of Policy Analysis  (6 units)
  • 19-712/18-842 Telecommunications Technology, Policy and Management
  • 47-891 Seminar in Organizational Theory (6 units)
  • 47-899 Seminar in Social Networks (6 units)
  • 90-903 Social network theory (6 units)
  • 90-862 Making Public Policy in the Real World
  • 90-840 Legislative Policy Making

Statistics (12 Units Star Course Required)
Address issues of statistical data analysis.  These are meant to provide methodological skill in statistics.

  • 10-702 Statistical Machine Learning
  • 10-705/36-705 Intermediate Statistics
  • 36-727 Probability and Mathematical Statistics II
  • 36-749 Experimental Design for Behavioral & Social Sciences
  • 90-770 Applied Econometrics

Electives (36 units)

All students are required to take a minimum of 36 units of Ph.D. level electives.  These electives provide depth in an area of relevance to the student.  This requirement can be filled by a combination of mini’s (6 unit) and full (12 unit) courses.  These electives can be drawn from a variety of sources:

  • A specialized independent study on a topic for which there is not a regularly offered course.  At most 12 units of independent study can count toward the COS elective requirement.
  • Additional courses in COS
  • Additional courses in SCS
  • Additional Ph.D. level courses at CMU or University of Pittsburgh.  At most one can be a course at the University of Pittsburgh.

Teaching Requirement

To fulfill the teaching requirement for the Ph.D. degree the student must do one of the following:

  • Serve as a full TA two full length COS Courses
  • Serve as a full TA for one full length COS Course and one full length SCS course – with the permission of the student’s advisor
  • Serve as a full TA for one full length COS Course and teach the equivalent amount in the CASOS summer institute (requires substantial teaching over multiple years)

Computational Thinking and Programming Requirement

To fulfill the computational thinking and programming requirement for the Ph.D. degree the student must:

  • Achieve a high level of competency designing, implementing and testing algorithms
  • Developed a substantial body of code in association with a research project
  • Work collaborative on a computational thinking project

Typically this is achieved through research and development by the student as part of a research team under their Ph.D. advisor.  Key requirements include computational thinking, acceptable code development, code development as part of a team, and good documentation practices.

Writing Requirement

To fulfill the writing requirement for the Ph.D. degree the student must:

  • Demonstrate a high level of competency in organization, clarity of writing in English, cohesive argument, and accurate utilization of references by writing a paper that is accepted for publication by a high-quality peer-reviewed conference or journal (or equivalent, as approved by the COS faculty)

Typically this is not granted until the student has finished writing at least the thesis proposal.

Speaking Requirement

To fulfill the speaking requirement for the Ph.D. degree the student must:

  • Attend and present in the COS PhD Practicum, at least four times.
  • Present at, at least once, at national or international conference (in a paper, not a poster session or round table).
  • Achieve a high level of competency in talk organization, slide development, presentation style, eye contact, and question answering skills.

Master’s Degree in Computation, Organizations and Society (COS) for students enrolled as Ph.D. students.

Rational
In COS, we are getting an increasing interest by current Ph.D. students in getting a master’s degree.  Having such a degree:

  1. Meets the emotion and often familial need of showing that they have achieved a milestone.
  2. Enables them to get higher salaries if they take an internship for a turn.
  3. And, for foreign students, their pay level is often set (in other countries) on the number of degrees, not just the highest degree.
  4. Provides, for those students who change life directions, or realize that they are not cut out to get a Ph.D., or fail out of the program, a possible degree providing they have met the requirements.

To Obtain a Master's Degree

To obtain a Master's degree students must petition their advisors upon completion of meeting the below requirements, prior to the Black Friday meeting.

  1. Complete 48 Star units
  2. Complete 36 Electives
  3. Complete 21 units of COS Practicum
  4. Must obtain 3 semesters in Residency at CMU
  5. Meet speaking requirement by attending 3 semesters of COS Practicum

Master’s Level Speaking requirement

To fulfill the speaking requirement for the master’s degree the student must attend the COS PhD Practicum for at least three semesters and give at least two presentations in the practicum.

Master’s Level Residency Requirement

To attain a master’s degree the student is expected to be in residence on CMU’s Pittsburgh campus for a minimum of 1.5 years.

