Ph.D. Requirements

UH ICS Ph.D. Program

GRE:
Since I already have my Masters from the same University, which required a GRE, he's going to check to see if they have the GRE on file for me. If not, the paper version will be fine if I can provide it.

Literature Review:
Do a literature review consisting of a minimum of 20 publications (books, papers, journal articles). Blogs and sites can be included, but kept to a minimum and cited. Examples where blogs or sites can be used are if they conducted polls or have unique ideas to offer. Keep a record of all publications read, include citations and summaries, and start tracking the references between them. Good to tag where I find information in each book so I can easily find it later. The review needs to be a comprehensive narrative overview of all that I've read, not an individual discussion of each publication although I will be citing specifics from some books. He suggested reading up to 100 papers. Do not include anything about my own plan for research as it taints my analysis and causes the peer review of my work to focus on the proposed research as opposed to strictly analyzing the lit review.

Qualifying Exam:
4 hour written exam over a range of topics. There's a study guide. If I can't find one of the cited books, just look up the Chapters for the book on Amazon to find out the topic and then read a different book on the same topic. It's all pretty standard stuff that's covered in all books with those topics. I need to take this exam within 6 months of enrolling in the program.

Publications:
While my Master's Thesis will work, it's better if I can do another publication.

Proposal:
While I can have this formed before enrolling, it isn't necessary.

Citation Guide

http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/citmanage/mla

The Mission

This is intended to be a place where I can track my explorations of user interface design. It seems that there is a need for software developers who also get how to design intuitive software user interfaces. My intent is to make a course of study for myself to learn the ropes on good software interface design, to learn how to make intuitive interfaces that don't require the user to have to "learn" how the system works, but instead, just make sense.