Doctoral Exam Information
Students planning to take the screening exam must petition the department. Petition forms are usually made available to eligible students planning to take the exams during in the summer months.
The School of Information Science will reserve space in one of the computer labs and students will use the standard word processing packages available through the network.
Students are allowed two attempts at the exam. If you fail one of these examinations twice, you will not be allowed to continue in the Ph.D. program, but you would of course be able to complete the Master’s program. Taking one of these examinations “just to get the experience” is risky!
You must answer all questions on each examination. Each answer will be graded on a scale of Doctoral, Master, Undergraduate, with + and - assigned to each level. We do not expect you to achieve Doctoral level on each question. You do, however, have to obtain at least 4 Doctoral grades and no Undergraduate grades.
These examinations are given under the CGU Honor Code Claremont Graduate University operates on an honor code that specifies that you shall neither give nor receive information during the examination. In taking the examination you agree to abide by the terms of the honor code.
The screening examination is designed to validate students’ knowledge of the basic material in the field and their integration of that material.
The exam is typically taken after completing the core of the MS program and the first doctoral seminar. Students need not have completed all the courses on which this examination is based before they attempt to write the screening examination. Students can apply to the IS Dean for transfer credit for a particular course. However, regardless of transfer credits or practical experience, students are responsible for all material covered on this examination.
The screening questions will be integrative in nature and not tied directly to courses given in a certain year by certain faculty. We have specified a set of core competencies from which examination material will be derived.
· Data base
· Role of the computer in the organization
· Systems design and analysis
· Information systems policy
· Telecommunications
· Overview of information systems research
Students will write a total of six questions, three in each of the two 3-hour sessions.
The typical student reaching the exam stage at CGU has completed 20 years of formal education. Despite all of this time and effort, very few students have had the opportunity to examine systematically how the relevant knowledge they have gained can be integrated and reassembled into a coherent framework of thought that is both professionally useful and intellectually exciting. Doctoral exam, when taken seriously, afford the opportunity to construct such a framework. They mark one of life’s rare occasions in which you will have the obligation and the luxury of spending several months trying to synthesize your studies around a distinguishable core of knowledge. Rather than simply adding new knowledge, you are encouraged to arrange what you already know into some kind of structure. Although the foundations for such structures have presumably been constructed during your coursework, the exams are suited to the tasks of sorting and re-conceptualization required for mastery of information science.
Being “fact smart” is clearly important, but is never sufficient for passing doctoral exam. You will be expected to demonstrate a conceptual grasp of the important ideas in each of several fields. You must be able to identify the basic questions and relevant conceptual frameworks that guide scholarship. Moreover, you must know who the prominent thinkers are, and how their writings have helped to shape the development of thought over time. In the take-home exam, you should also be prepared to offer your thoughts on current research priorities in the field. This would involve reflections on the key issues that need to be addressed, as well as the best methodologies or approaches for addressing those issues.
How to prepare for the exams
The day-to-day preparation for doctoral exams normally takes place over an extended period. Beyond the review of class notes, survey texts, and influential books and articles selected from course reading lists, you should devote much of your time to organizing the material you are studying around two basic questions: Why? and So What? The first question requires you to move beyond mere description of a field (the Who? and What) and to think critically about the relationships between ideas, the relevant actions. Implicit in this question is the “How” question: how are things connected to each other?
The “So What” is intended to remind you that preparation for exams is largely an exercise in extracting what is fundamental and significant about an otherwise unmanageable body of knowledge. Students who fail to be selective and systematic in their review are likely to be overwhelmed by information. Remember T.S. Elliot: “...where is the knowledge lost in information?”
One general method of preparing for exams that has proven to be helpful is to prepare lecture notes or outlines for hypothetical survey course in each field in which you are being examined. By organizing the work within the bounds of a course plan of what can be taught in fifteen weeks, you will have a clear incentive to be highly selective about what concepts, theories, applications, and illustration to include. Moreover, you will have to think about how the ideas and approaches in each successive lecture fit together and build on previous knowledge. Developed in the format of a three-ring, expandable network, the notes can be easily updated and refined as your mastery of the field increases. In the process of preparing for exams in this way, you will have produced materials that may serve you someday in teaching a survey course in the field. At the very least, you will have a highly personalized reference work for use in your final review before exams.
Particularly in the qualifying exam, you should also be prepared to move beyond the broad survey to in-depth mastery of a few topics of particular interest. In the fields of greater depth, you should be able to characterize not only key concepts and major issues, but also the direction in which future research on the subject might most fruitfully be pursued.
Preparation of doctoral exam involves a combination of review, seeking perspective, adding depth, and generating critical insights. All these elements are important for successful completion of the exams, but the most important of all may be the task of seeking perspective. Preparation for the exams is an opportunity to generate a critical over-view of your graduate training. It is an opportunity to develop intellectual capital that you will draw upon as you move on the task of defining and carrying out your dissertation research.
| 
How to Apply to CGU
