PhD Program inInformation and Decision Sciences (IDSc)

Carlson School of Management

University of Minnesota

  1. Program Overview
  2. Program Organization and Resources
  3. Program Expectations and Student Responsibilities
  4. Program Requirements
  5. Steps to Degree
  6. First Year Examinations (IDS requirement)
  7. Second Year Research paper (CSOM requirement)
  8. Preliminary Examinations (Graduate School requirement)
  9. Dissertation Proposal Defense (CSOM requirement)
  10. Presentation of Dissertation at an IDS Workshop (IDS requirement)
  11. Doctoral Consortia (IDS recommendation)
  12. Thesis Defense (Graduate School requirement)
  13. Student Funding/Support
  14. Research and Teaching Supplement (RATS)
  15. Dissertation Fellowships
  16. Travel

Appendix A. Current semester PhD Offerings

Appendix B. Timetable

The following is intended as a supplement, not as a replacement, to the Carlson School’s PhD Student Handbook.

1.Program Overview

Philosophy

The PhD program in Information and Decision Sciences (IDS) is designed to produce world-class scholars with capabilities in research, teaching, and service within the broad area of Information and Decision Sciences. Our goal is to place our graduates in positions at institutions at which leading-edge research, teaching, and service are encouraged and rewarded. Training in research and teaching are aimed at this goal.

Students are expected to develop skills in recognizing the critical research questions and problems that need to be addressed in one or more problem areas that make up Information and Decision Sciences and conceptualizing those problems and questions so that they can be effectively addressed. In addition, students must master one or more methodologies for conducting empirical and/or theoretical inquiry in these areas. These methodologies must be both grounded in basic academic disciplines (e.g., psychology, economics, computer science), and potentially fruitful for the study of how individuals and organizations use information and make decisions with the aid of technology. Coursework, research appointments, and mentoring relationships are aimed at developing research capabilities that include significant methodological and technical skills in Information and Decision Sciences, as well as grounded knowledge in underlying disciplines of cognitive science, computer science, organizational and economic theory.

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Research capabilities are successively demonstrated through a series of milestones (see Section 5), culminating in the successful defense of a dissertation thesis. We expect our graduates to be able to demonstrate the capabilities required to be an academic researcher and to reproduce these capabilities in their own students.

Teaching capabilities include the content knowledge and delivery skills to enable excellent teaching of graduate (MBA and PhD) and undergraduate level Information Systems and/or Decision Sciences coursework.

Service capabilities include service to both the research and practitioner communities. Our graduates should be able to review manuscripts submitted for publication distinguishing significant from insignificant contributions to the literature. They should be competent to serve on editorial boards of journals and on conference program committees. Furthermore, they should be able to apply their research activities to significant problems addressed by practitioners both in research and consultative relationships.

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2.Program Organization and Resources

IDS PhD Coordinator. Contact for any departmental PhD inquiries.

Mani Subramani

Department of Information & Decision Sciences

University of Minnesota

321 19th Avenue S.

Minneapolis, MN 55455

(612) 624-3522

ManagementInformationSystemsResearchCenter (MISRC). The center is a non-profit organization in the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. The MISRC was founded in 1968 by pioneers in the MIS field as part of the MIS curriculum development at the CarlsonSchool. The MISRC provides a bridge for the IDS faculty and the business community to come together. Our goal to promote this interaction between IS professionals and academicians not only improves the IDS program but it also precipitates back into the business community. For our PhD students, the MISRC provides two main opportunities:

  • Regularly through the year, the MISRC sponsors seminars and symposia. All PhD students are encouraged to attend relevant MISRC events.
  • The MISRC can provide contacts for research activities. The MISRC director should be contacted for more information. A specific, written description of the research project and anticipated time requirements would need to be provided to the MISRC.

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3.Program Expectations and Student Responsibilities

Research and Teaching Appointments

RA and TA appointments provide mentoring relationships in research and additional mentoring in teaching. All PhD students will participate in some combination of these relationships during each of their five years in the program. RA appointments involve PhD students in a faculty research project. Our goal is to provide 75% of a student's appointments over the four years in research-related activities. These assignments typically progress from more directed research tasks to the self-guided research that is done as part of the dissertation. Consult the IDS Department RA Guidelines handout for more information on what is expected as a RA.

TA appointments will often begin with non-contact tasks such as grading, and progress to responsibility for delivery and grading of lab sessions and even to full course-delivery responsibilities. Faculty are expected to provide mentoring and critique of student performance in both RA and TA appointments. Consult the IDS Department TA Guidelines handout for more information on what is expected as a TA.

