Targeted Students: This program applies to all doctoral students of Shanghaitech University, majoring in computer science and technology.

1. Introduction and Objectives

With a goal of “broaden interests”, “strengthen foundations” and “deepen concentrations”, we have the aim of cultivating “scientific talents with international level”, “technical talents with world-wide standard” and “enterprise talents with creative minds”.

By emphasizing the combination of science, technology, creation andentrepreneurship, our institute builds a solid foundation of basic theories in various fields. We focus on the education of the principle and experimental abilities of each field, transform the traditional program setting in engineering education to a more practical training on state-of-the-art technology in every subject.

Our prospective graduates are expected to have an integrated knowledge system on their endeavor concentration; track on the latest scientific development in their major, as well as the information and telecommunication related science; play a leading role on scientific researches, independent engineering projects and international academic exchanges. The graduates are supposed to have the capacity of teaching and scientific researching in higher educational institutions, as well as management of engineering and technology, and preparation for self-employment.

Our main research areas include: computer vision, virtual reality, data science, information security, intelligent computing, control science, etc.

2. The Length of Schooling and Credit Requirements

The basic length of schooling for doctoral candidates is 5 years, and can be extended to 7 years at most (master length included). The total credits acquired should be no less than 42: equal or above 40 credits for courses, among which equal or above 10 credits for public courses (equal or above 5 for political education and foreign languages each), and equal or above 30 credits for major courses; no less than 2 credits for academic progress.

The overall requirements are listed below:

 Table 1 Course Credit Requirements for Doctoral Candidates in Computer Science

During course selection, students who have certain requirement should get permission from their advisor and submit a proposal to the teaching committee, and finish the course selection under the new program approved.

3. Curriculum

We encourage students to conduct interdisciplinary studies with our diverse curriculum based on the principle of Doctoral Degree in Computer Science and Technology. The courses for graduate students are the combination of public courses and major courses, with three class modules, including ideological and political courses, foreign languages courses and creational educations under public courses.

No less than 5 credits should be earned in ideological and political courses. All courses are designed in a creative way in forms and contents, aiming togive students a correct view of value, view of life and political standing,with the courses focus on morality, model and integrity educations that blend together the in-class teaching, lectures, classics appreciation and social practice.

No less than 5 credits should be earned in foreign language courses: 4 credits for Comprehensive English I – IV and 1 credit for Comprehensive English Exploration (languages and cultures).

The Comprehensive English Exploration courses are compulsory, while the Comprehensive English I- IV is divided into four levels based on the results of the English Entrance Exam. Besides, students can select various advanced courses like academic writing and oral practicing on their interests.

At least 30 credit unites for major courses should be completed, including the compulsory course –AlgorithmsDesign and Analysis and six other major courses which should be the graduate level courses under SIST, three credits each at least. Students can register two major courses at most related to their dissertation from other school or even other universities, upon approval from their advisors.

The major courses will only be counted in with a minimal grade of B-, otherwise students should retake this course or replace it with another course to achieve a higher grade than B-. All courses equal or above B- are taken into the calculation of GPA in major courses, which should be 3.0 at least for degree application.

The more detailed course list can be referred to: http://faculty.sist.shanghaitech.edu.cn/office/Academics/Courses/SIST_2021-2022_Courses.htm

4. Academic Progress Requirement

4.1 Semester Assessment

Students shall submit a semester report by the end of each of the first five semesters after switching to the doctoral program.

One semester delay will be enforced if students get a “Fail” at the semester assessment; two semesters delay if they get two “Fail”; he or she must be considered withdrawal from college with three “Fail” in total.

Doctoral candidates shall complete their thesis proposal before the end of the third semester, and advisor shall build the thesis committee (defined later) with required time schedule. We recommend students updating the thesis proposal if they have already completed it during their master period. However, it is optional.

4.2 Teaching Assistant Experience

Teaching assistance duty for at least one semester should be completed before degree application.

4.3 Seminar Attendance

Students should attend at least 32 seminars in total.

5. Dissertation and Thesis Defense

5.1 Thesis Defense Process

1) Organizing thesis committee - degree committee assessment - academic misconduct inspection

2) Advisor review - external review - thesis committee review - thesis committee decision

3)Academic misconduct inspection - college degree committee review - school degree committee review

5.2 Thesis Committee

Students should submit the list of their thesis committee, a group of at least six people recommended by advisor, to college degree committee. The group should be professors or experts with equivalent professional positions (including the peer experts qualified for doctoral advisor), with one group member designated chair.

The six-people group should include: three advisors in SIST from student’s major or related fields, and three experts from external institutions. Student’s advisor can be a member in thesis committee but not the chair. After passing the thesis committee assessment, the group will be responsible for the review and defense preparation of this student. His or her advisor is not allowed to vote during thesis defense.

5.3 Thesis Review

1) Advisor review. Further steps cannot be processed until it passes.

2) Academic misconduct inspection and external review arrangement.

3) After external review, the thesis committee should proceed to review the thesis, and decision on whether it’s qualified for thesis defense should be made. Students should revise their thesis if the external review fails, and reschedule another external review before it ends, or it will be postponed to the next round.

4) Thesis defense can be proceeded if it passes thesis committee review. In contrast, the student should revise the thesis and reschedule another committee review before it ends; if the thesis defense ends, postpone to the next round external review.

5.4 Thesis Defense

1) The advisor should organize thesis defense if the result on thesis review is “Agree thesis defense”;

2) The thesis defense decision will be made, submitted to college degree committee and the final version of the thesis will be inspected for academic misconduct if the thesis defense passes, otherwise it will be postponed to the next round thesis defense.

5.5 Extension

There will be a second chance that restarts the thesis defense process, if the external review, thesis committee review or thesis defense fails before the relevant schedule ends. If the relevant procedure has finished, the whole process needs to be started over at the following half year to two years.

If the student does not finish the thesis revise work or fails again in the second chance, the apply for this thesis defense will not be processed.

6. Research Achievement Requirements

The seven centers have released a guidance to the research achievement requirement. In principle, the students should meet the research achieve requirements published by the affiliated center before applying for degree defense.

7. Degree Applied and Granted Requirement

7.1 Basic Requirements for degree application

Degree applicant shall

1) Meet the requirements of credits, GPA, courses and academic progress within the length of schooling. The degree application will not be processed for those who failed within the length of schooling.

2) Complete degree thesis, pass the thesis review and thesis defense.

3) Achieve the degree requirements for the publication of academic papers.

7.2 Degree Accreditation and Granted Requirement

The degree accreditation has two stages: the first review charged by the college degree evaluation committee, and the final review charged by the university degree evaluation committee, which will be held annually on January and July.

Over two thirds of the committee members should be present at the first and the final reviews, and approval will be granted over half of the pass vote through anonymous voting.

The decision of deferring the degree application can be made after full discussion and reaching consensus by both committees. Detailed reasons have to be included in the deferring letter. The longest time of deferring applicant is two years for doctoral degree. Students who get deferred will have one chance to submit another application within two years, and overdue application will be regarded as a waiver. For the deferred applicants, all committees must review key points carefully and make the decision on whether degree granted or not through anonymous voting.

Any dispute upon above program should be submitted to degree committee for further review.