Program Plan

To complete the PhD degree in Software Engineering, we require that each student:

• Participate in directed research.
• Pass 96 university units worth of graduate courses (equivalent to eight 12-unit courses). This includes six 12-unit courses and two practicums; each practicum serves as the equivalent of a 12-unit course.
• Serve as a teaching assistant at least twice.
• Demonstrate communication (speaking and writing) skills.
• Write and orally defend a thesis, a significant piece of original research in a specialized area of Software Engineering.

Overview of Requirements

Estimated time requirement: 4 Calendar Years (CY), accounted for as 1 Academic Year (AY) for courses, 0.5 AY for teaching, 1 CY for background work and proposal, 2 CY for thesis, including contributions to sponsoring project. While it is theoretically possible to complete the program in 4 years, a more normal expectation is 5 years to completion.

A note on highly experienced students: We especially value the special perspective that very senior software developers can bring to a research program. These very senior developers typically have 10 years or more of system development experience, at least 5 years in a position of senior responsibility for design and outcomes. We have attracted a number of such people as PhD students, and we highly value the contributions that they make to the program based on their experience. The scale and substance of the program enable us to recognize and adapt to the wide range of experience and background of our students.

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Courses

The courses listed below are examples of courses available. Students interested in courses not listed here should contact their advisor for guidance and suggestions.

MSE Core Courses: We have adapted some of the existing Master of Software Engineering (MSE) core courses to serve both MSE and PhD students. MSE courses available for PhD credit are cross-listed as 17-7xx (e.g., 17-751, Models of Software Systems), and may require an additional project to satisfy the PhD requirement.

Design and Engineering

• 17-752 Methods: Deciding What to Design (Adapted from MSE Core Course 17-652)
• 17-755 Architectures for Software Systems (Adapted from MSE Core Course 17-655)
• 17-939 What Makes Good Research in Software Engineering?

Systems

• 15-712 Advanced Operating Systems and Distributed Systems
• 15-740 Computer Architecture
• 15-744 Computer Networks
• 18-730 Introduction to Computer Security
• 18-749 Fault-Tolerant Distributed Systems
• 15-745 Optimizing Compilers
• 18-732 Secure Software Systems
• Application systems courses include systems courses offered through the Language Technologies Institute (LTI) in the School of Computer Science

Analysis

• 15-750 Algorithms Core
• 15-812 Semantics of Programming Languages
• 15-814 Type Systems for Programming Languages
• 15-853 Algorithms in the Real World
• 17-751 Models of Software Systems (Adapted from MSE Core Course 17-651)
• 17-754 Analysis of Software Artifacts (Adapted from MSE Core Course 17-654) -- new for Spring 2005
• 17-757 Empirical Methods: Validating Results and Testing Hypotheses -- new for Spring 2005
• 90-905 Statistical Theory for Social and Policy Research

Business and Policy

• 17-701 Web, Commerce, Security and Privacy
• 17-802 Privacy and Anonymity in Data
• 90-802 Information Security: Comparison of US and European Policies
• 95-782 Global eBusiness Strategy
• 08-734 Usable Privacy & Security
• 08-733 Privacy, Policy, Law and Technology

Electives

• 15-819 Objects and Aspects: Language Support for Extensible and Evolvable Software (new course Fall 2004)
• 15-887 AI Planning, Executing and Learning
• 17-810 Empirical Methods in Software Engineering Research (6 unit mini-course)
• 17-811 Self-Healing Systems (6 unit mini-course)
• 17-812 Open Source Software Development (6 unit course)
• 17-898 Special Topics SE Reading Seminar
• 17-993 (listed internally as 17-960): How to Write a Good Research Paper (6 unit mini-course)
  
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Practical Experience within the Program

An integral part of the ISR research program is ongoing interaction with industrial-strength software development in a real (not just realistic) setting for hands-on education.

Two kinds of practical experience are required: the practicum (equivalent effort to 12 units) and experience in lieu of prior industrial experience.

Examples of a 12-unit practicum include:

• Longitudinal: issues raised in a short project from design to implementation, including course-based examples (15-822) or projects arranged with industrial partners.
• Topical: issues related to some particular aspect common to several different projects. For example, a quality-related practicum might involve spending several weeks with each of projects doing design reviews, test plans, user studies, and change requests. This aspect could be related to the student's chosen technical specialty.

Experience in lieu of prior industrial experience:

In addition to the Practicum, students who have had minimal prior industrial experience will be expected to deepen their understanding and perspective of industrial software development during the Ph.D. program. Alternatives include part-time work with local industry, extended internships in development groups (summer plus semester), and special arrangements with industrial partners in ISRI research projects.

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Research and Thesis

Research in the program will address topics related to projects led by the program faculty. There are diverse topics related to software engineering research, and students are encouraged to visit faculty and project web pages, read papers, and contact faculty and current students affiliated with projects of potential interest. Research projects, while focused on practical engineering challenges, take a scientific approach. That is, there are identified research hypotheses, experimentation possibly involving significant engineering and interaction, data collection and feedback, and iteration. We strive for both scientific impact and, in the long term, impact on the practice of software engineering.

Approaches appropriate to PhD theses include (but are not limited to):

• Novel methods for software development
• Implementation techniques for novel applications
• Automated support for software activities
• Measurement techniques for system evaluation
• Descriptive models that generalized from practical examples
• Guidance for making classes of design decisions
• Empirical models with predictive power
• Analytic models that permit quantitative or symbolic analysis
  
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A Typical Plan of Study

Evaluations of student progress in SCS at Carnegie Mellon compare student achievement to the criterion, "Is this student making reasonable progress to completing an excellent PhD?". Consequently, the requirements may be satisfied in whatever order best serves the student and the institution.

A typical plan of study includes the following requirements:

• A course requires about 12 hours/week
• Participation in the weekly ISR Software Research Seminar requires about 3 hours/week plus one presentation preparation
• TAing is about a half-time load
• A student should usually be devoting about half time to a research project. This leads to a thesis proposal in spring semester of the third year and completion of the thesis, typically in the fifth year.

Common variations include TAing a course in the Spring of year 1 or 2 instead of the Fall of year 2, TAing a second course instead of mentoring a studio for a year, and moving the course from the TAing semester to the third year.

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