Advisor Role and Mentoring

Each PhD student must have an advisor. During the initial 1-2 years of coursework, the PhD coordinator serves as advisor. Upon entry into the program, each student should begin to establish advising relationships with faculty members within the IDS department. Before beginning thesis work, each student must have a thesis advisor from within the IDS department. A co-advisor from outside the department (along with a co-advisor from within the department) is also allowed.

By the end of the second year of coursework, each student must organize an oral prelim committee as specified by the graduate school (see Section 5). The members of this committee often also serve on the thesis committee, but need not do so. Expertise and guidance are expected from all members of the committee. It is the responsibility of the entire committee to insure quality control in the oral prelim and in the thesis. The thesis committee must approve the student's dissertation proposal.

The thesis advisor(s) is responsible for mentoring the student in his or her thesis research. Advising should be substantive in the selection of the problem and research methodology, collection and analysis of data, and writing of the dissertation. As a rule, the advisor(s) should have done or be doing significant research in the general area of the dissertation, and at least one of the advisors needs Full Graduate status within the graduate school. Selection of a faculty advisor(s) should be based on mutual interest and experience in the research area of the dissertation.

Workshop

Each Friday afternoon during the school year, the IDS Department hosts a research workshop. These are discussion seminars that focus on new research and research-related topics. The presenter typically provides a working paper one week in advance. We post the paper online so that it is available for attendees to read during the week of the workshop. The workshops usually begin with presentations of their work by the speaker, followed by a lively discussion. Doctoral students are asked to prepare three questions in advance. All students in residence are expected to attend the weekly IDS Workshop.

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4.Program Requirements

The IDS PhD program requires a minimum of 46 semester credits of coursework. Specific course minimum requirements follow.

Required IDS PhD seminars / 14 credits
Research Methods courses / 8 credits*
Supporting Program courses / 16 credits
Total (with electives) / 46+ credits

* The research methodology credits can overlap with supporting program credits.

In addition, thesis (dissertation) credits must be taken as specified by the GraduateSchool (current minimum = 24 credits). IDS coursework and dissertation requirements are discussed below.

Required IDS PhD Seminars

Required PhD seminars serve three purposes. First, they provide an overview of the field of IDS and the research activities of the faculty. Second, they provide grounding in core disciplines. Third, they provide additional methodological skills necessary to do significant research in the field. Generally all IDS PhD students will be expected to take the following PhD level seminars.

Offered every year:

IDSc 8511Conceptual and Research Introduction to Information and Decision Sciences (4 credits)

IDSc 8711Cognitive Science Research and Theory (4 credits)

Offered every other year:

IDSc 8521Information System Development (2 credits)

IDSc 8531Organization Theory and Research in IS (2 credits)

IDSc 8541Economics and Information Systems (2 credits)

The IDS department also offers up to 4 elective PhD seminars each year. Students can also take elective PhD seminars in other departments. Additional information about IDS PhD offerings is in Appendix A.

Supporting Program

Students are required to take 16 credits in a supporting program area (minor or supporting fields as specified by the GraduateSchool), at least 8 of which must be from outside the CarlsonSchool. The purpose of the supporting program is to provide the in-depth study of related areas needed to support the student's research interests. Courses for the supporting program can come from multiple departments and can include methodology courses. If a minor is taken, it must be in a program outside the CarlsonSchool. Composition of the supporting program must be approved by the student's advisor.

Research Methods Courses

Eight (8)credits of statistical research methodology are required. These can include topics such as: regression, experimental design, multivariate statistics, and econometric modeling. General courses should be combined with research methodology courses specific to the type of research addressed in the dissertation. Research methodology credits may be taken as part of the supporting program.

MBA Courses

Participation in the MBA program has dual purposes. The first is to insure that all students achieve a sufficient level of technical content knowledge to be effective scholars in the field. MBA courses focus on the practice of Information and Decision Sciences as opposed to the PhD seminars that focus on research. Students lacking in technical or business knowledge will need to take MBA courses to make up any deficiencies.

The second purpose of participation in MBA courses is to develop teaching skills. PhD students will materially participate as a TA or instructor in at least one MBA course in information systems. PhD students also are advised to prepare and deliver at least one class session under the guidance and direction of the faculty instructor, with the instructor providing feedback following the session.

S/N Registration

Students are expected to take all courses that are part of their Degree Program in the first two years on an A-F basis. Any of these courses taken on a S/N basis first should be cleared with the departmental coordinator.

5.Steps to Degree

Several evaluation and formal feedback opportunities are built into the program as follows. A sample timetable for progress through the program is in Appendix B.

