These four courses will form the heart of their studies and are intended to provide the basic discipline knowledge. The signature for interdisciplinary informatics is to require courses in both Applications (the subject matter courses for a particular Area) and Foundations (the particular information technology methods, such as programming, databases, etc., that are appropriate for a particular Area.)Ĭourses below the 500 level cannot be used to fulfill these basic requirements, although they can be counted as part of the total course load required.Įach student can choose the standard Applications and Foundations of an established Area, or with approval of their Advisory Committee, choose custom Applications and Foundations courses across Areas.īecause students may establish new areas of research, courses outside those listed are also permitted, with approval of the student’s Advisory Committee. The student is apprised of progress after each year. Changes to the supervising committees must be approved by the Governing Committee. The membership of these committees should remain constant for each half of the student’s studies, except in unusual circumstances, but may change when it is constituted for the dissertation. The membership may overlap with the Advisory Committee. Due to the applied nature of informatics, a fifth member external to the University is highly encouraged, such as an industrial researcher. The four must cover all aspects of the dissertation, including both the Applications and Foundations areas.

All members of the committee must either be Informatics faculty affiliates, or, in the case of an off-campus committee member, must have an Informatics research focus. They will also preside over the Qualifying Exam.Īs per Graduate College Rules the Dissertation Committee must include a minimum of four voting members, at least three of whom are members of the Graduate faculty, and at least 2 of whom are tenured (at the Univ. The Advisory Committee supervises the student during the first half of studies and approves their program of study. This Committee must contain faculty with expertise in both the Applications area and the Foundations area chosen by the student, including at least four faculty members of the Informatics Program. The Chair of the Governing Committee will appoint a Supervising Committee to approve each student’s program of study, which will be called the Advisory Committee (first half of studies) and then the Dissertation Committee (second half of studies).

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