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Oral Candidacy Exam Requirement for Ph.D. Students

For more information:
Graduate College Requirements for Doctoral Degrees

In addition to the written and oral comprehensive exams mandated by the Graduate College, SIRLS requires Ph.D. students to pass an oral candidacy exam. The oral candidacy exam is to be taken after you have completed your comprehensive exams. In order to remain in good academic standing, you must pass this exam no later than the semester immediately following the semester in which you complete your comprehensive exams (not counting summer sessions).

Roughly speaking, the point of the comprehensive exams is to insure that you have the necessary breadth of knowledge in the area of Information Resources & Library Science. The point of the candidacy exam is to insure that you have chosen an appropriate problem for your dissertation and have a plan of action that should allow you to tackle that problem.

In consultation with your principal advisor and other appropriate faculty, you must prepare a brief (typically ten to fifteen page) dissertation proposal and a reading list on your area of concentration. The proposal should include a statement of the problem that you plan to address and your proposed plan of action for tackling it.

When this task is completed to the satisfaction of your advisor, you may schedule your Candidacy Exam. The Candidacy Committee (normally the same as the Comprehensive Exam Committee) will administer the oral candidacy exam on your proposal and reading list in order to determine whether or not you are prepared to begin work on your dissertation.

The Candidacy Committee must vote unanimously in order for you to pass this exam. If you do fail to pass the candidacy exam, your principal advisor will send you a written report explaining the reasons for the failure. (If you fail on your first attempt, you may make a second--and final--attempt to pass the exam.)

You only have to pass this exam once. You may, in consultation with your principal advisor, change your dissertation topic without having to retake this exam.

This requirement applies to any student entering the Ph.D. program after October 1, 1997.