The School seeks outstanding students who possess the qualities to be successful independent investigators. In order to contribute to the quality of the doctoral experience for both students and faculty, given the limited resources of the School, admissions of new students are limited to a maximum of eight per academic year. Doctoral admissions are limited to the Fall semester.

Approval of admission to the Doctoral Program is based upon an assessment of the totality of the evidence in support of the application. Some of the factors examined include the applicant's previous academic record showing that he/she holds a master's degree in an academic or professional field emphasizing one or more of the following areas: information organization, information retrieval, communication and design, and evaluation of information systems; superior scores on the quantitative, verbal, and analytic sections of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE); supportive statements on reference letters from those able to evaluative potential for making a research contribution; a personal statement; a minimum TOEFL score of 550 for applicants whose native language is not English. Published works by the applicant will also be examined. An interview is required. In reviewing applicants for admission to the program, the school considers the match of the candidate's research interests with those of the school's faculty as well as past academic performance and scholarly potential.

On an overall basis the body of evidence outlined above should establish a correspondence between the student's research interests and those of the faculty. Further, endorsement by one or more faculty willing to assume the advisory role for the student should be another outcome of evaluation of this body of evidence. The School will not admit any doctoral student who does not have a faculty member who will serve as his/her initial sponsor/advisor.

Where a student's research interests are not established admission may be granted with the preadmissions understanding that continuation in the program is contingent upon the development of a research program that can be supported by the School's faculty.

Further exceptions to these admission policies may be allowed for students with the potential for outstanding research contributions through their special background or experience. Admission of such students will only be permitted after discussion in executive session of the faculty of any special support such a student might require, approval of a majority of the faculty, and concurrence of the Dean in the admission.

A student is expected to have the following background and knowledge before entering the program or must acquire what is lacking early in the program. A requirement can be met by a record of formal course work or by successful completion of recommended academic work. If the requirement is met by a record of formal course work taken elsewhere, the student may be asked to submit evidence of course content and to discuss the courses and their content with his or her faculty advisor. If a requirement is met through course credit, this credit does not count toward the degree. Specifically, applicants must show:

• an academic background including six graduate-level hours in each of at least three of the following areas: information organization, information retrieval, communication, design and evaluation of information systems.

• a knowledge of research methods that includes: an understanding of distinctions between the phenomenological and positivistic research paradigms, a facility to develop research questions, and a familiarity with the major social science methods of data collection.

• a knowledge of computing equivalent to that required in the School's master's degree programs. The requirement can be met by a demonstration of competence gained through experience, as well as by a record of formal course work or the completion of recommended course work.

The faculty member or one of the faculty members who has endorsed the admission of the applicant shall serve as the student's academic advisor. In the case where the advisor is an assistant professor who has served less than four years of an initial appointment with the School, the Dean appoints a secondary advisor to assist the Academic Advisor. The student or the faculty member may terminate an advisor/advisee relationship upon approval of the Dean.

The academic advisor and the student may seek further advice from other students and faculty members in planning the program of course work for the following years. In certain cases, e. g., preparation for a particular dissertation topic, the Academic Advisor may recommend courses or experiences in addition to the remedial ones identified at time of admission.

Degree requirements include a minimum of thirty-six hours of formal courses, reading courses, or directed research exclusive of the dissertation; required seminars in information retrieval (INLS 372) and communication (INLS 382) and at least six hours of statistics. In addition advanced seminars in information retrieval (INLS 379) and communication (INLS 389) and research in information and library science (INLS 399) are strongly recommended.

Academic performance in the program must conform to the Graduate School requirements for all graduate students. Research competence is demonstrated by outcomes of small-scale research efforts with student colleagues and/or faculty mentors and the presentation of outcomes in a seminar or course within the school. The presentation of research results at regional and national meetings is encouraged, and the submission of at least two papers for publication in the research literature of the field is required prior to taking the comprehensive exam.

