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Proposal-Defense Guideline for Committee Members.md

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Proposal and Defence Guideline w/ Sample Email Correspondence

Proposal

Committee Members

MSc: Internal Reader (SCS), External Reader (UWindsor, cannot be an outsider), Chair (only for defence)

PhD: Internal Reader (SCS), External Reader (UWindsor), Outside Reader (Another University), Chair (only for defence)

1- Create a list of candidates

2- Discuss the list with Hossein

3- Send an invitation email to the top 1, CC Hossein, like:

Don't forget to attach the paper

Don't forget to make the links hypertext

Don't forget to CC Hossein

Dear Prof./Dr. Lastname,
I hope this message finds you well. I am Firstname Lastname, a student pursuing Master's/PhD in Computer Science at the University of Windsor, [Canada], with a specialization in the Artificial Intelligence Stream, under the supervision of Dr. Hossein Fani. I am writing this message to kindly request your assistance as an internal reader for my MSc/PhD thesis proposal.
My thesis centers on [4-5 sentences about the contributions]. We have also contributed Z (http://github.com/fani-lab/z), a toolkit to support the reproducibility of our research.
Our early results have been accepted at the W conference/journal (https://doi.org/***), and I am in the process of preparing a resource paper for SIGIR24 and a journal manuscript by the end of the Fall 2023 semester.
I would be honoured to extend an invitation to you as the internal reader of my thesis/dissertation evaluation committee, given your expertise in neural models and deep learning. Attached, you will find the published paper for your reading.
I am planning to schedule the thesis proposal in early September, and the thesis defence in early January, and I would greatly appreciate hearing about your interest and availability.
Sincerely,
Firstname Lastname
MSc/PhD Student

4- Wait for a response; if not accepted, send an invitation email to the top 2, ... 5- If accepted, send a thank you email like

Dear X,
We appreciate your [quick reply] and acceptance of the invitation, and we are excited to have you in the evaluation committee member.

I will coordinate the proposal schedule with you soon.
 
Sincerely,

6- Timing Send date-time options, as wide/many as possible (you can use doodle), to agree on a date-time spot for all committee members, considering 10 DAYS DELAY by the graduate secretary of the school, like:

Dear X,
I sincerely appreciate your willingness to join my committee.

To coordinate our meeting, I've found several time slots on September 14th and 15th, each spanning from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm.
Please kindly inform me of your preferred availability within these windows for both days.

Also, if none of these time slots suit your schedule, please do not hesitate to inform me, and I will gladly work to propose alternative options.

Sincerely,

7- Admin Forms

When agreed on the date-time slot, there are two forms (one pdf and one word document) to be submitted to the graduate secretary;

Word Document: First one should be completed after the agreement on the time with your name, abstract and general info about the proposal. You should send this form to the secretary by attaching the confirmation emails on the timing from your supervisor, internal reader, and external reader.

PDF Form: Second one should be signed by you, your supervisor, internal reader, and external reader when you agreed on the time. This form which is the committee form has a special submission instruction which has been mentioned inside the form.

Master's Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Committee Form: Co-Supervisor Master's Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Committee Form: Sole Supervisor

To obtain the signitures, send an email to committee members one at a time, supervisor >> internal reader >> external reader

Afterward, send the signed forms and a pdf file of email threads from the committee members, showing the agreed time, to CSGRADINFO@uwindsor.ca, asking to fix the time and location.

When the time and location have been confirmed by the graduate secratory, send a single email to all faculty members, CC CSGRADINFO@uwindsor.ca, to announce the time and location.

8- Pre-proposal

Have 2-3 mock presentations prior to your proposal, esp., one presentation to Hossein.

Send the slides 1-3 days before the proposal with a date-time and location reminder to the committee members.

Print out your presentation slides, 2-4 slides per page, to the committee members

Do the presentation between 20 to 30 minutes. No strict min/max limitation though.

Don't forget to mention your achievements on your slides, including:

Awards you received like UWill Discover, IDeA, CS Demo Day

Mentorship for highschoolers and undergrad students.

Collaborations with other grad students like co-authorship in other research

Accepted Papers

Codeline in github. Open the link and browse the codeline.

What else ...

Be at the proposal location at least 15 minutes earlier to prevent any issues with connecting.

