INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Professional Standards of a PhD
1. General characteristics of PhD in Information Systems
In academic field of Information Systems (IS) the PhD students must educate to
high academic standard of research, have and apply knowledge in broad area
depending with the IS function and development. The PhD program in IS must produce
students who possess a dominating knowledge of the nature of IS, sophisticated
applications, research on IS and the supporting technology in Computer Science. It
deals with integrated information, computer and communication systems that support
and augment individuals and groups in any field of application - management, business,
engineering and manufacturing, health and medicine, education, social sciences, arts
and humanities, etc. A PhD in IS should be also able to support multidisciplinary
research. Good knowledge of IS and their exploiting will be necessary entry point for
these activities.
2. Common skills
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Graduated PhD in IS should have the following skills to:
Apply creativity and adaptability in exploiting acquired knowledge;
Have ability for multidisciplinary task solving;
Demonstrate an understanding of applying acquired theories and techniques that
help to solve identification, analysis, design, implementation and verification vast
information systems;
Analyze conflicting project objectives, looking for and design balance solution
within the given limits.
3. Specific skills
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Graduated PhD should have also the following more specific skills to:
Develop and management of IS;
Apply programming fundamentals and integrative programming;
Analyze technical requirements of IS;
Apply and to do software modeling and analysis in IS;
Apply knowledge of security: issues and principles;
Analyze and design of proper structure of information systems (relational,
postrelational, object oriented);
Use and design knowledge based systems (logic as a tool for knowledge
representation in advanced information and knowledge systems).
Do research in spatial, temporal, deductive IS;
Do detailed overview of distributed information systems and their bottle necks;
Use master web technologies (in respect to information systems);
4. Additional skills
These skills mainly concerns both areas of research work and publication results
and specific areas of research interests e.g. biology, medicine, business and so on.
These skills should include following activities:
 Keep well informed about current technical trends and innovations and maintain
long-term professional growth;
 Structure and exploiting information resources;
 Psychological aspect of group people leadership;
 Understanding and solving problems in different applications in practice and
science.
5. IS curriculum
The proposal for the IS PhD's education is based on the following sources:
 The answers to the questionnaires developed and filled in within the frame of
this project;
 The curricula for bachelors [3] and (particularly) for masters [4] in IS developed
under the 213871-CP-2-2002-1-BG-Erasmus-TN (ECET) project;
 Other curricula - [7…23].
The analysis of the abovementioned sources shows, as expected, coherence
only to a certain degree. This is due to some differences in the European and USA
traditions, to the different levels of graduation treated, to the different aims, to time
differences (because even 3-4 years are essential to IS theory and practice
development). Whilst taking seriously into account all the quoted sources, however we
gave priority to the results obtained trough the questionnaires within this project.
The general structure of the curriculum proposed encompasses the following
units:
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6 courses
practical experience
teaching practice
research activities
PhD thesis
The overall duration is basically 4 years. In some cases, particularly when the
PhD student has no prior practical experience, or the research area is objectively new,
or there are other reasons – the duration might be expanded to 5 years.
Courses
The PhD's education in IS is organized in three levels:
a) 1 of the 5 generic common courses;
b) 2 of the 4 main courses must be of more general character and taken by all SE
PhD students;
c) the rest of the 3 courses should be determined by the tutor depending on the
narrow area where the PhD thesis will be oriented.
Practical experience
The practical experience is obtained within the University and outdoor.
The first type may consist of two exercises. The first one should be a (self-)
critical analysis of a software engineering practical experience of the author – preferably
from the real practice or in extreme – from previous student experience. The results
have to be presented both through a written report and an oral presentation at a
seminar.
The second one may address a more complicated case in a similar way, or it may
alternatively take the form of a critical literature survey. The second type of experience
includes part-time work with local software houses, participation in development groups
of real projects or with industrial partners of the University.
Teaching practice
It may include exercising as teaching assistant for one or two disciplines,
assigned by the tutor. It may also include the tutoring of a master thesis (if permitted by
the rules).
Research activities and PhD thesis
By definition the PhD thesis is required to be the result of research activities.
Besides, it is recommendable that the PhD students work as a part of a research group
in order to obtain the knowledge, habits and skill for doing research. The PhD student is
encouraged to visit faculty and project web pages, read papers, and contact faculty and
current students affiliated with projects of potential interest. Research projects, while
focused on practical engineering challenges, take a scientific approach. Hence, the
student will have the opportunity to identify research hypotheses, do experiments
possibly involving some engineering and interaction, data collection and feedback.
References:
1. 213871-CP-2-2002-1-BG-Erasmus-TN
(ECET):
Bachelors
Professional
Standards in IS.
2. 213871-CP-2-2002-1-BG-Erasmus-TN (ECET): Masters Professional Standards
in IS.
3. 213871-CP-2-2002-1-BG-Erasmus-TN (ECET): Bachelors curricula in IS.
4. 213871-CP-2-2002-1-BG-Erasmus-TN (ECET): Masters curricula in IS.
5. 213871-CP-2-2002-1-BG-Erasmus-TN (ECET): Bachelors syllabi in IS.
6. 213871-CP-2-2002-1-BG-Erasmus-TN (ECET): Masters syllabi in IS.
7. Computing Curricula 2001 (CC2001), ACM/IEEE-Curriculum 2001 Task Force,
December 2001.
http://www.computer.org/education/cc2001
www.computer.org/education/cc2001/final/index.htm
8. Computing Curricula 2005, The Overview Report, 11/04/2005. The Joint Task
Force for Computing Curricula 2005, A cooperative project of The Association for
Computing (ACM), The Association for Information Systems (AIS), The Computer
Society (IEEE-CS).
http://www.acm.org/education/curricula.html.
9. MS/PhD status of special topics courses, University of Maryland, Department of
Computer Science, 2006.
http://www.cs.umd.edu/
10. Claremont Graduate University, School of IS and Technology, 2004.
11. Computing Research Association (CRA),The Supply of Information Technology
Workers in USA, Chapter-5: Supply- The Degree Programs, 2004.
http://www.cra.org/
12. New Jersey Institute of Technology, Graduate, Department of IS.
http://www.njit.edu/
13. Communication and Information Sciences, Interdisciplinary programs, Catalog
2004.
www.hawaii.edu/cis
14. Polytechnic University, Doctor of Philosophy, Curriculum.
http://www.managementdept.poly.edu/
15. Drexel University, PhD program: Curriculum, 2005.
http://www.drexel.edu/
16. LSE, Department of Information Systems, PhD programs.
http://www.is.lse.ac.uk/
17. The School of Management, The University of Texas at Dallas, Graduate Degree
Programs, PhD Programs, Information systems concentration.
http://www.som.utdallas.edu/
18. Stanford
GSB,
Graduate
school
of
Business,
PhD
program,
Information&technology, 2005.
http://www.stanford.edu/
19. UMBC, Information Systems Department, Baltimore.
http://www.umbc.edu/
20. Academic and Financial Policies, Student Resources, Program Curricula, Walden
University Catalog 2004–2005.
http://www.waldenu.edu/
21. University of Michigan –Dearborn, Department of Computer and Information
science.
http://www.engin.umd.umich.edu/
22. Virginia Commonwealth University, PhD Handbook, last ed.2005.
http://www.gsib.bus.vcu.edu/Phd_resources/phdguide.pdf.waldenu.edu/catalo
23. PhD in Computer Information Systems, Nova Southeastern University, Florida,
2003.
http://www.scis.nova.edu?Commmon/Catalogs/