Software Engineering PhD Qualifier Exam

Spring 2020

Exam Committee

  • Dr. Na Meng (Co-Chair)
  • Dr. Francisco Servant (Co-Chair)
  • Dr. Stephen Edwards

Exam Signup for Students

Send an email to either nm8247@vt.edu or fservant@vt.edu to sign up for the exam. In the email,

  • Please include “[Qualifier_Spring_2020]” in the email title by the registration deadline (see Important Deadlines).
  • In the content, please describe (1) your enrollment year, (2) your research area, and (3) your advisor.

Notice that if a student is not from the Software Engineering research area, we will not provide the qualifier exam to the student. Students should register for the exam by the deadline. We will not take any additional registration after the deadline (see Important Deadlines).

Exam Requirements

Every student will take an oral exam to introduce his/her research achievements in CS@VT so far and the research plan for the upcoming years before graduation. For instance, a student can introduce one major research project he/she has achieved so far, and then briefly discuss about two major research ideas to investigate for the PhD dissertation.

The exam will last for about one hour, including 45-minute oral presentation and 15-minute Q&A. The committee may ask questions during the presentation or ask more questions in the Q&A session. All students are welcome to listen to the talk and ask questions.

Evaluation

Students are expected to well explain:

  • the research background and motivation,
  • the related work or existing literature on the same research topic,
  • their own new approaches that advance the state-of-the-art techniques, or new methods to conduct empirical studies for a particular topic,
  • their evaluation of approaches or empirical findings, and
  • their plans for future work.

The grading policy is as below:

  • 0 points if the oral presentation is confusing or the research achievement is low,
  • 1 point if the research achievement is sufficient, but the presentation is unsatisfactory (e.g., poor content organization, hard-to-understand explanation, failure to answer questions)
  • 2 points if both the research achievement and presentation are satisfactory, but the future plan is not well prepared (e.g., unconvincing, inconsistent with the work already achieved)
  • 3 points if everything is good (i.e., sufficient research progress, clear presentation, and a feasible future plan)

After the exam, the committee will discuss about the result and give students comments, feedback, and suggestions. Finally, the Co-Chairs will send emails to both students and GPC about the score.

Important Deadlines

  • by 12/4/2019 : Exam Signup
  • by 1/5/2020 : Exam Time/Location Scheduling
  • by 2/10/2020 : Oral Exams

Registration Withdrawal Policy

The student can withdraw a scheduled exam by 1/5/2020. After that, if a student does not show up for an exam, then the score will be 0. During 12/5/2020 - 1/5/2020, if a student with registration does not settle down the exam time and location, the exam will be automatically withdrawn.