ABOUT THE CURRICULUM
Rochester Institute of Technology is on the quarter system. Students are expected to study for three quarters (fall, winter, and spring), each 10 weeks in length plus one week of exams.
The Ph.D. program requires a minimum of 99 quarter-credit hours (QCHs) beyond the baccalaureate level. These credit hours are comprised of graduate-level coursework, including seminar attendance and research credits
| |
Description |
QCHs |
| Required Courses |
The core courses of Discovery, Security and Trust, Connectivity, and Design provide an intra-disciplinary approach to computing foundations. Two research courses provide methodology and tools for conducting and disseminating research and grant proposals. |
24 |
| Teaching Skills Courses |
These courses offer teaching skills foundations and an apprenticeship course that will provide guided teaching opportunities and mentorship. |
3 |
| Electives |
All elective courses provide foundation support of the student's dissertation research area. These courses will come from the computing courses (in the three I's - interaction, informatics, infrastructure), domain courses, and other electives. |
40 |
| Dissertation and Research |
Students will be required to conduct original, use-inspired research involving two or the three knowledge areas of interaction, informatics, and infrastructure, and applied to a domain. |
32 |
| TOTAL |
|
99 |
Required Courses (27 QCHs)
4040-810 Research Methods (4 QCH)
Prerequisite(s): 0307-711 (Fundamentals of Statistics), or permission of instructor
This course provides the theoretical background and practical application of various research methods that can be used in computing and information sciences. The students will learn general approaches to scholarship in the computing and information sciences field, and will explore research methods and associated data analysis techniques, including correlational and experimental design research techniques. Additionally, students will gain an overview of a variety of research methods and terminology, and will conduct literature reviews. These foundation skills will prepare students for advanced research courses. Students will analyze several existing research studies, and design and conduct studies.
4040-811 Introduction to Research (4 QCH)
Prerequisite(s): None
The course will concentrate on best practices in research in the areas of computer and information sciences. It will advance the student's generic research skills necessary for achieving research results, their presentation and publication. It will train students in such activities as refereeing and interacting with reviewers and choosing the media and means for publication. Writing styles specific to area publications will be discussed. The students will have to prepare a paper, submit it to their peer's review and discussions. They will have to deliver a presentation based on the paper prepared. The students must actively participate in the reviews and in-class and on-line discussions.
4040-820 Discovery (4 QCH)
Prerequisite(s): 4002-784 (Fundamentals of Database Client/Server Connectivity), or permission of instructor
This course provides the necessary foundation in the theory and practice of discovering information from large data sets. Managing and interpreting the increasing quantities of scientific and business data to generate useful knowledge is a major challenge. Computing and information sciences professionals need to be able to combine data from multiple data sources, extract relevant information, and present it so that domain experts can develop knowledge and understanding. Topics include discovery informatics, knowledge discovery, data visualization, information sharing and presentation, and ethical issues underlying access and interpretation of large data sets. Computing projects are required.
4040-830 Connectivity (4 QCH)
Prerequisite(s): 4005-740 (Data Communications and Networks I), or permission from the instructor
This course draws attention to commonalities underlying social networks, biological networks, and communications networks. This will give students a deeper understanding of the issues, a broader set of models and metaphors for designing new communications systems, and will better prepare them for development of connectivity solutions that meet the needs of the users and communities they serve. Topics include fundamental and emerging concepts in networking, and the analytical and heuristic tools that people use to develop and analyze networks. Computing exercises will be required to provide hands-on experience with selected tools and technologies.
4040-840 Security and Trust (4 QCH)
Prerequisite(s): 4040-820 (Discovery), or permission of instructor
This course studies general security issues in a computing environment. This includes theoretical, practical, social, policy and procedural, human factors, and technological aspects. Students will learn to evaluate the security attributes in a computing-based environment.
Topics are: cryptography, network security, policies and procedures, access control, secure software engineering, and human factors of security. Computing exercises will be required.
4040-850 Design (4 QCH)
Prerequisite(s): 4002-725 (Component Development), or 4010-0361 (Software Engineering), or 0306-661 (Engineering Design of Software), or permission of instructor
This course focuses on problem-solving and design approaches integrating the areas of interaction, informatics, and infrastructure into application domains. A primary goal is to give students a project-oriented experience in system-level design for creating and building multidisciplinary systems too complex to be treated by engineering analysis alone, and in the context of use-inspired basic research. A second goal is to introduce students to existing design representations and methodologies, and to the concepts and terminology of domain-specific product line engineering. Topics include various types of systems and their product development lifecycles and process frameworks; effective system design representations and development methods; usability heuristics, testing, and assessment methods; product line domain engineering concepts; project planning and oversight tools.
4040-896 Cyberinfrastructure Colloquium (0 QCH)
Best practices in collaborative cross-disciplinary research and in communication will be developed and exemplified in a Cyberinfrastructure colloquium, which will be open to all students and faculty.
