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When a student has satisfied all post-MSPP requirements for the Ph.D. program s/he must then pass written comprehensive examinations, defend a dissertation proposal, and pass an oral examination (the colloquium).

There are time limits within which these tasks must be completed.

• Students are required to take the written examinations within four years of matriculating or go to the Graduate Committee for review and possible dismissal.

• Students have one year following completion of their doctoral course requirements to pass a written comprehensive examination, seek approval of a dissertation proposal, and pass an oral defense of that proposal..

• Students must successfully defend the dissertation within seven years of passing the qualifying examinations.

These time limits can be extended with the approval of the SPP Graduate Committee (extension of the seven year rule also requires approval by the Institute Graduate Committee).

Comprehensive  Examinations  

Written Qualifying Examinations: Students will take two written examinations, one in the theory and methods of public policy studies (the “core exam”) and one in their major area of specialization (the

“specialty exam”). The core exam will cover materials presented in the core Ph.D. courses and key readings identified by examining committee. The specialty exam will cover material presented in the student’s major area of specialization and key readings identified by the examining committee. No examination will be given in the student’s minor area of specialization.

Scheduling the qualifying examinations: The core comprehensive examination will be given twice during the academic year. The core comprehensive examination will be given at the beginning of each semester (usually in the first two weeks of classes). The dates will be determined by the Chair of the core examination committee each semester. Specialty exams will be given in the last week of finals during each semester, with dates determined by the respective specialty exam Chairs.

Notification of Intention to take a qualifying examination: Students must notify the Director of Graduate Studies in writing of their intention to take the core and specialty exams three months before the planned exam period. If you are late in providing notification of your intention to take the

comprehensive examination you should not expect to be given permission to proceed to the exam. That decision will be at the discretion of the Director of Graduate Studies.

Accommodations: Students who qualify for reasonable accommodations for disabilities must work with the Georgia Tech ADAPTS office prior to providing notification of intent to take comprehensive

examinations. Notification of accommodation must be provided to the examination committee one month in advance of the exam. The ADAPTS office will work with the student to document the nature of the disability and develop a reasonable accommodation for the comprehensive examination. The student does not need to provide documentation of disability to Tech professors or administrators as long as the

ADAPTS office has documentation on file. ADAPTS will work with students to protect privacy while developing strategies of reasonable accommodation with professors and administrators. Failure to provide to documentation to ADAPTS deprives the student and the examining committee of providing a means for reasonable accommodation.

Examination format: Examinations are conducted in an open book format. Responses must reflect the student’s own original work (i.e. the rules of academic misconduct and ethics apply). The core

comprehensive examination will consist of four sections (Public Policy Theory; Economic Theory and Methods; Analytical and Statistical Methods; and Research Design). Students must answer one question from each section. The duration of an individual exam will not exceed two eight-hour days for the core examination. Students will address two sections of the core subjects on the first day and two sections on the second day. The duration of a specialty examination is typically one eight-hour day. Exams will be designed so that students can write a high quality response within this time. Examinations will be designed to give students choice in the questions they answer.

Administration: For all exams involving both joint GSU-Tech and Tech Ph.D. students, the written examinations are administered by a committee of the two doctoral programs (the “Exam Committee”).

The exam committee will be comprised of five or more faculty members holding appointments in one or both of the two schools. When the exam does not include joint GSU-Tech students, all faculty examiners for the core examination must hold a faculty appointment (full, joint, or adjunct) with the School of Public Policy.

The committee is a subcommittee of the GTSPP Graduate Committee (and the Joint Ph.D. A&C

committee when joint students are involved). Members of the exam committee will be nominated by the SPP Graduate Committee in the spring, and approved by the full faculty(ies) for a term of one year (i.e., two exam periods). At least three of the core exam committee members will have taught core doctoral courses in the two preceding years. Members may be reappointed. The core exam committee will elect a coordinator.

The duties of the Exam Committee include:

• Appointing examiners for the core examination and ensuring consistency of examinations, including review of examination questions. The Exam Committee will ask all available faculty who have taught core courses in the two years preceding to submit and grade questions for the exams.

• The core exam committee is responsible for ensuring consistency of exams, including review of examination questions. The director(s) of the doctoral program(s) will appoint specialty exam committees, with approval by the core exam committee. Three faculty members are appointed to an examining committee for each specialty area. The specialty exam committee solicits potential questions and materials of relevance (e.g., syllabi, exams, or other assignments) from faculty advisors of students taking the exams and faculty that have taught courses that align with the exam topic. At least two of the examiners for the specialty examination must hold faculty appointments (full, joint, or adjunct) with the School of Public Policy.

• Establishing procedures for doctoral examinations including student registration for doctoral exams, access to past examination questions, identification of key readings beyond the class syllabi, monitoring of examinations, consistency of examinations (especially for specialty areas) and timely assessment and reporting of results.

Evaluation: Results from core and specialty examinations are reported by the chairs of the respective examiners to the Exam Committee within four weeks of the exam date whether or not all committee members have responded. Students must pass three of the four sections of the core examination in order to pass the examination. The Exam Committee will ensure appropriate procedures for the consistency of examinations have been pursued and then inform students of results. All exams are to be graded blind.

