University of the Cumberlands Online PhD in Information Technology

UC sent me an email letting me know of major changes to the FAFSA. I'm happy that they are communicating the updates, but the body of the email was an image with what appear to be no accessibility features or a "View as text" link or anything. I'm certified as a DHS Trusted Tester (able to audit websites for their compliance with WCAG/Section 508 standards and write Accessibility Conformance Reports) and this wouldn't fly. I'm certain that UC has some low-vision students who will have to ask for assistance in what could have easily been a text-based email. Disappointing.

 

Took a look at my degree plan today.

Summer 2023:

• ITS 831 - Information Technology's Importance in Strategic Planning - Passed

Fall 2023 (ends December 15, 2023):

• ITS 832 - Information Technology in a Global Economy - Passed
• ITS 834 - Emerging Threats and Countermeasures - Passed
• ITS 835 - Enterprise Risk Management - In Progress
• ITS 833 - Information Governance - In Progress

Spring 2024 (ends April 26, 2024):

• ITS 631 - Operational Excellence
• ITS 836 - Data Science & Big Data Analytics
• ITS 632 - Introduction to Data Mining
• ITS 532 - Cloud Computing

Summer 2024 (ends August 23, 2024):

• ITS 630 - Organizational Leadership and Decision Making
• ITS 536 - Human Computer Interaction and Usability
• ITS 535 - System Analysis and Design

Fall 2024 (ends December 13, 2024):

• DSRT 837 - Professional Writing and Proposal Development
• DSRT 734 - Inferential Statistics

After that, I would - roughly complete:

• DSRT736 Dissertation Seminar (writing Chapter 2, the Lit Review) in Spring 2025
• DSRT839 Advanced Research Methods in Summer 2025 (Writing Chapters 1 and 3, the Intro and Methods) and complete the Comprehensive Exam. Passing the Comps marks the official transition from PhD student to PhD candidate. (As some people call it, ABD.)
• DSRT930 in Fall 2025 (Writing Chapter 4, the Results chapter)
• DSRT931 (Writing Chapter 5, the Summary, Discussion and Implications) in Spring 2026 (ending April 2026.)

I'd defend in the semester after that. If I stick to this schedule and have no delays, that would make earning this PhD take exactly 3 years.

 

As a person qualified to assess these situations, Dustin - are you going to tell them? I hope so.

 

I wrestled with it for several days, even drafting the email but ultimately decided not to raise the issue. The school doesn't seem to have any dedicated accessibility staff, and I don't want to make enemies of the general student services while I still need them for stuff.

 

OK. I get it. No prob.

 

I'm currently wrapping up DSRT 930 & will roll into 931 to finish off the program, but I got blindsided by the requirement of DSRT 834/850 - depending on whether you do quantitative or qualitative, you'll need to complete one of these courses! It's not officially listed in the degree plan (at least it wasn't for me) and I only noticed it when I started counting the credits remaining versus what I had scheduled and it being short. Immediately got in touch with my advisor and learned you need to do the DSRT 834 or 850 as well.

 

You're right. Thanks for the heads up! Should I aim to complete that after 734 but before I start 736?

 

Absolutely! I ended up doing it alongside DSRT 839 because I found out so late and it was almost completely useless of a class for me. I was already deep into Chapter 1 & 3 (collecting data) and the class was trying to teach you how to start writing your Chapter 2... I attended 1 of the live events and then skipped the rest because it was not helping me. For the assignments, I was literally just submitting my dissertation and explaining I was way beyond this phase and thankfully Dr. Throne was completely understanding.

Also, side note: you can take your comps in 736 now and I'd highly, highly recommend doing it! It's basically a free stab at it, and so if you fail, you have try again in 839 - although, if you attend Dr. Peterson's seminar, you should NOT fail because he gives you examples of types of content he's looking for, grammar tips, etc. I believe the only people in my class that failed on the first go-through were the non-native English speaking students.

 

Speaking of ITS 833 - Information Governance, this course includes a portfolio project where instead of writing it all at once you submit different milestones that wrap up into one longer paper over the 8 weeks. Milestone 2 is listed on the assignment description as the "Annotated Bibliography and Literature Review" but on the larger project description (with all the milestones) it's only listed as the Bibliography, with the Lit Review being Milestone 3. I emailed the Prof on Friday afternoon about whether I should submit the Bibliography and the Lit Review, but didn't hear back until Monday (understandable, it was also a holiday.)

I ended up submitting both just in case. The professor confirmed that Milestone 2 does ask for and expect both. Milestone 3 gives you an additional week to polish it up if needed, before you submit it as a standalone milestone.

 

Thank you for the information, Thanks for letting me know. I just wrapped up course 850 and signed up for DSRT 834 next term. I've also sent an email to my advisor.

Can you tell me how challenging DSRT 834 is?

Even with DSRT 850 Im somehow 2.4 credits short

 

You don't need to do DSRT 834 if you did DSRT 850 - it's an either or depending on what your dissertation is based on. Since you did DSRT 850 (Qualitative Research Methods), that says you're doing a Qualitative study. If it isn't the case, then yeah, you'll need to do DSRT 834 and they just got an extra class out of you, to which I'd recommend explaining that to your advisor. If you're still short 2.4 credits, I'd also ask your advisor or look under MyUC "View My Academic Progress" section to see which section isn't met.

 

My transfer credits are now corrected. Im in the Phd Leadership My advisor referred to the catalog, which stipulates that DSRT 934 and DSRT 850 are required courses.

