Formation of the Dissertation Committee: The university has strict requirements for the Dissertation Committee. Besides the three department members and one University of Oregon outside member, the department encourages an "external member" who shall be a leading researcher in the candidate's field, not at the University of Oregon. The proposed committee should be approved by GEC. When informed of the committee, the Graduate Program Coordinator will submit the information online to the Division of Graduate Studies for final approval. It must be submitted to The Division of Graduate Studies at least one (1) month after the Area exam and in no case less than six (6) months before the dissertation defense.
The Dissertation Proposal: When the student feels they are ready to start dissertation research, they submit a written dissertation proposal to their committee for approval. The dissertation proposal presents the research problems to be tackled, related research, research methodology, anticipated results, and work plan. The committee may request an oral presentation similar to the Area Exam to allow the student to explain and answer questions about the proposed research. The APPROVAL FOR THE DISSERTATION PROPOSAL FORM should be signed by the members of the dissertation committee and the head of GEC and returned to the Graduate Program Coordinator. This form should be filed within six months of the completion of the Area Exam.
Public Defense: When the written dissertation is finished and approved by the committee, the student will schedule a public defense. THE APPLICATION FOR FINAL ORAL DEFENSE is done online in GradWeb by the Ph.D. student. In the Oral Defense Module, the student is informed of the guidelines and deadlines for abstract submission and oral defense. All committee members must confirm attendance in the APPLICATION FOR FINAL ORAL DEFENSE in GradWeb. Once that is complete, the CS Department will approve the Oral Defense Application in GradWeb. After the oral defense, the committee may accept the dissertation as defended, request minor changes, or require the student to make major changes and schedule another defense. The committee will be notified by the Division of Graduate Studies that the results of the defense are due within two weeks of the defense date. The decisions are submitted online through GradWeb. Subsequent to a successful oral defense, the student must upload their dissertation to the ProQuest Electronic Thesis or Dissertation (ETD) Administrator within 2 weeks following the defense date. The student then must submit their Dissertation to CS archives.