Proposal Day

Defence

1- Preparation

  • It is the student’s responsibility to check the Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS) Important Dates for defense deadlines and allow sufficient time for the completion of the thesis finished draft, review process by the advisor, review process by the committee, the defense seminar announcement, and completion of any required changes after the defense and before the final deposit deadlines.
  • Students must be registered for the term in COMP 8970 and have applied to graduate (See FGS Important Dates).
  • Student completes the thesis draft following the format guidelines as per the FGS and submits it to their advisor(s) for review

2- Up to Advisor approval

  • The Thesis Advisor(s) approve the final thesis draft; ensuring that the draft and all the required thesis work are complete.
    • After consulting with Hossein, contact your committee members one by one to inquire about their availability during your proposed defense date. Ideally, you should start with the member who has the busiest schedule. With a sample as follows:
Dear Dr. X,
 
I hope this message finds you well.
 
I am reaching out to inquire about your availability during the first two weeks of January 2024. I am currently in the process of planning the defense of my thesis and am aiming to schedule it within this timeframe. Understanding your busy schedule, I wanted to coordinate with you first as a valued member of my thesis committee.
I would greatly appreciate it if you could share any potential dates and times that would suit you during this period.
 
I look forward to your response and thank you in advance for your time and consideration.
 
Regards,
Your Name, Lastname
MSc Student at the University of Windsor
[Student ID]
  • Only after the advisor approves the draft can it be circulated to the rest of the thesis committee.
    • Do the same procedure for all committee members, find an overlap between their availabilites, and finalize it with Hossein.
    • Don't forget to CC Hossein
  • A defense chair must be confirmed before the announcement is submitted. You may inquire with the Defense chair if they would like a copy of your thesis - they might or might not want a copy *discuss this with your advisor.
    • After finalizing the proposed date/dates for the defence, prepare a list of suggested chairs and go over it with Hossein. After making the choice, you can send an email as follows with your suggested date/time:
Dear Prof./Dr. Lastname,
 
I hope this message finds you well.
 
I am Firstname Lastname, a student pursuing Master's/PhD in Computer Science at the University of Windsor, [Canada], with a specialization in the Artificial Intelligence Stream, under the supervision of Dr. Hossein Fani. I am writing this message to kindly request your assistance as a defense chair for my MSc/PhD thesis defense.
 
My thesis centers on [4-5 sentences about the contributions]. We have also contributed Z (http://github.com/fani-lab/z), a toolkit to support the reproducibility of our research.
Our early results have been accepted at the W conference/journal (https://doi.org/***), and I am in the process of preparing a resource paper for W conference and a journal manuscript by the end of the Winter 2024 semester.
 
I would be honoured to extend an invitation to you as the chair of my thesis defense session. Attached, you will find the published paper for your reading.
I am planning to schedule the thesis defense in early January ( January 9th or January 11th  ,  1-2 pm). I would greatly appreciate hearing about your interest and availability.
 
Regards,
Your Name, Lastname
MSc Student at the University of Windsor
[Student ID]
  • If the chosen person agree, you can proceed to the next step, otherwise you have to contact the next suggested chair on your list.
  • Students can submit the thesis draft to the FGS for format checking (See FGS deposit step) as long as no major changes to formatting are anticipated

3- Thesis

  • The thesis committee receives the final draft and is given sufficient time to review it (10-14 days).
  • If edits are required or the draft is not approved, the draft goes to the previous step.
  • The thesis committee approves the final draft, and only then will they sign the Thesis Defense Request form and clear the student for scheduling the defense.
  • There are two forms (one pdf and one word document) to be submitted to the graduate secretary.

Word Document: Should be completed after the agreement on the time with your name, abstract and general info about the thesis. You should send this form to the secretary.

Thesis Defense Request Form: Fill this form with your name, proposal date, suggested defense date/time and names of your committee member and sign it. Then send the file as an email to Hossein in order to get his approval. Afterwards, you can proceed and send this to other members one by one. The template for that email can be as follows:

Dear Dr.X,
 
I hope this email finds you well.
 
Please find attached MSc Thesis Defense Request Form to this email in order to secure the time spot from the department of Computer Science. Based on the availabilities that you kindly provided, we suggest January 11th, 1 pm.
 
Looking forward to hearing back from you and thank you for your time and consideration.
 
