Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Computer Science

To satisfy program course requirements, a set of proposed courses must be approved by the supervisor(s) and the Graduate Program Director or delegate, in their entirety; individual courses cannot be approved in isolation. In addition to the Faculty of Graduate Studies requirements and Faculty of Science requirements, the Department requires:

a) Course Requirements: Students will be required to have achieved at least a grade of "B-" in a minimum of 24 units beyond the requirements for an undergraduate degree before completion of the PhD degree. A minimum of 9 units of these must be taken while the student is enrolled as a PhD student in Computer Science at the University of Calgary. Of the 24 units, a minimum of 18 units must be graduate-level courses, excluding professional program courses, with the remaining 6 units being either graduate-level courses or advanced (500-level) undergraduate courses. A minimum of 12 units of the required courses must be taken from a degree-granting Computer Science Department. In addition to the above courses, Computer Science 699 or equivalent experience is required and does not count toward the minimum 24 units courses above.

b) Breadth Requirements: The above courses must be taken from multiple research areas. A maximum of six courses (18 units) in one research area are counted toward the minimum 24 units. Courses in the intersection of two or more areas are counted in the area with the most completed course credits. The current research areas are: Artificial Intelligence and Multi-Agent Systems, Bioinformatics and Biological Computations, Computer Graphics, Computer Vision and Image Processing, Database, HCI and Visualization, Networks and Systems, Security, Theory and Foundations, Scientific Computing, Software Engineering, Other areas in Computer Science, External to Computer Science. Credits for courses external to the Department of Computer Science are only given on condition that no Computer Science course which covers similar content is counted toward the required eight courses; such courses will be counted toward the appropriate areas in Computer Science.

c) Seminar Requirement: Students are required to give a Department seminar presentation on a topic related to their graduate research.

Advanced Credit

The applicant must make advanced credit requests as part of the admission process. Credit will not be given for course work taken as part of another completed degree/diploma or for courses taken to bring the grade point average to a required level for admission.

Flexible Grade Option (CG Grade)

Students admitted to the Department of Computer Science will not be allowed to request the Flexible Grade Option (CG Grade) for any course that is applicable to their degree; or apply any course awarded a grade of CG towards their graduation requirements.

Students may choose the CG grade for a course taken extra to load.

The use of the CG grade will affect students' eligibility for internal awards.

Credit for Undergraduate Courses

For PhD programs, at most 6 units at the 500 level may be taken as part of the course work requirement; at most one of these taken while registered in the current PhD program. This must be approved by the supervisor(s) and by the Graduate Program Director or delegate on the normal Doctor of Philosophy Course Approval Form (available from the Department). Units below the 500 level are not acceptable for credit. Exceptions to this rule will be permitted only with the approval of the supervisor(s) and of the Graduate Program Director or delegate.

Time Limit

Expected completion time for doctoral students entering with a master’s degree is four years, and five years for a student transferring to the doctoral program without a master’s degree.

Supervisory Assignments

Students are admitted to a specific research area and supervisor. Students may seek a change in research area or supervisor after admission. Such a change must be satisfactory to the student, and to the proposed new supervisor. Provided this change meets any current supervisory load constraints, this change will be supported and approved by the Graduate Program Director or delegate.

Doctoral students select their supervisory committee members in consultation with their permanent supervisors.

Research Proposal Requirements

At the doctoral level, the thesis proposal must be approved by the student’s supervisory committee before an oral examination on the proposal is scheduled. For complete details of the requirements, see http://www.ucalgary.ca/cpsc/graduate/programs/doctoral_phd_thesis_based/current_regulations.

Required Examinations

Candidacy

Doctoral students must complete a written Field of Study examination, a written thesis proposal, and an oral examination on the thesis proposal. For complete details of the candidacy requirements, see http://www.ucalgary.ca/cpsc/graduate/programs/doctoral_phd_thesis_based/current_regulations.

Thesis Examination

In addition to the Faculty of Graduate Studies regulations for Thesis Examinations, the department requires:

Scheduling of the Examination

All members of the Supervisory Committee must have reviewed the student’s research, including a relevant written sample of the materials related to the thesis, before an examination can be scheduled.

Composition of the Committee

The Internal Examiner may be internal to the home program.

Thesis examinations are open.

Financial assistance may be available to qualified students. For information on awards, see the Awards and Financial Assistance section of this Calendar. Successful applicants may be offered Departmental teaching assistantships and/or research assistantships in their offer letter.

Students should contact the Department for information on scholarship deadlines.