Before degree conferral is possible, all Ph.D. candidates must:
All students initially admitted to a Ph.D. program for the Fall 2009 semester or thereafter are required to document successful completion of "Responsible Conduct of Research" (RCR) training when they submit their Application to Candidacy (ATC) for their Ph.D. degree. This training requirement may be fulfilled by either (1.) enrolling in and passing PHI 640 Graduate Research Ethics or RPN 541 Ethics and Conduct of Research or (2.) completing the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) online Responsible Conduct of Research course with a score of 80% or higher. Students opting to complete the CITI online course must supply documentation of its successful completion with their Application to Candidacy.
The University at Buffalo has an institutional membership in the CITI online RCR program. That online program can be accessed through the following website: http://www.citiprogram.org.
Initially, the student needs to register and choose a password, which allows the program to be entered and re-entered as many time as needed. Also, the student is asked, at the time of initial registration, to enter his/her name, mailing address, phone number, e-mail address, and UB person number. A database of UB participants is created using that information.
There are four versions of the CITI online RCR course from which the student should choose the version most appropriate for his/her area of doctoral study: Biomedical Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Physical Sciences, or Humanities. The RCR program is comprised of a series of modules, each of which consists of readings and case studies and ends with a quiz covering the material. The program allows the student to enter and exit at any point and to re-take the quiz associated with each section. A minimum total score of 80% is required to pass the online course. Assistance is available online at the CITI website if any technical difficulties are encountered.
Once the student has successfully completed the appropriate version of the CITI RCR program with a passing grade of 80% or higher, he/she must print the "Completion Report" from within the CITI program as documentation of successful completion and submit it with the Ph.D. degree Application to Candidacy.
Faculty members appointed as advisors by the home department supervise and assist students in planning a program until they choose a major professor. Thereafter, a committee, selected by the student with the approval of his or her home department, oversees the remainder of the work. The committee must be comprised of a major professor and at least two additional committee members, all of whom must be Members of the UB Graduate Faculty. Associate Members of the Graduate Faculty may not serve on doctoral committees as one of the three required core committee members, but may serve as additional committee members. Questions concerning doctoral committee composition should be referred to the Graduate School.
The dissertation should be an original contribution to the field as determined by the Ph.D. candidate's department or program. Doctoral dissertations, except those in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, are normally written in English.
There are several style manuals available in the UB Libraries, including Strunk and White, Turabian, and the University of Chicago Press that answer a host of questions regarding the technical aspects of a properly prepared dissertation. A bibliography is also available which provides further examples that are more specific to various disciplines (e.g., the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association). Students should consult the appropriate professional journals and their major professors to determine the most appropriate style within their area of research.
It is the prerogative and responsibility of the candidate and the sponsoring department to ensure that the canons of organization, presentation, and documentation usually prescribed for publication in their discipline are observed. Likewise, the dissertation must be certified as substantially free of errors and ready for publication before it is submitted to the Graduate School.
The Graduate School will accept any self-consistent format which follows conventions of a recognized discipline, but some general formatting standards are also expected as outlined in the Graduate School's booklet entitled Guidelines for Thesis and Dissertation Preparation and Submission. This booklet is available on the Graduate School's Web site at: http://www.grad.buffalo.edu or from the Graduate School Office of Student Services, 408 Capen Hall.
It is the student's choice whether or not to copyright his or her dissertation. Copyrighting formally protects the student's rights as an author. These rights include the ability to make copies of the work, to distribute them, to make derivative works, or to perform or display the work. By copyrighting a dissertation, a student can control the rights to it or may authorize others (i.e., a publisher) to exercise them. It is the student's responsibility to guarantee that the work is original and that he or she has followed accepted standards for documenting the use of references and citations of other works. Students should discuss the option to copyright their work with their major professor before reaching a decision. Once the decision has been made to copyright, the appropriate symbol, the date, and the author’s name must be included on the page immediately following the title page. The copyright will run for the life of the author plus fifty years. The law requires that two copies of the work be submitted to the appropriate federal agency. Students may request this service to be provided through the Graduate School’s online submission system available on the Graduate School home page at: www.grad.buffalo.edu/etd as an option under the Proquest/UMI Dissertation Publishing Agreement they sign when submitting the final dissertation.
The dissertation must be examined and approved by the candidate's committee and the department, and if required, by an outside reader.
The Oral Defense is a public event scheduled by the department and is attended by the candidate's major professor, graduate committee, members of the faculty from the department, and if required, the outside reader. At the discretion of the department, the defense-of-dissertation examination may take the form of a seminar with a more varied selection of participants. Examination questions will always include questions arising from the dissertation itself. In many cases, particularly ones in which departments have not required extensive examinations during the course of the student's tenure, questions will be more general and the examination longer.
In order to graduate, the following must be on file in the Graduate School:
In addition, the Graduate School will verify satisfactory completion of all courses and minimum number of credits to be applied toward the degree.
As the name implies, the M-Form is used for several purposes. The form is submitted to the Graduate School by the department to certify that the defense of the dissertation was satisfactorily completed and that ALL academic requirements for the degree have been satisfied. This form must be signed by the major professor, the committee members, and the director of graduate studies or chair of the department and must be submitted to the Graduate School by the deadlines established for each conferral date. Students should check with their departments to be sure this form is submitted on time.
Each doctoral student is required to submit a completed Doctoral Degree Recipients Survey before their degree may be conferred. This survey is used to collect information from all doctoral candidates in the U.S.; the National Research Council publishes summaries of these data annually. The survey is available online at: www.grad.buffalo.edu/etd on the Graduate School website.
When students sign and submit this form, it authorizes the Graduate School to collect fees associated with publishing and optional copyrighting of the dissertation. Cataloging the dissertation is underwritten through a mandatory $72 fee. If a student chooses to copyright their work, there is an additional $70.00 charge for filling the copyright. Students submit this form with a personal check directly to the Graduate School for processing. The check should be made out to University at Buffalo. Alternatively, students may opt to fill out and submit the form and attach no payment, which will result in the Student Response Center posting these fee charges to the student’s account. This form is available online at: www.grad.buffalo.edu/etd within the Graduate School home page.