The faculty annually reviews the progress of all doctoral students; continuation in the program depends upon a record of satisfactory progress. Upon completion of eighteen semester hours of credit a formal assessment of the student's ability for advanced study and original research is conducted by a committee of the faculty.

Full-time students are expected to pass the comprehensive exam and successfully defend their dissertation proposal no later than the third year of their program. The period devoted to dissertation research will vary depending on the problem addressed and the methods employed.

Reading knowledge in a foreign language is required, if it is needed to conduct research in the student's area of specialization. A comprehensive written and oral qualifying examination is required as a condition of admission to candidacy. The written exam covers four areas: the student's major area (communication or retrieval), the student's minor area (communication or retrieval), related research methods, and applicable theories or conceptual frameworks. The oral examination addresses the student's responses to the written questions and the motivation, research design, results, and/or implications of one research paper written by the student and submitted to the committee. All required coursework must be completed and the residence requirement met before this exam may be scheduled. Passing the comprehensive exams and receiving formal approval on a dissertation prospectus permits the student to apply for candidacy.

Successful completion of a doctoral dissertation approved by the student's dissertation committee is required. It represents an original contribution to knowledge involving identification and definition of a researchable topic, application of an appropriate research methodology, organization and analysis of data relevant to the topic under investigation, and a presentation and interpretation of the data that meets the standard of scholarly work.

An oral examination in defense of the dissertation, which is open to the University community, is also required and administered by the student's dissertation committee, which normally includes one or more scholars from outside the program.

Courses and seminars offered for doctoral students are open to advanced master's students and several use the opportunity to gain a more in-depth and theoretical study of a particular area. The resident doctoral students (typically about a dozen students at any one time) share lounge, library and lab facilities and occasionally audit or take a master's level course. To learn the skills of teaching, doctoral students frequently work with a faculty member in course design and implementation. The collaboration usually results in a richer course experience for Master's students. Although there is, of necessity, some competition for resources, the presence of the doctoral program attracts resources -- some of which are earmarked for doctoral students (research and teaching assistantships and some tuition awards, for example). Master's students enjoy other resources invested in the School because of the doctoral program -- for example, additional faculty and staff, enhanced library and laboratory material and equipment. On the whole, it would appear that benefits outweigh disadvantages.

With the addition of undergraduate courses for the SILS undergraduate minor, a larger number of SILS Ph.D. students now teach courses. Occasionally, and under the close supervision of a faculty mentor, they may also teach introductory level courses open to master's students. During the 1997-1998 academic year (SSII 97-SSI 98) there were four courses taught by SILS teaching fellows, one of which was a master's level course; in 1998-1999 there were nine courses with Graduate Teaching Assistant instructors, four being master's level courses; and for 1999-2000 we anticipate eight courses will be taught by Ph.D students with five being introductory master's level courses.

Before SILS Ph.D. students can teach a course for SILS, they must first take either INLS 308: Seminar in Teaching and Academic Life or EDCI 265: Teaching and Learning in the College Classroom. When they are teaching a course, they should also be enrolled in INLS 309: Seminar in Teaching Practice, a monthly seminar that many faculty and other doctoral students join, and they are encouraged to take advantage of all the regular workshops that the Center for Teaching and Learning offers. Additionally, Ph.D. students may work with faculty on designing courses and running a limited number of sessions before they teach the courses on their own. Also, each teaching fellow is assigned a faculty mentor (based on subject and teaching expertise - generally the faculty member who has been teaching this course) who guides them when they are teaching an entire course. This faculty member is responsible for reviewing the course syllabus, observing classes, and providing the Ph.D. student with an evaluation of their teaching. Since the same courses are taught over and over again by different Ph.D. students, the same limited number of SILS faculty are burdened with this oversight responsibility each year.