Regards,
Your Name, Lastname
MSc Student at the University of Windsor
[Student ID]

3- CS Graduate Secretary

  • Provide the CS Graduate Secretary (csgradinfo@uwindsor.ca):

  • The completed announcement template. Must specify the complete committee names including defense chair, title, abstract, and whether the thesis is AI related (confirmed by advisor in the thesis defense request form) – see attached templates

  • The signed “Thesis Defense Request Form” (The program chair does not sign at this time)

  • Electronic copy of the final thesis draft

  • Room booking is completed by the Graduate Secretary

  • A minimum of 10 calendar days are required between the thesis announcement posting date and the defense date. 4- Final Thesis Submission

  • The thesis defense presentation may not exceed 25 minutes, as per FGS guidelines.

  • After a successful defense seminar, students must complete all changes requested by the committee.

  • Bring 2 copies of the Approval Page (signature page) of your thesis and a black pen in case the committee will sign the form then. The advisor may keep the form until confirmation that all changes have been made. Or, the committee may request to see all changes before signing the form individually. This is dependent on the advisor and committee preferences.

  • If Major changes – the chair of the defense will record all major changes and a report is to be submitted to the FGS and the SCS Graduate Office (csgradinfo@uwindsor.ca). The committee instructions must be completed by the student, which may include a repeat of the defense.

  • The Thesis Defense chair is to complete the grade report form and submit it to the CS grad secretary.

  • Once all the changes are completed by the student, the committee upon confirming the final changes would sign the thesis approval page.

  • The student completes the final thesis deposit with the Faculty of Graduate Studies: Final Submission – Deposit Steps.

  • The Thesis Defense Request form must be either physically or digitally signed (NO computer font initials are accepted) by all members of the committee (including the advisor). The advisor must also indicate if the thesis topic is AI related or not.

  • If any committee member cannot digitally sign the form, an email attachment from them confirming that your thesis is ready to proceed for defense is acceptable. These confirmations should be pasted to a word document, converted to pdf, and added with the announcement as a second pdf.

  • A reminder: the "Program Chair section" is for the Graduate Coordinator to sign, not the Chair of the Defense. The CS Grad Secretary will forward the form to the Graduate Coordinator to review/sign once a completed form is submitted to csgradinfo@uwindsor.ca

4- Defence Day

  • Have 2-3 mock presentations prior to your proposal, esp., one presentation to Hossein.
  • Send the slides 1-3 days before the proposal with a date-time and location reminder to the committee members.
  • Print out your presentation slides, 2-4 slides per page, to the committee members
  • Do the presentation between 20 to 30 minutes. No strict min/max limitation though.
  • Don't forget to mention your achievements on your slides, including:
    • Awards you received like UWill Discover, IDeA, CS Demo Day
    • Mentorship for highschoolers and undergrad students.
    • Collaborations with other grad students like co-authorship in other research
    • Accepted Papers
    • Codeline in github. Open the link and browse the codeline.

5- Pre-Defence Day

  • On the day of your defense, please arrive 30 minutes prior to your defense to pick up the key from the GRADUATE SECRETARY for your room in Essex Hall. You will be required to sign the key out and return when your defense is complete.
  • Bring a bottle of water
  • Extra pens

6- Guidelines of Attendance at Major Paper, Thesis and Dissertation Defense This section is filled in by the letter provided by Monique (csgradinfo@uwindsor.ca), which she received it officially from the Faculty of Graduate Studies. Following is a copy of the letter that was shared with us.

Minimum requirements for membership on final committees are as follows:

Master's Major Paper Master's Thesis Doctoral Dissertation
Defense Chair 1 1
Advisor(s) 1 (chair) 1 1
Program Reader 1 1 2
Outside Program Reader 1 1
External Examiner 1

Given that the defense of the major paper/thesis/dissertation is the culmination of the student’s research work and it is important that it be presented and examined properly for quality control purposes, the Chair of the Defense should use the following conditions to determine if the defense may proceed:

The defense should take place on the University of Windsor campus.

  • The student and Defense Chair must be physically present.
  • A minimum of two committee members must be physically present.
  • At most one committee member may be absent (not physically or virtually present), and the absent member cannot be the External Examiner.
  • At most two committee members may be virtually present.

Note that according to the calendar, the External Examiner must be present in order for her/his vote to veto positive unanimity by the rest of the committee. The chair is non‐voting.