Teaching Skills Courses (3 QCHs)
4040-807 Teaching Skills Workshop I (2 QCH)
Teaching is a valuable and desirable skill for Ph.D. students. This first of a series of workshops provides an introduction to the concepts and skills needed for quality teaching in higher education. Students will be provided with lecture, reading, and class activities centered on building skills in educational analysis, design, and assessment.
4040-809 Teaching Skills Apprenticeship (1 QCH)
Prerequisite: 4040-807
This is the third course in a series of workshops that provides students with an opportunity to work with an experienced faculty member as an assistant. Students will be provided with an opportunity to observe and discuss teaching techniques with an experienced faculty "mentor." Students will be provided with opportunities to contribute to the teaching of a course, and will receive feedback on their teaching techniques and materials.
Elective Courses (40 QCHs)
All elective courses provide foundation support of the student's dissertation research area. These courses will come from the computing courses (in the three I's - interaction, informatics, infrastructure), domain courses, and other electives. Specific numbers of courses within a category will vary dependent upon the student's background and research area. All elective courses are recommended by the student's advisor and programs of study must be approved by the Ph.D. Program Director.
Intra-disciplinary Computing Electives
The curriculum draws from the offering of the graduate programs within GCCIS as well as from domain-specific graduate offerings from other colleges at RIT. These courses are grouped into the "3I's", computing knowledge areas of: Interaction, Infrastructure, and Informatics. Students are required to take courses from 2 of the 3 areas.
Interaction
The interaction specialty area refers to topics related to the combined action of two or more entities (human or computational) that both affect one another and work together when facilitated by technology. It in turn encompasses several subtopics relating to how people and technology interact and interface. There are several common threads that weave through all of these areas. Many of them rely heavily and build upon foundations in the social and behavioral sciences with an emphasis on understanding human phenomena and social/organizational phenomena. To some extent, these fields follow an engineering approach to the design of interactions in which solutions are based on rules and principles derived from research and practice, but require analyses that go beyond the analytical approach. From this perspective, solutions can be measured and evaluated against goals and intended outcomes. However, while efficiency and effectiveness are often the watchwords of these fields in practice, this is also where science meets art in computing, creative design, and sensitivity to human needs and aesthetics are critical.
Some of the specialties available in this area are:
- Human-Computer Interaction - Courses in this area will allow students to conduct research into the cognitive and behavioral aspects of human interactions with computers, devices, and environments.
- Computer-Based Instructional Systems - Courses in this area will allow students to conduct research on the effectiveness of instructional systems and be involved in the development and evaluation of new instructional tools.
Informatics
Informatics is the study of computational/algorithmic techniques applied to the management and understanding of data-intensive systems. It focuses on the capture, storage, processing, analysis, and interpretation of data. Topics include primarily algorithms, complexity, and discovery informatics. Data storage and processing require investigation into tools and techniques for modeling, storage, and retrieval. Analysis and understanding require development of tools and techniques for the symbolic modeling, simulation, and visualization of data. The increased complexity of managing vast amounts of data requires a better understanding of the fundamentals of computation. These fundamentals include complexity. Theory to determine the inherent limits of computation, communication, cryptography, and the design and analysis of algorithms to obtain optimal solutions within the limits identified.
Some of the specialties available in this area are:
- Core Informatics - The increased complexity of managing vast amounts of data requires a better understanding of the fundamentals of computation.
- Discovery Informatics - Society is being flooded in data. Extracting knowledge, information, and relationships from this data is one of the greatest challenges faced by scientists today. The data can be unstructured numeric, video, graphics, text, speech, music, etc. The data mining techniques used to analyze the data employ the full range of computing and analytic sciences. The following courses study the closely related problems of data management, knowledge discovery, and pattern recognition.
- Intelligent Systems - This area focuses on developing models that are biologically inspired and that leverage current knowledge in cognitive science, neuroscience, computer science, and engineering with the goal of developing systems that understand a given environment.
Infrastructure
The infrastructure area comprises aspects primarily related to hardware, software (both system software and applications), communications technology, and their integration with computing systems through applications. The focus is on the best organization of these elements to provide optimal architectural solutions. It includes, on the hardware side, system-level design (e.g., for system-on-a-chip solutions) and their building block components. On the software side, it covers all aspects of systems and applications software development, including specification and design languages and standards; validation and prototyping, and multi-dimensional Quality-of-Service management; software product lines, model-driven architectures, component-based development, and domain-specific languages; and product estimation, tracking and oversight. The communications subtopic includes sensor networks and protocols, as well as active networks, wireless networks, mobile networks, configurable networks, and high speed networks; as well as, network security and privacy, quality of service, reliability, service discovery, and integration and internetworking across heterogeneous networks. At the system level there are issues related to conformance and certification; system dependability, fault tolerance, verifiable adaptability, and reconfigurable systems; real-time, self adaptive, self-organizing, autonomic systems.
