Program Goals and Objectives
Doctor of Philosophy in Computational Media (CM) candidates conduct advanced study in areas of humanistic expression voiced through computational means. The program recognizes play and art as fundamentally important aspects of human experience that can be shaped in compelling ways via technological tools and methods. Conversely, computational research can find new trajectories via the exploration of art and play. Individual paths include the study and design of human-computer interfaces, games and game engines, narratives, artificial intelligence, creativity, communication, and visual and sonic media. As these journeys are inherently interdisciplinary, students will find opportunities to explore related fields including computer science, data science, electrical and computer engineering, systems dynamics, robotics engineering, business, and psychology.
Students who enter the PhD in Computational Media via the IMGD MS program must fulfill any remaining CM Core courses that they have not already taken, and then take the remainder of their coursework requirement as open electives (including independent study).
Requirements
The PhD requires 60 credit hours following the completion of a master’s degree. These 60 credit hours are split between coursework (30 credits) and research (30 credits). All students are required to take 15 credits in the CM Core.
IMGD 5010 is a rotating topics course. Students must take one version of this course during their degree, which should be on a topic outside their prior academic preparation.
Core (15 credits):
Additional Requirements
The remaining 15 credits should be fulfilled through open electives in areas related to CM. Students should work in collaboration with their advisor to choose these electives. In acknowledgment of the highly interdisciplinary nature of Computational Media, students are advised to choose courses from across the graduate catalog. Undergraduate courses count for 2 graduate credits and may be taken with approval of the student’s advisor.
There are four major research milestones for PhD students, spread across the degree:
Paper requirement. The student should show evidence of having contributed to publishable work (e.g. primary authorship on a conference paper or journal article in a reputable venue). This milestone should be achieved by the end of year two, and must be approved by the student’s thesis advisor and the IMGD graduate committee.
PhD qualifying exam. No later than the end of the student’s fifth full semester in the PhD program, the student should complete a qualifying exam set by a committee of three faculty including the student’s advisor. This committee should be the same as intended for their thesis proposal except for the external member. At least two members of this committee must hold a PhD. For their qualifying exam, the student defines their own research area in which they intend to become an expert, and sequentially complete the following milestones related to that area:
- Conduct a thorough literature review, identifying themes and major research questions in that area. The literature list is initially proposed by the student, and modified then approved by the faculty committee.
- A response to three questions, each posed by the faculty committee, that allows the student an opportunity to analyze, critique, and connect the ideas, themes and questions resulting from the literature review.
- At least one of these questions must be analytical in nature, in which the student responds by writing an essay that draws upon the literature in their area.
- At least one of the questions must be a prompt for making an artifact relevant to the candidate’s area (e.g. a technical system implementation or a game prototype).
- Students will have two weeks to complete this requirement.
- Give a 45 minute oral presentation that teaches about the core area of study the student has identified.
- Design a syllabus for a graduate level special topics course that teaches about the identified area, to be approved by the faculty committee.
If the committee finds that a student did not successfully pass either (b) or (c), the student may make one additional attempt to pass per step. If the committee judges a repeated attempt to have failed, the student will be asked to leave the program.
Advancement to PhD candidacy. By the beginning of year four, the student should have assembled their PhD committee and complete their PhD proposal. This committee may change between the candidate’s qualifying exam and PhD proposal; however, after advancing to candidacy changing a PhD committee requires approval by the IMGD graduate steering committee. The PhD committee must have the following general composition:
- the student’s advisor,
- two faculty members internal to IMGD/CS/HUA,
- one external committee member, who may be either a tenure-track faculty member at WPI who is external to IMGD/CS/HUA, a faculty member at a different university, or a researcher in industry with equivalent qualifications to a tenure-track faculty member as judged by the IMGD graduate committee.
At least two members of the thesis committee must hold a PhD.
The thesis proposal is delivered as a written document, and also presented in a public forum followed by oral examination in a private session open only to the student and committee. The potential outcomes from the thesis proposal are: “pass”, “pass with revisions”, and “fail and re-propose”. This is decided by committee vote following deliberations, for which the student is not present. If revisions are required, then they must be submitted in writing to the committee, but the student is not required to re-present their proposal.
Dissertation defense. The student must defend their written dissertation through an oral presentation that is open to the public, followed by a private defense with the committee members. Potential outcomes from the committee vote on a student’s defense are: “pass with minor revisions”, “pass with major revisions”, and “fail and re-defend”. Revisions are changes to the written dissertation. Minor revisions can be approved by the advisor alone, major revisions require the full committee to approve, and “fail and re-defend” requires the student to make substantial revisions to the research and to present again.