Prospective teaching fellows have observed or worked on sections of their classes under the direction of a faculty member prior to teaching them in their entirety. This has been done on an informal basis to the mutual satisfaction of student and instructor in the past, but will be formalized as a requirement for the upcoming year. This will allow a more rational and systematic development of the doctoral student as instructor: first taking a course, then observing, working with a faculty member on a course, then teaching the course. The one road block to this strategy is that with so few sections of the undergraduate courses each semester (one to two sections of INLS 50 (usually taught by adjuncts or Ph.D. students), and one of two of the following: INLS 60, 70, 80, there may not be a class taught by a faculty member for the Ph.D. student to observe in a timely fashion (the previous semester). When this cannot be accommodated, the supervising faculty member will need to provide more supervision to the Teaching Fellow. Lack of financial aid to support instructional assistants and teaching associates is also a problem that may mean that students must take on these roles for credit rather than salary.

The Certificate of Advanced Study (CAS) in Information and Library Science is a post-master's degree that is designed for practitioners who seek an articulated and systematic continuing education program to enhance their professional career development in information and library science. The Certificate is intended to provide:

• a systematic updating and upgrading of a working professional's knowledge in information and library science;
• the development of a specialty in a subject discipline or in an information/library function;
• an individual's redirection of a career path or the enrichment and strengthening of demonstrated capabilities in a career path.

The Certificate of Advanced Study program is tailored to an individual's previous education, experience, and career intentions. The program consists of 30 semester hours of course work selected from the school's curriculum and other departments and schools of the university on the basis of the individual's needs and objectives. The student selects courses in consultation with a faculty advisor. Competencies in research methods, management, and use of information technology are assumed to be a necessary part of each individual's program.

Applicants must possess a master's degree in either information or library science with a grade point average of 3.0 or better (on a 4.0 scale). For applicants whose native language is not English, a minimum TOEFL score of 550. Other requirements include a brief essay stating career goals, area of study interests, and reasons to enroll; letters of reference; and usually an interview. Admission is recommended by a faculty committee.

Degree requirements include satisfactory completion of 30 semester hours of graduate-level course work; knowledge of computing for information use equivalent to that required for the master's degree programs; a written review by the student, evaluating his/her stated objectives for the CAS program and how course work taken has accomplished these objectives (presented by the student to a committee of faculty members for discussion). Ongoing reviews and a final examination by a faculty committee are required. All work toward the certificate must be completed within five years of the date of first matriculation. Successful candidates will be awarded the Certificate of Advanced Study.

As the number of students in this program is kept deliberately small (typically only two or three students at any given time) and as the CAS students do not complete for financial aid, the impact on the master's degree programs is negligible. The CAS students enrich the classes they are in as they bring a wealth of practical experience to share.

Medical Informatics deals with the concepts and principles underlying acquisition, processing, and presentation of information in support of medical practice and education. The Medical Informatics track was created in 1990 as an interdisciplinary program by faculty from the Schools of Medicine, Education, and Information and Library Science plus the departments of Biomedical Engineering, Biostatistics, Computer Science, and Physics. A partnership with Duke established the Duke-UNC Medical Informatics Training Program in 1992. The program currently is part of the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the School of Medicine. One SILS faculty member, Barbara Wildemuth, holds a joint appointment in that Department and regularly offers a course in the Medical Informatics program.

The emphases in the program are:

• the development of clinical data and knowledge bases, and the presentation of information to support medical decision making;
• the application of advanced image processing techniques to diagnosis and treatment planning;
• the study of the reasoning processes of clinicians and the impact of information technology on patient care;
• the application of advanced information technology to education in the basic and clinical sciences.

One option leads to an academic Ph.D. and requires background in engineering and mathematics. Postdoctoral training for health professionals is a two-year program leading to the MS degree.

To date, only one SILS doctoral students has successfully completed the program. The total number of students in the program is small so the impact on the two elective SILS elective courses is neglible and usually beneficial for student interactions. The relationship offers additional options for both master's and Ph.D. students in SILS.

