Advancement to Candidacy: 

(often in the student’s third year)

The student will be evaluated by an assessment of a research portfolio. A portfolio should comprise three papers of publishable quality, as judged by the faculty. These papers might be expansions or developments from term papers developed in class; the goal is to determine the student’s capacity to produce research writing of publishable quality. Students may work on papers collaboratively, but the portfolio as a whole must demonstrate writing ability through at least one single-authored or lead-authored work.

Advancement to candidacy is on the basis of an oral defense of the research portfolio, normally in the Spring of the third year. The advancement committee is formed in accordance with UCI campus regulations.

Advancement committee consists of five faculty members: 1 MUST be be from the Irvine Division of the Academic Senate and may not hold either primary or joint appointment in the student’s home dept. At least 3 members of the Informatics faculty. 1 slot is ‘open’. In order to have someone external to UCI fill out the ‘open’ slot you need to get prior approval from Grad Division. This involves sending a short message to student affairs stating who the person is, why they would be a valuable addition to the committee and including their CV. If you plan to have this person on the dissertation committee as well include that in the email.

Advancement Oral exam must be announced 12 business days prior to advancement: Student is asked to send an announcement (including the student’s name, the title of the thesis/advancement topic/dissertation, an abstract of the presentation, the names of the committee chair and other committee members) to Student Affairs (gcounsel@www-test.ics.uci.edu) at least three weeks in advance of presentation.

Student is expected to pick up required advancement paperwork from student affairs, have it signed at the time of the exam, and turn it in.