Ph.D. Proposal and Thesis

A good thesis will be an original and significant work in COS research. While methodologies will likely vary from one dissertation to another, they will typically combine analytical and empirical work and include development of a computational prototype, used as a basis to demonstrate and evaluate concepts introduced in the dissertation. Typically evaluation will not be limited to a computational assessment but will also include proofs of fitness and an analysis and evaluation of relevant human, social, organizational, economic and/or policy ramifications of the proposed solution.

The program is planned to allow a typical student to complete all the required coursework by the end of the third year. By the start of the fourth year a Ph.D. candidate will present a thesis proposal to the COS community. The proposal should include:

  • a clear statement of the proposed research problem, including an argument for the significance of the proposed research
  • a review of relevant literature relating to the problem
  • a review of the candidate’s work leading up to the thesis
  • a tentative schedule for completing the work.

Advising on the thesis proposal, and guiding in the formation of the dissertation committee, is the thesis advisor’s responsibility. Normally, the thesis advisor is one of the COS faculty, but this is not mandatory. The thesis committee must be composed of at least four members, one of whom is an external member and at least one of whom is a COS faculty member. The external member may be from another school at Carnegie Mellon, or from outside the University. All thesis committees are subject to approval by the program committee.

The dissertation will typically be completed during the student’s fifth year. The final defense is a public presentation, in accord with the College and University requirements for the Ph.D. It is the candidate’s responsibility to ensure that the College and University’s guidelines are followed for publicity of the defense and the availability of the thesis at least one week prior to the defense.

Thesis Proposal Information:

Prior to scheduling your thesis proposal you MUST first check with Connie Herold, cherold@cs.cmu.edu, to make sure no other ISR student is defending or proposing on the day you want to schedule. The ISR department only allows one student to defend/propose on any given day. If a conflict occurs, the department head must approve both students defending/proposing on the same day.

Thesis proposals should be scheduled only during academic periods, before Black Friday -- not during holidays, weekends, etc., and should be scheduled during normal business hours.

Thesis proposals must be announced to the community at least one week before the presentation. Earlier is even better.

To schedule your thesis proposal:

  • Check with your thesis committee members to determine two or three possible dates. The student's advisor chairs the thesis committee. All other committee members, including the external member, should be agreed upon before the thesis proposal presentation. Members of the student's committee must accept the responsibility of meeting with the student regularly to ensure that the research is progressing in the right direction.

  • Please refer to your faculty members’ assistant to help secure a room for the date and time (schedule a room that holds around 25 for 2 hrs). Please let Connie know once this has been scheduled– Possible rooms to schedule are:(GHC 4405, GHC 6115, GHC 8102, GHC 6501, NSH 3005, WEH 4625.)

  • If it is necessary to arrange for a speakerphone or other AV Equipment you must do so well in advance (at least 5-7 days):

  • Reserve a conference phone. Please use corporate time to do this. You can ask your advisor’s assistant or the Help Desk to reserve a phone for you. (The resource name is SCS Conference phone). The phone can be picked up and returned to SCS Help Center on the reserved date. OR – you can check with the Business Office to see if their conference phone is available.

  • If you need to contact a committee member by “dialing out”, you must contact Paul Stockhausen (stocky@cs.cmu.edu) to arrange for a call out code dialing out. You will also need an oracle string number to charge, please ask Connie for this number.

One Week Prior to your Proposal, you must do the following:

Send Connie the following information:

  • Title
  • Date/Time/Location of proposal
  • Abstract
  • Names, titles and affiliations of your thesis committee members including email addresses
  • PDF of poster (Poster template: Proposal Poster)
  • You must post approximately 10 posters throughout both Wean and Gates announcing your proposal 1-week prior.

Thesis Defense Information

Prior to scheduling your thesis defense you must check with Connie (cherold@cs.cmu.edu) to make sure no other ISR student is defending or proposing on that day you want to schedule. The ISR department allows one student to defend/propose on any given day. If a conflict occurs, the department head must approve both students defending/proposing on the same day.

Thesis Defense should be scheduled only during academic periods – not during holidays, weekends, etc. and should be scheduled in normal business hours. The Department Head must approve exceptions

Student should coordinate a date with their committee members and finalize the date as early as possible to allow time for travel arrangements, final review and comments by committee prior to defense date.

