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PhD IT Concentration in Information Security and Assurance

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PhD Qualifying Exams

Students may designate a concentration in information security in their doctoral degree title. In that case the transcript of a graduating student would be "PhD in Information Technology with Concentration in Information Security." Students may also pursue such doctoral studies without designating a concentration in their degree title.

Requirements

Students seeking this concentration must satisfy all the requirements for the PhD in Information Technology. In addition, the following requirements must be met.

Plan of Study

All decisions concerning the student's course requirements and plan of study must be approved by the advisor or director, with the consent of the ISE Department's doctoral coordinator.

Doctoral Supervisory Committee

The dissertation director must be a faculty member of the Volgenau School. The composition of the doctoral supervisory committee is to be approved by the ISE doctoral coordinator, ISE department Chair, and the Volgenau School associate dean for graduate studies and research. Permission for the comprehensive examination and the dissertation defense is requested from the Volgenau School associate dean on the basis of a written request and plan that has been approved by the supervisory committee and the ISE doctoral coordinator.

Note for PhD pre-defense and final defense:

  • It is the University policy that the final defense can only occur at least two weeks after the pre-defense.

  • The Volgenau School's policy requires that the final defense for the PhD in IT degree can only occur at least four weeks after the pre-defense. Under very special circumstances, the minimum two-week period determined by the University policy may be approved by the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies.

  • Students in the PhD in IT degree program must submit an Approval to Defend Dissertation form [PDF] along with a copy of the written dissertation to Lisa Nolder after successfully passing their pre-defense.

  • Students should also submit to the Associate Dean (via e-mail): (a) a copy of the title and abstract of the dissertation, (b) a list of publications resulting from the dissertation, and (c) information on future employment after graduation.

  • Students are responsible providing an electronic version of the announcement to be posted at various places within the university to the staff person in charge of coordinating their respective PhD degrees. Failure to do so will delay the date of the final defense.

Qualifying Examinations

To satisfy the breadth requirement of the PhD degree, each student must pass a set of qualifying examinations designed to test a student's fundamental knowledge. The general PhD IT requirement is that each student must take four exams from three different master's programs.
The exams for the Information Security track are:
  1. Information Security
  2. One exam from Operating Systems or Networks
  3. Two exams from the following, at most one from each master's program:

Advanced Emphasis Requirement

In addition to courses taken to prepare for the Qualifying Exam, students must take at least 8 courses (24 credit hours) including:
  • One required course: IT 862 Computer Security Models and Architectures
  • At least 4 courses (12 credits) from the following:
    • ECE 746   Secure Telecommunication Systems
    • ISA 656    Network Security
    • ISA 674    Intrusion Detection
    • ISA 765    Database and Distributed Systems Security
    • ISA 767    Secure Electronic Commerce
    • ISA 796    Directed Readings in Information Security
    • ISA 797    Advanced Topics in Information Security
    • ISA 798    Research Project
    • SWE 781  Secure Software Design and Programming
    • IT 865      Networks and Distributed Systems Security
    • IT 962      Advanced Topics in Computer Security
Where appropriate, one or two relevant courses may be substituted with courses from other Volgenau School departments. The student's overall coursework must satisfy the University requirement for the PhD.

For Further Information

Additional information on the program are available from the MSIS Student Advisor (iseadvsr@gmu.edu)

Financial aid information is available at the GMU Office of Financial Aid