Today's marketplace frequently demands that archivists, manuscript curators, and records managers have both historical knowledge and advanced information management skills. Neither a master's degree in history nor one in information and library science is ideal, by itself, to prepare the new archival workforce that must be able to appraise and describe historical records, create World Wide Web sites, and preserve electronic documents.

To meet the needs of the archival profession, the School of Information and Library Science, in conjunction with the Department of Public History of the North Carolina State University (NCSU), offers a cooperative archival program. Students who enroll in this program can earn either an M.S.L.S. or M.S.I.S. degree and an M.A. in Public History in 69 credit hours. If taken individually, these degrees would require 84 credit hours. Students must be admitted to both universities independently and comply with all requirements of each program. Selected elective courses can be shared across both degrees with advisor approval. Although students do not have to matriculate in both degree programs during the same semester, they must maintain concurrent registration at some time during their course work. Students must abide by all inter-institutional registration policies as well. Because of the potential duplication of course content, students are restricted as to which combinations of courses they may take from both programs.

Over the years, many SILS students have prepared to work in archives and manuscript repositories and alumni are employed in special collections and primary materials facilities across the United States. With the birth of digital archives and museum displays, and the desperate need for information literate staff who possess advanced information technology skills in these settings, SILS is broadening what was once a basic archival program to one that will prepare students to be leaders in the cultural heritage information management arena. In addition to Dr. Helen Tibbo who has been teaching archival courses for the past ten years at SILS, two new faculty members, Dr. David Carr and Dr. Jane Greenberg, along with the curator of the Southern Historical Collection, UNC-CH, Timothy Pyatt; University Preservation Librarian, Andrew Hart; Curator of the UNC-CH Rare Book Collection, Dr. Charles McNamara; and Dr. G. Edwin Southern, from the Records Service Branch of the Archives and Records Services, North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, form the teaching cadre for the Cultural Heritage specialization.

With this additional faculty, expansion of the archival and cultural heritage courses within the SILS curriculum is currently underway. Over the next three semesters three new courses will be piloted with the goal of producing a core cultural heritage curriculum that most likely will include the following courses:

• INLS 110-90 Cultural Institutions (Carr) [new]
• INLS 144 Principles & Practices of Archives, Records, and Manuscripts Management (Greenberg) [new - not yet approved]
• INLS 165 Integrated Records Management [Southern]
• INLS 210-92 Metadata Architectures and Applications (Greenberg) [new - not yet approved]
• INLS 210-46 Advanced Issues & Practices in Archives, Records, and Manuscripts Administration (Tibbo) [new - not yet approved]
• INLS 210-46 Information Technology for Cultural Heritage Professionals (Tibbo) [new - not yet approved]
• INLS 254 Preservation of Library and Archive Materials [Hart]
• INLS 349 Seminar in Rare Book Collections [McNamara]

Public history courses available to SILS students at NCSU include:

• HI 586: History and Principles of the Administration of Archives and Manuscripts [D. Olson]
• HI 587: Application of Principles of Administration of Archives and Manuscripts [D. Olson]
• HI 588 [formerly HI 688]: Conservation of Archival and Library Materials [W. Atkins]
• HI 589: Automation and Public History [B. Cain]
• HI 590 [formerly HI 689]: Documentary Editing [Smith and J. Crow]
• HI 591 [formerly HI 684]: Introduction to Museology [V. Berger]
• HI 592 [formerly HI 686]: Advanced Museology [Zonderman]
• HI 593: Material Culture [J. McNutt]
• HI 596 [formerly HI 585]: Introduction to Public History [Smith and Zonderman]
• HI 597 [formerly HI 601]: Historiography and Historical Method
• HI 598 [formerly HI 602]: Historical Writing
• HI 642 [formerly HI 691]: Practicum in Public History [Smith]

Students may apply only three credits toward their SILS degree when they take the following pairings of SILS and NCSU public history courses due to content overlap:

• INLS 244: Administration of Archives and Manuscript Collections
  HI 586 : History and Principles of the Administration of Archives and Manuscripts

• INLS 254: Preservation of Library and Archive Materials
  HI 588: Conservation of Archival and Library Materials

• INLS 299: Supervised Field Experience
  HI 642: Practicum in Public History
  NOTE: It is unusual for any SILS student to apply more than three hours of field experience/practicum toward the SILS degree.

