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Developing a professional doctorate in computing: a fifth-year assessment

Published: 28 June 2004 Publication History

Abstract

Pace University's Doctor of Professional Studies in Computing program, a fusion of academic and professional cultures, started as a venture into largely uncharted educational territory. One part of the mission was, and remains, a one hundred percent student retention rate, with each student successfully defending a dissertation with original research in three years. Yet, throughout, the students retain full-time employment as high-level computing and IT professionals. Another part of the mission is to provide breadth and currency across the computing disciplines (specifically, computer science, information systems, and telecommunications) as well as depth in annually selected areas of emerging technology. This is in a context in which entering students have master's degrees and generally at least five years of professional experience in diverse computing-related areas and therefore lack a common foundational background. As a new program at the University and in the country, penetrating assessments have been conducted each semester. This report describes the assessments, the anticipated and unanticipated challenges, and the steps that have made the evolutionary development of this program successful.

References

[1]
Merrit, S. M., Grossman, F., Tappert, C., Bergin, J., Blum, H. Frank, R., Sachs, D., Stix, A., and Varden. S. The Doctor of Professional Studies in Computing: An Innovative Professional Doctoral Program. In The Proceedings of ISECON 2001, v 18 (Cincinnati): paper 17b. October 2001. http://isedj.org/isecon/2001/17b/index.html
[2]
Dean, B. J. The All-But-Dissertation Survival Guide#8482;. http://www.abdsurvivalguide.com/

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  • (2018)Doctor of Professional Studies in Computing: A Categorization of Applied Industry Research2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE.2018.8658886(1-6)Online publication date: Oct-2018
  • (2011)A research doctorate for computing professionalsCommunications of the ACM10.1145/1924421.192445054:4(133-141)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2011
  • (2010)The Trend Toward Online Project-Oriented Capstone CoursesComputers in the Schools10.1080/07380569.2010.52388227:3-4(200-220)Online publication date: 17-Dec-2010
  1. Developing a professional doctorate in computing: a fifth-year assessment

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    ITiCSE-WGR '04: Working group reports from ITiCSE on Innovation and technology in computer science education
    June 2004
    152 pages
    ISBN:9781450377942
    DOI:10.1145/1044550
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 28 June 2004

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    Author Tags

    1. assessment
    2. asynchronous learning
    3. computing
    4. outcomes assessment
    5. part-time doctoral study
    6. professional doctorate

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    • (2018)Doctor of Professional Studies in Computing: A Categorization of Applied Industry Research2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)10.1109/FIE.2018.8658886(1-6)Online publication date: Oct-2018
    • (2011)A research doctorate for computing professionalsCommunications of the ACM10.1145/1924421.192445054:4(133-141)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2011
    • (2010)The Trend Toward Online Project-Oriented Capstone CoursesComputers in the Schools10.1080/07380569.2010.52388227:3-4(200-220)Online publication date: 17-Dec-2010

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