Student needs to coordinate with their advisors assistant to secure a room for their defense. The room scheduled must be available to the public and must accommodate a reasonably large number of people (25-30). Possible room suggestions are: WEH 5409, WEH 4623, WEH 4615A, WEH 4625, NSH 3005, NSH 3002, GHC 4405, GHC 6115, GHC 8102, GHC 6501

Student if necessary may arrange for a speakerphone or other AV equipment. You must do well in advance (5-7 days) – To reserve a conference phone –please use corporate time, again your advisors assistant can help you with this process. If you need to call out to a committee member, please contact Connie for a string number, and then contact Paul Stockhausen (stocky@cs.cmu.edu) to arrange for a special call out code.

Below is a recommended timeline:

11 Weeks Prior:
Give the complete Thesis document to committee members, allowing 6 weeks for them to read it before the Thesis Defense is announced. Four (4) weeks may be acceptable if the committee has already read substantial portions of the thesis.

5 Weeks Prior:
To ensure the Thesis Defense is publicly announced one week before the defense, all committee must be finished reading the document before announcing the defense date. Please ensure your advisor has checked with the committee to verify that there is nothing that would prevent the defense from being successful. It is also a good idea for the student to meet with each committee member to get initial feedback on the thesis.

1 Week Prior:
Send all the following information to Connie (cherold@cs.cmuedu)

  • Your name as it should appear on your diploma
  • Thesis Title
  • Date/Time/Location of presentation
  • Thesis Committee Members names, titles, affiliations, and email addresses
  • Thesis Abstract – Less than 350 words describing the thesis
  • Pointer to Thesis for any outside faculty who wish to review (Website address, etc)
  • Print and post 10 Posters thru out the SCS Community (Wean/ Gates) (Poster Template: Defense Poster)
  • Send Connie a PDF of Poster

Day of Defense Presentation:
Pick up the following required signoff forms:

  • Graduation Record Card
  • Thesis sign off page

After your Defense presentation, and prior to submitting your final Thesis Copy:

Contact Catherine Copetas (copetas@cs.cmu.edu) for the following information:

  1. Title page template
  2. TR Number
  3. Verify with Catherine prior to printing you have the proper title page format
  4. Verify with her about making your thesis into a CS Technical Report by putting it on-line. If you are able to do this successfully, she will not need a hard copy. If not, you will need to provide a second copy to her for the Tech Report. This copy should be formatted for two-sided copying.

Once your Committee has approved all your changes, and you have a final copy of your thesis, you must turn in the following items to Connie prior to certification: (Please note: Connie will forward you all forms near your defense date that need completed)

  1. UMI form (Pages 4 & 5 must be turned in, pages 6 & 7 are optional)- most students pick “traditional publishing option) the university will pay the fee on this option.
  2. 1 Single sided copy of your final dissertation
  3. Survey of Earned Doctorates Form
  4. PhD Dissertations Checklist
  5. Graduating Student Data Form
  6. Original Yellow Card, and Committee Sign off forms
  7. Email from your Committee Chair you do not owe the department any equipment, work, etc.
  8. Please clear up any outstanding balances with the HUB, (insurance, late fees, etc.)
  9. Turn in all keys, and student ID

May Commencement Deadlines & Thesis Defenses:

If you wish to walk in May, a student should have a complete and reasonably polished draft of their thesis document ready for committee reading by the last week in February.
A final pass must be received two weeks prior to the Commencement Ceremony

Students: Steps for Final Oral Defense

Time: Allow 2-2.5 hours for defense:
     30 minutes beforehand for set-up
     45 minutes for the presentation
     45 minutes for Q&A
     30 minutes for deliberation by the committee
     30 minutes for final debriefing


Common Questions:

  • Who should come to a thesis defense?
    The thesis defense is a public event open to all members of the CMU community. The student's committee (including any readers) should attend in person or, if circumstances prevent that, by phone.

  • What are the outcomes of a defense?
     Common outcomes from a thesis defense are:
    • Pass - Thesis is considered complete as is.
    • Conditional Pass Level 1 - Changes required and subject only to advisor approval.
    • Conditional Pass Level 2 - Changes required and subject to committee approval.
    • Required second defense.
    • Failure.

  • When do I need to defend in order to walk through the graduation ceremony and hooding ceremony?
    You will need to have all the documentation in place in the first week of March for us to request a diploma.

 

Important Dates 2010-2011:

In order to walk in Commencement ceremony on May 15, 2011 :

  • Student needs to be certified in CMU system by May 6th
  • Student needs to finalize the date & send it to Connie at least 4-5 weeks before the defense.
  • Student orders cap & gown by April 1st

Ph.D. Program in Computation, Organizations and Society
School of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
(412)268-3163
cos-phd@cs.cmu.edu