As of yet, the Cooperative Archival Program with the Public History Department at North Carolina State University has had a minimal impact on the SILS master's programs, but it only first appeared in our catalog in the fall of 1997. Because joint LIS and history programs provide graduates with a strong skill set necessary for job placement and success, it is anticipated that as more potential students learn of this program, a higher percentage of our master's degree applicants will be interested in specializing in the archival, and more broadly, cultural heritage, area. With the increased faculty in these areas and strong adjunct support, it appears that course overloading will not be a problem. Because most of these students want to blend traditional historical scholarship with cutting edge information technology skills so needed in cultural heritage institutions, an increased number of students in this specialization will not make the SILS program more "traditional." Indeed, it may have just the opposite effect as many of the new cultural heritage courses are information technology rich and because faculty advisors in this area are advocating that students take as many technology courses, such as Systems Analysis (INLS 162) and Database Systems I (INLS 256) as possible.

The undergraduate minor in information systems provides students with an understanding of computing, networking, multimedia, electronic information resources, and of the Internet that can be used to solve problems in a variety of contexts. The minor complements the student's major field of study by offering knowledge, skills, and experience using these technologies. The minor is designed for undergraduate students who wish to develop knowledge and skills in the use and design of information systems.

Students must take 15 credits of approved courses; nine of them must be from courses within SILS. Core course requirements include:

• INLS 50: Introduction to Computing (if student can demonstrate the skills taught in this course, he/she may substitute an elective course)
• INLS 60: Information Systems Analysis and Design
• INLS 70: Organizing and Retrieving Information
• INLS 80: Data Communication Networks

Undergraduate students who have completed the first semester of their sophomore year may apply for admission to the minor in information systems. Participation is limited to approximately 80 students in total (Currently, 77 students are enrolled in the program). Admission is highly competitive, as the table below shows:

Students' majors are diverse with representatives from the Business School, the School of Journalism, the School of Public Health, and Arts and Sciences. Displines represented include economics, applied science, communication, mathematics, biology, industrial relations, international studies, political science, psychology, music, public policy, anthropology, Russian, Spanish, sociology, chemistry, English, geography, German, history, philosophy, physical education, health policy, Asian studies, computer science.

Criteria for admission include the candidate's academic record, work and extracurricular experience, and substantive thinking about the role of information systems in the major field. Candidates from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds are sought.

The school received a substantial infusion of resources to initiate the undergraduate program -- two additional faculty lines, a staff person, lab equipment, software plus ongoing support, administrative support. Thus the amount of resources available to master's students has not been reduced. A few undergraduate students take some of the 100-level courses as electives and comingle with the master's students. The latter have priority for places in the class. To date, accommodating some undergraduates in the graduate courses has not been a problem.

The university administration has requested that the school develop an undergraduate major. We have submitted a request to General Adminstration to plan such a program. We anticipate that additional resources will be forthcoming before embarking on this expansion.

Continuing education for librarianship and allied information activities is an important instructional objective in this era of rapid technological advancement. The school hosts periodic workshops and colloquia that are available to both students and practitioners.

Information about upcoming Info to Go programs and public lectures is posted and students are invited to attend and many do. The Oxford program is available with an additional academic component for 3 credits for Master's students and a number have elected to enroll for elective credit. In general, the continuing education activities are not a substantial part of the school and are primarily offered as a benefit to alumni and members of the professional community in the State.