Thesis

When the Advisory Committee agrees that the student has achieved sufficient research accomplishment, it will authorize the final preparation of the thesis. The thesis must be formatted in accordance with the rules of the Graduate School as summarized in the Graduation Checklist. Research-related contents may be written in the manuscript format suitable for publication, but with expanded sections of Introduction and Discussion. The introduction consists of a scholarly and critical review of the current status of the field, and rationale for the hypothesis, ending with one or two sentences summarizing major conclusions. Material and Methods section should be sufficiently detailed and accurate to allow replication of the work by any trained researchers or future graduate students. The Discussion section should not simply re-state the results. This section should emphasize the relationship of the current work to the existing literature, discussing the significance of the findings, and limitations of the data, as well as future directions.  The Thesis must be approved by the Advisory Committee before scheduling the Closed (Private) Oral Examination of the thesis.

Closed Thesis Oral Examination (Private Defense)

At least two weeks before a Closed Thesis Oral Examination, the completed thesis is submitted to all members of the Advisory Committee. Closed Oral Examination must occur at least two weeks before the Public Defense due to the time needed to schedule the Public Defense following the closed oral examination. All members of the Advisory Committee and SB AoC Director or Associate Director must be present at the closed oral examination. The role of the Systems Biology AoC Director or Associate Director is to ensure that the examination procedure is consistent with Systems Biology AoC and graduate school policies. However, the AoC executive committee member does not participate in other aspects of the exam and does not vote.

The closed oral exam will be conducted in the following manner:

1.   After all participants have arrived, the student will be asked to leave the room for a few minutes.  The chair of the committee will preside over the closed oral exam.  The chair cannot be the student’s major advisor and must be an Associate Professor or Professor in the SB AoC.  The Committee will briefly review the quality of the thesis.

2.   If the Committee agree that the thesis is ready for presentation, the student will be invited back into the room to present the thesis. The presentation may be interrupted with questions. The chair of the committee should monitor the process so that the presentation and question session is complete in about 2 hours. To successfully pass the exam, students should demonstrate the ability to 1) present the data in a logical fashion, 2) analyze the data in critical manner, 3) take a broad view of the problem, 4) thoroughly understand the technical aspects of his/her research. Following roughly 2 hours of presentation and questions/responses, the student will be asked to leave the room, and the Committee will evaluate the student’s performance in his/her absence.

3.  The student will be evaluated based on the quality of the oral presentation, responses to questions, and general knowledge and ability to logically analyze problems. The student passes the Private Defense only if all of the Committee members and examiners approve the thesis and Oral Exam. If any Thesis Advisory Committee member fails to approve the thesis and/or Closed Oral Examination, the Advisory Committee will decide on an appropriate course of action without the student being present.

4.   Once a decision has been made, the student will be admitted back into the room, and informed of the decision. If the student passes the exam, a Dissertation Tentative Approval Page will be signed by all Committee Members. If the student does not pass the Private Defense, the student will be informed of all the necessary actions that need to be taken to achieve a pass status. Such information must be documented in writing to avoid any subsequent confusion and misunderstanding. The student may be given a pass grade only if all the assigned taskes are accomplished. Once the student passes the Private Defense, then the Public Defense may be scheduled.

Public Thesis Defense/Oral Examination

The Public Defense should be scheduled to take place at least two weeks after the event is announced by the Graduate School. The student must contact the graduate school to schedule the Public defense as soon as he/she passes the Private Defense to minimize delays. The Public Thesis Defense will be chaired by the Chair of the Advisory Committee. Faculty members that are required to attend the Public Defense include all members of the Advisory Committee and at least two additional faculty members.  The presentation will be of the format of a formal seminar and is generally not interrupted during the presentation although minor exceptions may be granted. After the seminar, the student will answer any question from the audience. Immediately after the closing of the question/answer session, all attending faculty members will vote privately (without the student being present). If the majority of the attending faculty members including the Committee members vote to accept (reject) the dissertation, the Advisory Committee will make the final decision to pass (fail) the Oral Examination. If the decision is to pass the dissertation, all of the Advisory Committee members will sign the Report of the Final Examination, which should then be submitted to the Graduate School.  A copy should be also submitted to the Systems Biology AoC Director for records.