Some of the specialties available in this area are:
- Networks and Security - These courses provide in-depth study in design, modeling, implementation in the security-related and performance analysis aspects of data and communication networks.
- Digital Systems and VLSI - These courses cover the design, modeling, and evaluation of modern computing systems, including hardware, software, and their integration.
- Software Design and Productivity - These courses cover process, methods, and techniques for building high-quality software systems.
- Systems Software - These courses cover theoretical and practical aspects of operating systems, language processors, middleware, and other systems software.
Inter-disciplinary Domain Courses
The Ph.D. program also focuses on the interaction between computing and non-computing disciplines, or areas of domain-specific computing, in science, engineering, arts, humanities, and business. By incorporating domain-specific computing, following the philosophy of use-inspired research, the research conducted in this program applies computing and information science principles to the solution of problems in application domains that lie outside of the scope of the traditional computing discipline. The research requirement incorporates fundamental concepts in cyberinfrastructure necessary for understanding the problems commonly encountered in advancing scientific discovery and product development in cross-disciplinary domains.
Other Elective Courses
4040-899 Ph.D. Independent Study (1 - 6 QCHs)
Ph.D. students will work with supervising faculty on a project or research study of mutual interest. The design and evaluation will be determined through discussion with the supervising faculty and documented through completion of an independent study form. The independent study must be approved by the Ph.D. Program Director.
4040-900 Collaborative Practicum (8 QCHs)
The practicum is a collaborative, multidisciplinary team project where students will be able to demonstrate their problem-solving abilities and their capabilities to apply knowledge and technology in innovative ways. Students will conduct a 3-6 month use-inspired, interdisciplinary team project. This project will include the following elements: (1) application of the technical elements that are covered in the core courses and the specialty courses the students have completed; (2) the social elements including leadership, collaboration, research methods and project management (pace, budget, documentation, etc.).
Additional Program Requirements
Dissertation and Research (32 QCH)
4040-890 Ph.D. Dissertation and Research (1-32 QCHs)
Students will perform use-inspired original research in the interaction, informatics, and infrastructure areas of computing and information sciences applied to specific domain(s). Students will receive guidance from their advisor(s) in choosing an appropriate topic.
Residency Requirement
One year of full-time residency (minimum of 12 credits per quarter for 3 consecutive quarters, not including summer).
Assessments
Each student must pass three (3) examinations in the following order:
- Research Potential Assessment after the first year
- Thesis Proposal Defense (committee approval) after the thesis proposal is written
- Dissertation Defense after all coursework, research, and the first three assessments have been successfully completed and the dissertation written
Research Potential Assessment
This assessment will focus on evaluating the research skills students will be working on in their first year in the program. Passing this assessment will allow them to qualify and continue on in the doctoral program. In addition, the complementary elective courses (in the three I's - interaction, informatics, infrastructure and as recommended by the advisors and students' backgrounds) provide a better foundation for support of the individual student's research project.
Thesis Proposal Defense
This is an oral qualifying examination for admission to candidacy. Formal admission to Ph.D. candidacy will be granted after successfully passing the depth assessment requirement and having a research proposal approved by the dissertation committee. The dissertation committee is comprised of at least three individuals who are currently part of the Computing and Information Sciences Ph.D. faculty.
Dissertation Defense
This will be the final examination that will include the dissertation committee and an external reader from outside of RIT. The exam consists of a formal, oral presentation of the thesis research by the student, followed by questions from the audience.
Sample Program of Study
The table below provides an illustrative progression of a typical student in the program. The normal time for advancement to candidacy is two years.
| Year | Quarter | Course |
| Year 1 |
Fall |
4040-810 Research Methods
4040-896 Colloquium
4040-890 Dissertation and Research
Elective
Elective
|
| Winter |
4040-811 Introduction to Research
4040-896 Colloquium
4040-890 Dissertation and Research
Elective
Elective
|
| Spring |
4040-820 Discovery
4040-896 Colloquium
4040-890 Dissertation and Research
Elective
Elective
|
| End of Year 1 |
Research Potential Assessment |
| Year 2 |
Fall |
4040-840 Security and Trust
4040-896 Colloquium
4040-890 Dissertation and Research
Elective
Elective
|
| Winter |
4040-830 Connectivity
4040-896 Colloquium
4040-807 Teaching Skills Workshop 1
4040-890 Dissertation and Research
Elective
|
| Spring |
4040-850 Design
4040-896 Colloquium
4040-809 Teaching Skills Apprenticeship
4040-890 Dissertation and Research
Elective
|
| Year 3 and beyond |
Ph.D. Proposal
4040-890 Dissertation and Research
|
| End of Year 3 |
Dissertation Proposal Defense (Admission to Candidacy) |
| Within 7 years of Candidacy |
Dissertation Defense |