A.First Year Examinations (IDS requirement). By the end of their first year, students are expected to have developed an ability to critically review academic articles, understand their contribution, and make a broad assessment of their quality. Therefore, the First Year Exam consists of students reviewing a selected set of papers, with some consideration given to students' respective areas of interest. Students are asked to describe one or more areas of interest (within Organizational Behavior, Design/Computer Science, Economics/Management Science, or Cognitive Science/Decision-making), and identify up to two departmental faculty doing related work. The student will receive a set of four papers from published and unpublished papers of varying quality, with a combination of both material covered in required seminars, as well as material that is related to the broad area of a student's stated interests. The faculty evaluates the reviews prepared by the students to assess students' developmental progress in the Ph.D. program. The purpose of this examination is evaluative and diagnostic, identifying deficiencies in knowledge and in ability to draw from different reference disciplines.

After the written examinations have been reviewed by the faculty, an oral examination will be given. The PhD coordinator and 1-2 other faculty who have read the written reviews will administer the oral exam. The goals of the oral examination are to provide the faculty an opportunity to more fully evaluate areas of weakness identified in the written examination, and to evaluate the student’s ability to communicate their knowledge. Following the oral examination, students will be given feedback on their performance on the examination and on their performance in coursework and in TA and RA appointments. Students who are not performing up to faculty standards will be encouraged to either address the identified deficiencies or to withdraw from the program.

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B.Second Year Research paper (CSOM requirement). By the end of the second year in the program, each student will produce a publication-quality research paper. The paper may be co-authored with a faculty member and should be submitted or suitable for publication in a journal or conference. Generally this paper will be the result of one or more RA appointments. A faculty member must assure the quality of the paper and sign off on its acceptability. If the paper is co-authored, generally the co-authoring faculty member will be responsible for this. Students are encouraged to present this paper at an IDS Workshop to practice in presenting research results and to obtain feedback.

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C.Preliminary Examinations (GraduateSchool requirement). Preliminary examinations are designed to determine a student's readiness to begin dissertation research. They are both written and oral. They are taken during the Summer (written) and Fall (oral) following the second year of coursework. Before taking the written preliminary examination, students must file a Degree Program with the GraduateSchool. The degree program must be approved by the student's advisor, the CSOM Director of Graduate Studies, and theGraduateSchool.

The written examination is administered by the department in two parts. The first part is closed-book at a scheduled time and contains questions related to research issues connected to the core material in the required IDS seminars (excluding IDS 8511). Students are given three hours for each of four questions. Good performance on all questions is required to pass the exam.

For the second part of the written examination, students submit a Research Portfolio. The Research Portfolio can include a combinationof up to 5 elements demonstrating the research capabilities and readiness of the student, for example:

  1. Papers (including term papers written as a part of various seminar requirements)
  2. Research proposals
  3. Research tools developed (such as questionnaires and software)

The student's Second Year Paper is a required part of this submission. In addition, students are asked to submit a Research Statement that focuses on the submitted material (not to exceed five pages, single-spaced, and use no less than 12-point font, inclusive of any references, figures, and tables). The objective of the Research Portfolio is to let the students demonstrate multiple dimensions of their capabilities, as well as their individual strengths. The evaluation of the portfolio will be based on quality rather than quantity of work, and students are asked to submit only their best work.

Upon successful completion of the written preliminary examination, students must establish an oral examination committee and schedule an oral examination before the end of the following term (generally Fall semester). The oral examination committee (or prelim committee) must include at least one faculty member from the supporting field. Note that the members of this committee are not necessarily the same as the thesis committee (see below).

The oral examination must be scheduled with the GraduateSchool at least two weeks in advance. The content and format for the oral exam should be discussed with the advisor and chair prior to the exam. They may require the examinee to write a paper describing a preliminary dissertation proposal or updated research statement for distribution to the committee prior to the exam. As to the exam, examplar content would be to get questions on this paper, on the student’s program coursework, or on problem areas identified in the written exam. Upon successful completion of the oral examination, a student is deemed prepared to conduct a dissertation and may register for thesis credits.

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D.Dissertation Proposal Defense (CSOM requirement). Each student must form a thesis committee to provide direction and quality control for the dissertation research. The student must develop a written dissertation proposal describing their research problem and method of addressing that problem. The dissertation proposal must be defended before the dissertation committee (normally during the Spring semester of the third year or Fall semester of the Fourth year). The proposal provides a reference point to assure that both the student and the dissertation committee understand and agree to the work that will be performed. Faculty will not provide letters of recommendation for possible employment positions until the dissertation proposal is successfully defended.

E.Presentation of Dissertation at an IDS Workshop (IDS requirement). Dissertation proposals should be presented at a Workshop after being successfully defended. The best timing is following the proposal defense and prior to interviewing for a faculty position, preferably after some of the results of the research are available. The purpose of this presentation is to provide practice in defending the thesis work and to obtain constructive criticism and suggestions.

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F.Doctoral Consortia (IDS recommendation). Each year there are doctoral consortia associated with different professional organizations and conferences. These include the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), the Decision Sciences Institute (DSI) Conference, and the Academy of Management.