During the second year of studies, each PhD student is required to take the Qualifying exam. The goal of the exam is twofold. First, to allow the supervisor and the doctoral school to assess whether the student has the potential to become a successful PhD candidate and provide early warnings. Second, to give the students a first taste of the kind of "examination" that they will have to face later in their career.
The exam has the form of a conference reviewing process. Students are required to produce a maximum 10 pages document (following the ACM two-column style, for further details check http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates) and upload it to a conference management tool. Supervisors, and members of the examination committee are submitting a review. The decision is based on the combination of these reviews. The examination committee is different for every student. The student is also required to make a presentation that is open to the public, followed by a close-door examination by the committee.
Qualifying Exam Committee
Fabrizio Granelli - President
Davide Brunelli
Luciano Serafini
BY SEPTEMBER 16, 2011 Students must register in Easychair at the address included in the instructions sent by the Secretariat and insert the title, abstrat, keywords of thier research proposal of their research proposal.
BY NOVEMBER 25, 2011 Students must:
1. prepare the research proposal which should include
maximum 10 pages in ACM SIgmod format
review of the state of the art in the area
description of the research goals and plan
preliminary results;
2. submit the research proposal to Easychair and Student’s Career.
Deadlines are important, and just like the submissions of papers and projects, they must be met. Otherwise it is not possible to take the exam.
Detailed information about the qualifying exam can be found in the manifesto here.
Below you can find the calendar of the presentations. Click on the presentation to get more details such as the title and the place.