Students may designate a concentration in software engineering in their doctoral degree title. In that case the transcript of a graduating student would be "PhD in Information Technology with Concentration in Software Engineering." Students may also pursue such doctoral studies without designating a concentration in their degree title.

Requirements

Plan of Study

Doctoral Supervisory Committee

Note for PhD pre-defense and final defense:

• It is the University policy that the final defense can only occur at least two weeks after the pre-defense.
• The Volgenau School's policy requires that the final defense for the PhD in IT degree can only occur at least four weeks after the pre-defense. Under very special circumstances, the minimum two-week period determined by the University policy may be approved by the Senior Associate Dean.
• Students in the PhD in IT degree program must submit an Approval to Defend Dissertation form [PDF] along with a copy of the written dissertation to Lisa Nolder after successfully passing their pre-defense.
• Students should also submit to the Associate Dean (via e-mail): (a) a copy of the title and abstract of the dissertation, (b) a list of publications resulting from the dissertation, and (c) information on future employment after graduation.
• Students are responsible for providing an electronic version of the announcement to be posted at various places within the university to the staff person in charge of coordinating their respective PhD degrees. Failure to do so will delay the date of the final defense.

Qualifying Examinations

• Two exams from Software Construction, Software Modeling, or Software Testing.
• Two exams from the following, at most one from each master's program.
• Foundations of Computer Science
• Operating Systems
• Computer Networks
• Information Security and Assurance
• Databases
• Language Processing
• Artificial Intelligence
• Applied Probability
• Applied Statistics
• Systems Engineering Design

Advanced Emphasis Requirement

• 3 credits of SWE 763 or CS 700
• 12 credits from SWE 700-level courses and IT-SWE courses (defined below)
• 9 credits from the complete list of SWE, IT-SWE and SWE relevant courses below

SWE 600-level Courses

SWE 700 and 800-level Courses

SWE Relevant Courses