The core exam committee coordinator will be responsible for stripping the exams (and associated file names) of identifiers. Core and specialty examination committees may recommend a “high pass” to exams that receive a unanimous pass and consensus of the respective examiners. Conversely, failure of an examination requires more than one vote for failure by the respective examiners. Students will be permitted to re-take an examination only one time. Students who wish to retake an exam must do that the next time it is offered (students may petition to have additional time for a retake of the examination).

Students who pass one examination but fail the other need only repeat the examination they fail. Students must be informed of the results of the examination by the chair of the Exam Committee within five weeks of the exam date.

The  Proposal  and  Defense  

The Colloquium: You will begin your dissertation during the qualifying examination process by presenting a proposal of your research to your dissertation committee. Students register for the PUBP 8590 Dissertation Colloquium in the term that they plan to present their proposal. The proposal should include a summary of the following: the purpose of the study; the nature of the subject to be investigated and its importance; a brief review of the literature; the nature of the hypotheses to be developed or tested;

the empirical methodology, techniques, and data sources, if any, to be used; and a time frame for

completion of the dissertation. In most cases the proposal does not exceed 30 pages; however the format may change depending upon advice from the Chair of your committee.

Forming A Committee: The Institute Graduate Curriculum Committee has established the following rules regarding dissertation committees (excerpt is drawn from Georgia Tech Policy & Procedure No. 7 at http://www.gradadmiss.gatech.edu/thesis/policies/advisory_committee.pdf):

"There are two committees which function to advise, approve and conduct the final doctoral oral examination of the thesis and the student's knowledge of the field in which it lies.

The first committee is called the Thesis Advisory Committee or the Thesis Reading Committee and consists of at least three persons, one of whom is the Thesis Advisor. This committee approves the research topic, provides advice and guidance during the research and is charged with approving the thesis when the research is completed and presented as the doctoral thesis. When the Thesis Advisory Committee considers the thesis to be satisfactory, a recommendation is made to the Dean of the Graduate Division for the appointment of the second committee, which is called the Final Doctoral Examination Committee, and it consists of at least five individuals.

The Thesis Advisory Committee consists of at least three members satisfying the following: (1) the thesis advisor shall be a member of the Academic Faculty (with approval of the school or college Graduate Committee, an adjunct* faculty member appointed for the specific purpose of advising graduate students may serve as the thesis advisor); (2) the majority of committee members shall be members of the Academic Faculty. The Committee is approved by the Graduate Committee in the School or College, recommended by the School Director through the College Dean, and appointed by the Dean of the Graduate Division.

The Final Doctoral Examination Committee, which consists of at least five persons, always contains the Thesis Advisory Committee members and others as appropriate, who are recommended by the school or college to the Dean of the Graduate Division for approval. At least one member of the Final Doctoral Examination Committee must be from the academic faculty of a School (or College) which is distinct from the unit in which the student is enrolled."

Most students within the School of Public Policy form a dissertation committee of five reviewers at the time of the Colloquium. You should consult with your advisor on the composition of your committee.

Following the presentation, the committee will question the student in an oral examination, which will cover (a) the dissertation proposal, (b) knowledge in a substantive area of public policy pertaining to the dissertation and (c) methodological and analytic skills appropriate to the proposed dissertation. Students must obtain approval of their dissertation proposal within one calendar year after completing all

prescribed coursework and comprehensive examinations.

The Colloquium must be publicly announced with at least two weeks of advance notice to the School community. At the proposal defense, the committee will judge the student’s performance as one of the following:

• (a) accepted, with or without minor revisions to be approved by the student’s advisor;

• (b) not accepted; major revisions needed, committee needs to approve.

If the committee “accepts” the proposal it will provide a list of suggestions and requirements which they must address in conducting the dissertation research. If the proposal is approved, the dissertation proposal committee will sign the dissertation proposal defense approval form. Upon submission of the proposal defense approval form, the student is admitted to candidacy for the degree. Submission of the approval form does not constitute a contractual agreement between the student and the dissertation committee. It is within the scope and function of the dissertation committee to recommend modifications to the research as it proceeds. If the committee does “not accept” the proposal, the committee will provide the student with a list of further requirements deemed essential to the completion of the proposed research.  

The  Dissertation  

The dissertation allows the Ph.D. candidate to demonstrate his or her ability to conduct a research program leading to a significant contribution to the candidate’s discipline. You do so by building from your approved dissertation proposal, conducting the research, and reporting the findings of this work.

The Dissertation Defense: When the candidate's dissertation committee judges that the dissertation is complete, the student must defend it orally in a final dissertation defense subject to rules governing Georgia Institute of Technology (see the Manual for Graduate Theses). At least three weeks before the final dissertation defense, the student must submit an abstract of the dissertation to the program director, who will issue an announcement of the scheduling of the candidate’s dissertation defense. Any

interested faculty member or graduate student may attend the examination and participate in the

discussion. At the completion of the oral defense, members of the dissertation committee will vote on the dissertation’s approval or disapproval. If a candidate should fail to pass the final oral examination, the examining committee may recommend permission for one additional examination. In the case of failure, the registrar does not receive a report of the examination results. Students should review the Georgia Tech Guide to Thesis and Dissertations for a complete listing of Institute rules and formatting requirements for the dissertation.

Georgia Tech requires that all requirements must be completed within seven years of passing the qualifying exams. A petition to continue past that deadline must be approved not only by the SPP Graduate Committee, but also by the Institute Graduate Curriculum Committee.