 

Ah, I see now. I just looked through my email back when I had this discussion with my advisor. My academic calendar at the time I enrolled in the program only required 21 hours of research - thus, picking either DSRT 834 or DSRT 850. But looking at the current requirements on the Program & Requirements page of the program, it shows 24 hours of research. I guess along the way they added 3 additional hours of research - must take both DSRT 834 & DSRT 850.

 

More SafeAssign annoyance: because Milestone 2 is both the List Review and the Annotated Bibliography, Milestone 3 (just the Lit Review) shows as 100% plagiarized...from myself the week before. I emailed the Professor just in case. I assume this is expected behavior but I've done other portfolio projects in courses where nothing was repeated. Similarly, the final assignment is going to include the Intro, Lit Review and Annotated Bibliography among other things so it is also going to show up as plagiarized again.

 

I have finished DSRT 930 (Chapter 4) and will start the final course DSRT 931 (Chapter 5) next semester. I wanted to pass along my thoughts and notes from my chair along the way:

- Your chair must push you forward at the end of DSRT 930 - regardless of your status with your dissertation. If you are behind, you'll just have to play catch up in DSRT 931. That means both Chapter 4 and 5.

- There will be no more DSRT 932 going forward. If you need additional time after DSRT 931 to finish off your dissertation, you'll roll back into DSRT 931(a). Not sure how this differs other than naming syntax, but it was interesting and pointed out by my chair.

- It appears you no longer need IRB approval at the conclusion of Chapter 4. Previously, you needed IRB approval to begin research/send your survey out, and then at the end of Chapter 4 (DSRT 930), you submitted your dissertation to them for review/approval - making sure you know how to get information and it aligns with your RQ's. I logged into the newly revised portal again this morning and that requirement no longer exists. Now, it just shows "IRB close out form" which is in the DSRT 931 section - perhaps it's within that but I don't think so.

- RE: Chapter 4: Get your survey out ASAP after you have IRB approval. You literally cannot do much of anything in Chapter 4 without having all of your data back because the entire chapter hinges on you analyzing it and interpreting the findings. No data = no writing. This was the hardest chapter to get through for a variety of reasons. I second guessed myself a lot, found overlapping themes often - even when using NVivo 14, and felt like my roadmap of writing was just all over the place. "I just wrote that basically 3 paragraphs up, so why am I repeating it now?" was a common question I asked myself. Lean into your chair hardcore! I stopped caring if I felt like I was bothering him. I still called or emailed.

- Talk with your committee members! If only just to introduce yourself! I spent over an hour on the phone with one of my committee members and he gave me so much great feedback and thoughts. Basically, telling me what he would be looking for when we get into DSRT 931/defense, so there wouldn't be any unexpected surprises. Overall, it really boosted my confidence levels. I am now only slightly pessimistic this whole thing is going to crash and burn ha.

 

-Did you use pre-existing approval and design surveys, or did you create your own?
-Did UOC provide you with Nvivo? Atlas.ti is what I am now using
-Thanks for the information about the committee members; I intend to involve them in the process as soon as possible. From my previous experiences, each faculty is weird and very peculiar about how things should be presented.

 

You are taking 4 courses per Semester? You are brave.

 

They do two 8-week half semesters (like Spring A and Spring B), so it's more like I'm taking 2 courses at a time.

 

To follow Dustin lead. Here is my unrealistic plan to obtain a Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence while getting my Phd in Business leadership.

Year 2: 2024

Spring

1/8/24 – 5/1/24 DSRT 736 Dissertation Seminar, 3 hrs.

Spring A

1/8/24 – 3/1/24 DSRT 834 Advanced Statistical Applications, 3hrs.

Spring B

3/4/24 – 5/1/24 MSAI 511 Introduction to Artificial Intelligence


Summer

5/6/24 – 8/23/24 DSRT 839 Advanced Research Methods, 3 hrs.


Summer A

5/6/24 – 6/28/24 MSAI 630 Generative AI with Large Language Models

Summer B

7/1/24 – 8/23/24 MSAI 532 Neural Networks and Deep Learning


Fall

8/26/24 - 12/13/24 DSRT 930 Dissertation, 3 hrs.

Fall A

8/26/24 – 10/17/24 MSAI 532 Natural Language Processing

Fall B

10/21/24 – 12/13/24 MSAI 578 Data Visualization


Year 3: 2025

Spring

1/6/25 – 4/30/25 DSRT 931 Dissertation, 3 hrs.
PhD Completed (hopefully)

Spring A

1/6/25 -2/28/25 MSAI 544 Application of AI in Healthcare

Spring B

3/3/25 – 4/30/25 MSAI 631 Artificial Intelligence for Human-Computer Interaction

Summer A
5/5/25 – 6/27/25 MSAI 632 Application of AI in Risk Management
MSAI 599 Transforming Business with Artificial Intelligence
MSAI 699 Capstone (1 hour)*
Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence completed (Hopefully)

 

Originally, I planned to use a modified version of a pre-existing survey. However, because my dissertation is qualitative, the IRB rejected that and said I must create my own survey. So, that's what I did. You'll have to submit your survey to the IRB for approval before you can begin collecting data, so they'll get a look at the instrument and will approve/reject/modify. If you plan to go quantitative, then you definitely will need to use a pre-existing survey. One thing I have seen from others within my cohort is getting permission to use the survey from the creator has been challenging.

The school did not provide NVivo to me. However, you can get a free trial for 14 days with no payment info required. It only needs an email. After 14 days, the program locks. However, if you just create another throw away email and add that, you get another 14 days of free trial. I did that several times! The school may offer the program - I just didn't bother to look into it.

Having now talked with my committee members, they are all definitely different and their expectations have been quite different too. Absolutely recommend talking with them!