Department Policies governing Doctoral Students

Department Policies governing Doctoral Students in Information Systems

1. Doctoral Students have the following specific rights

To determine the areas of elective study and research they are interested in pursuing and to seek the advice and cooperation of faculty in those area.
To choose, with the particular faculty members agreement, their thesis advisor.
To approve the individual members of their thesis or proposal review committee based upon the recommendations of the thesis advisor.
To review any portions of qualification or comprehensive exams they have failed with the faculty responsible for grading that portion of such an examination.
To appeal any ruling or actions they feel unfair to the appropriate parties which may include: the program director for their Ph.D. area, the department committee governing that area, the Chairperson of the CIS Department, the Dean of the School and/or the Director of Graduate Programs for NJIT.

2. General Departmental Policies

Commitment to research area:

Ph.D. students are not expected or required to make any commitment to any research area or specific faculty advisors until they have completed the studies for their qualifying exams. Until they have completed their required courses a student is not expected to be aware of all the alternatives available to them. Exceptions may occur for students entering the program with considerable prior work experience or other graduate work such as a Master’s degree.

No faculty member should place any undue pressure on a student to do research in a specific field and any such actions should be reported as unfair action in 1.e. above.

Students receiving NJIT support:

A student who chooses to accept support from a research budget controlled by a given faculty member or research project should understand his or her obligations under that research project and is expected to complete those obligations as directed by the faculty member(s) involved in that effort.

Students supported under general department funds who have not yet chosen their advisor will usually be expected to perform work in support of the general department mission which may involve grading, teaching, laboratory maintenance, administrative support activities, etc. Such students may be assigned to a specific faculty member for mentoring and supervision in such areas. This does not imply those faculty are also to become their advisors. Students receiving full support are expected to be putting in around 20 hours a week on the average in such activities.

Initial involvement in research efforts

Any student, supported or not, is free to involve themselves in a research effort taking place in the department in order to learn what is going on in that area, but this involvement does not commit them to deciding that area is their final choice of a thesis area. CIS 785 courses are meant to aid the Ph.D. student in facilitating such investigative involvement.

English

In general, Ph.D. students with TOEFL’s below 600 will be asked to take English upon entering the program.

Students who are supported and whose English is not considered adequate for teaching are expected to take English instruction until they can demonstrate an ability to lecture and/or teach in English.

Students, supported or not, may be required by their advisor to take additional English in order to enhance their ability to do research.

Course instructors may notify the Program Director for that Ph.D. program that a given student needs English improvement and the Program Director may investigate and require further English courses.

Initial Qualifying Exams

Given that students may transfer in to the program with prior course work overlapping those in the qualifying exam and that there may be some differences in courses delivered by different faculty or adjuncts the following will govern Ph.D. qualifying exams:

There will be a reading list broken down by the courses required for the Ph.D. qualifying exam and that reading list will be frozen for at least six months prior to the current exam. Questions for the exam will be taken from the material in this reading list.

Outside Work

Any CIS Department faculty member and any outside members of any thesis committee who seek to employ a student through an entity or organization outside of NJIT must disclose to the Department (a written memo to the Chairperson and the P&T Committee) the details of the employment: Organization, type of work (consulting, summer work, part time employment), the nature of the job, immediate supervisor, pay scale, etc.

Students receiving any form of support from NJIT are also obligated to report the same information (by written memo to the Chairperson) occurring during the period they are supported by NJIT. This includes summers when their is NJIT support in the semester before and the semester after a summer or in the summer itself.

In general, to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest, a person employing and/or having employment supervision (with exception of NJIT research projects) over a student should not be a member of their thesis committee or a grader of their qualifying or comprehensive exams.

End of Policy Statement