PhD Proposal

DRAFT Guidelines

PhD candidates are initially given provisional registration. The provisional registration has to be confirmed within fifteen months. It is expected that most registrations will be confirmed between six and twelve months after initial registration.

In order to achieve confirmation candidates for a PhD in Computer Science will, within twelve months of intial registration:

1. produce a satisfactory interim report including:
   • a literature review;
   • a description of the work completed to date;
   • a discussion of the planned contribution of the thesis;
   • a thesis outline; and
   • a plan to complete.
2. give a seminar presenting the highlights of the document describing their initial work.

Candidates will probably want to use the thesis template to prepare their interim report.

The interim report will be evaluated by the Computer Science Graduate Committee and the candidate's supervisor(s).

If the report is satisfactory then the Computer Science Graduate Committee will recommend to the Associate Dean (Students) that the candidate be given full registration.

If the report is not satisfactory then the candidate will be informed of the shortcomings of the report, and either:

• given the opportunity to re-submit, if this can be achieved within the 15 month limit; or
• recommended to transfer to MSc (Part 2), if appropriate; or
• recommended to withdraw from the programme.

In theory, see also the PhDHandbook?, although it doesn't have much useful content here that I could find.

The current draft regulations say this:

4.6.2 The full research proposal

• (a) A full research proposal provides evidence of the viability of the research proposed and the capacity of the student to carry out the research. Each discipline will establish its own requirements for an acceptable proposal, which might include presentation of the proposal in a seminar.
• (b) The proposal would, to the extent appropriate for the discipline, be expected to contain the following elements:
  • (i) an outline of the basic thesis/research question;
  • (ii) appropriate theoretical framework(s);
  • (iii) a literature review. This is seen as the appropriate way to show that the candidate has understood and can interpret the literature;
  • (iv) a demonstration that the methodology is appropriate;
  • (v) a statement as to whether ethical approval is required and, if so, whether or not that has been obtained from all required institutions. If approval has not been obtained the timetable for approval is to be noted;
  • (vi) a statement that there are no foreseeable cultural, social or legal impediments to the successful completion of the research.
• (c) The proposal will establish preliminary goals for the next six months, and will contain a tentative timetable for the completion of the thesis.

Something like this should satisy points (v) and (vi)

• No ethical approval will be required to carry out this research.

or

• Human ethics approval will be required to carry out usability evaulations. This approval will be applied for from the Informatics Human Ethics Committee by DATE.

and

• There are no foreseeable cultural, social or legal impediments to the successful completion of the research.