Curriculum

Curriculum
Courses
Faculty

Ph.D. in Informatics

The Indiana University School of Informatics, the first of its kind in the country, was created as a place where innovative multi­disciplinary programs could thrive, a program where students can apply the skills of technology to a range of other fields.  For current information and specific requirements, go to the web­site at http://www.informatics.iupui.edu.

All Ph.D. candidates must meet with their academic and/or research advisor for course selection and plan of study.  This program is administered with the approval of Indiana Uni­versity, Bloomington.

Program of Study

Students in the doctoral program will explore the connections among technology, theory, social analysis, and application domains in a diverse and multidisciplinary curriculum.  This curriculum will include core courses and seminars in informat­ics, an information subdiscipline [current subdisciplines are bioinformatics, health informatics, and human-computer inter­action]; courses in methodology and theory; electives in related disciplines inside and outside of the School leading to a Ph.D. minor; and a dissertation.  In addition, students will be encour­aged to pursue internships as part of the elective courses or independent studies of their program.

Bioinformatics

The Bioinformatics track is a 90 credit hour program that includes:

• 15 credit hours of Core A
• 12 credit hours of Core B
• 6 credit hours of seminar courses
• 9 credit hours of electives
• 6 credit hours of rotation
• A minor is required from a sub-discipline
• At least 30 credit hours of dissertation

Areas of Specialization

Faculty research projects often involve representatives from several different research areas working together to develop in­novative and even revolutionary new solutions.  While students can expect to concentrate in particular areas, they will also be expected to explore the broader significance of their work as well as ways that their expertise can be leveraged to solve problems outside of their own domains.

Areas of Research

Protein structure and function prediction, comparative genomics, struc­tural genomics, fragment assembly in DNA sequencing, systems biology, models of evolution, molecular modeling, drug design, machine learning algorithms, biological database integration, data mining, and biomedical text mining.

Health Informatics Program

The Health Informatics track is a 90 credit hour program that includes:

• 12 credit hours of Core A
• 15 credit hours of Core B
• 6 credit hours of seminar courses
• 9 credit hours of electives
• 6 credit hours of rotation

A minor is required from a subdiscipline 21-30 credit hours of dissertation.

Areas of Specialization

Faculty research projects often involve representatives from several different research areas working together to develop in­novative and even revolutionary new solutions.  While students can expect to concentrate in particular areas, they will also be expected to explore the broader significance of their work as well as ways that their expertise can be leveraged to solve problems outside of their own domains.

Areas of Research

Electronic medical records, health data exchange, standards and terminology for health data, clinical decision support, consumer health informatics, technology to enhance patient safety, health application development and implementa­tion, cost reimbursement and integrated health information systems.  The Health Informatics program has close ties and joint projects with the Veteran Administration Medical Cen­ter, Regenstrief Institute, Clarian Health, Methodist Hospital, St. Vincent Hospital, Community Health Network, St. Francis Hospitals, IU School of Medicine, and other local health care systems.

Human Computer Interaction

The Human Computer Interaction track is a 90 credit hour program that includes*:

• 18 credit hours of Core A courses (I541, I561, I563, I543, I575, I624)
• 15 credit hours of Core B courses (I501, I600, I564, I790, I634)
• 6 credit hours of seminar courses (Included in Core A & B)
• 9-18 credit hours of electives
• 3-6 credit hours of research methodology (I575 cannot be included here)
• 6 credit hours of rotation (Included in Core B)
• 9 credit hours (minimum) of a minor is required from a sub-discipline within or outside the School
• 21-30 credit hours of dissertation

(*The HCI Qualifying Examination includes Core A, plus I501.)

Areas of Specialization

Faculty research projects often involve representatives from several different research areas working together to develop in­novative and even revolutionary new solutions. While students can expect to concentrate in particular areas, they will also be expected to explore the broader significance of their work as well as ways that their expertise can be leveraged to solve problems outside of their own domains.

Areas of Research

Because HCI is a multidisciplinary discipline, students are encourage to expand the scope of their research to cross-tradi­tional disciplinary boundaries into such areas as: user-centered design, cross-cultural theory and application, related areas within new media such as gaming and virtual reality, comput­er-mediated communication, usability engineering, health informatics, information visualization, biomedical informatics, android science, social robotics, sensorimotor representation, symbol grounding and symbol emergence, and computational neuroscience, etc.

Additional Requirements for all Ph.D. Programs

Minor

All students will be required to have an appropriate minor from inside or outside the school. Minors will be selected with the advisor’s recommendation. The selected minor should be appropriate to the student’s choice of sub discipline within Informatics. Some appropriate minors would include: biology or bioinformatics, chemistry or chemistry informatics, health informatics, media arts/studies, cognitive psychology, computer science, information science, or sociology. In all cases the number of hours to be included in the minor will be consistent with the requirements of the unit granting the mi­nors. Some of the courses included in the minor may also count toward the student’s methodology or other requirements. Students need a minimum of 9 credits for a minor.

Qualifying Examination, Written (Required)

All students will take a written qualifying examination that covers the core courses (CORE A and B. Consult with the respective Program Directors to see what specific courses are included in the qualifying examination for the three different programs). The examination will be set by a group of faculty who are familiar with the content of the core courses. Examinations will be offered in August.  Examinations must be completed by the end of the stu­dent’s fourth semester in the program.  Students who do not successfully complete the examination can retake the examination a second time.

Qualifying Examination, Oral (Required)

1. The oral examination will take place after the student suc­cessfully passes the written exam. Students must pass both the written and the oral exam before passing on to candidacy. Only two attempts to pass the oral examination will be allowed.
2. The oral exam will be based on the student’s response to the written exam and any material from the core courses.

Dissertation Proposal (Required)

This is an oral review that covers in-depth knowledge of the student’s primary research area and dissertation proposal. The research proposal for dissertation must be approved by the stu­dent’s research committee. That committee may have the same membership as the program committee or the students may choose different members. The advisor for the dissertation will be a faculty member in the School of Informatics and a mem­ber of the Graduate Faculty. At least one of the three members of the committee will be based outside of the school. The student will defend the thesis proposal at a public colloquium in the school. The review should be completed within one-year after passing the Qualifying Examinations.

Dissertation (Required)

A written elaboration of significant original research must be successfully presented to the research committee in a public defense as described in the Graduate School Bulletin.

Ph.D. Minor in Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics gathers knowledge and information from vari­ous fields such as informatics, chemistry, computer science, medicine, and biology. Students in relevant Ph.D. programs such as biochemistry and molecular biology, medical and mo­lecular genetics, medicine, chemistry, or biology are the target audience for the Ph.D. minor in bioinformatics.

A minor in bioinformatics requires 12 credit hours. The core curriculum consists of graduate-level courses in informatics. Electives may be chosen based on personal interests from a broad list of courses in biology, chemistry, computer science, information science, and medical and molecular genetics.

Requirements

The graduate bioinformatics courses in the School of Informat­ics assume a minimal knowledge of cell and molecular biology. That level of understanding could be gained with at least 6 undergraduate credit hours in molecular biology, genetics, or evolution.