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Information Science

Major: Information Science
Degree Awarded: Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Calendar Type: Quarter
Total Credit Hours: 45.0
Co-op Option: None
Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) code: 11.0401
Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code: 11-3021

About the Program

The College of Computing & Informatics' on-campus PhD in Information Science program prepares students to become creative, interdisciplinary researchers with foundations in information science, data science, and human-centered computing.

Purpose and Scope

The program is designed to support all students in attaining a high level of scholarly achievement in seminars as well as supervised and independent study. The doctoral program has two major goals: acquisition of in-depth knowledge in a specialized research area, and interdisciplinary breadth to support creative scholarship. The degree prepares students for leadership and research careers in academia, industry, administration, and policy setting.

Opportunities

Most graduates move into academic or research and development (R&D) careers.

Additional Information

A master’s degree is not a prerequisite for the PhD. For more information about this program, please visit the College of Computing & Informatics PhD in Information Science webpage.

Degree Requirements

Required General Course
INFO 800	Science of Science	3.0
Required Research Methods Courses
INFO 813	Quantitative Research Methods	3.0
INFO 816	Qualitative Research Methods	3.0
Required Foundation Courses		6.0
Complete 2 of the following:
INFO 821	Foundations in Information Science
INFO 823	Foundations in Human-Centered Computing
INFO 825	Foundations in Data Science
Specialization Courses ^*		9.0
Information Science
INFO 517	Principles of Cybersecurity
INFO 624	Information Retrieval Systems
INFO 648	Healthcare Informatics
INFO 654	Enterprise Content Management
INFO 662	Metadata and Resource Description
INFO 676	Applied Ontology
INFO 725	Information Policy and Ethics
INFO 732	Healthcare Informatics: Planning & Evaluation
INFO 750	Archival Access Systems
INFO 756	Digital Preservation
INFO 812	Research Statistics I
Human-Centered Computing
CS 530	Developing User Interfaces
CS 630	Cognitive Systems
INFO 608	Human-Computer Interaction
INFO 616	Social and Collaborative Computing
INFO 690	Understanding Users: User Experience Research Methods
INFO 691	Prototyping the User Experience
Data Science
CS 521	Data Structures and Algorithms I
CS 613	Machine Learning
CS 615	Deep Learning
CS 660	Data Analysis at Scale
INFO 607	Applied Database Technologies
INFO 612	Knowledge Base Systems
INFO 623	Social Network Analytics
INFO 629	Applied Artificial Intelligence
INFO 633	Information Visualization
INFO 634	Data Mining
Seminars
INFO 871	PhD Process and Practice	1.0
INFO 873	Special Topics Seminar	1.0
INFO 873	Special Topics Seminar	1.0
Research		18.0-63.0
INFO I999	Independent Study in INFO
INFO 998	Ph.D. Dissertation
Total Credits		45.0-90.0

Students should select three specialization courses from any of those listed; other courses from other academic units can also be taken with approval from the PhD program director.

Sample Plan of Study

First Year
Fall	Credits	Winter	Credits	Spring	Credits
INFO 813	3.0	INFO 800	3.0	INFO 816	3.0
INFO 871	1.0	INFO 998^*	3.0	INFO 998^*	3.0
INFO 998^*	2.0	Foundation Course	3.0	Specialization Course	3.0
Foundation Course	3.0
	9		9		9
Second Year
Fall	Credits	Winter	Credits
INFO 873	1.0	INFO 873	1.0
INFO 998^*	5.0	INFO 998^*	5.0
Specialization Course	3.0	Specialization Course	3.0
	9		9
Total Credits 45

Number of credits taken each quarter is variable depending on stage of the project and other credit load. May be taken for additional credits if necessary.

Facilities

3675 Market Street

In March 2019, the College of Computing & Informatics relocated to 3675 Market. For the first time in the College's history, all CCI faculty, students and professional staff are housed under one roof. Occupying two floors in the brand new uCity Square building, CCI's new home offers state-of-the-art technology in our classrooms, labs, meeting areas and collaboration spaces. 3675 Market offers Class A laboratory, office, coworking, and convening spaces. In fall 2019, the College opened a third floor which will include additional offices, classrooms, innovative research labs, and a maker space. Located at the intersection of Market Street and 37th Street, 3675 Market will act as a physical nexus, bridging academic campuses and medical centers to the east and south, the commercial corridors along Market Street and Chestnut Street, and the residential communities to the north and west.

The uCity Square building offers:

Speculative lab/office space
World-class facilities operated by CIC
Café/restaurant on-site
Quorum, a two-story, 15K SF convening space and conference center
Adjacent to future public square
Access to Science Center’s nationally renowned business acceleration and technology commercialization programs

Drexel University Libraries

Drexel University Libraries is a learning enterprise, advancing the University’s academic mission through serving as educators, supporting education and research, collaborating with researchers, and fostering intentional learning outside of the classroom. Drexel University Libraries engages with Drexel communities through three physical locations, including W. W. Hagerty Library, Queen Lane Library, and the Library Learning Terrace, as well as a vibrant online presence which sees, on average, over 8,000 visits per day. In the W.W. Hagerty Library location, College of Computing & Informatics students have access to private study rooms and nearly half a million books, periodicals, DVDs, videos and University Archives. All fields of inquiry are covered, including: library and information science, computer science, software engineering, health informatics, information systems, and computing technology. Resources are available online at library.drexel.edu or in-person at W. W. Hagerty Library.

The Libraries also make available laptop and desktop PC and Mac computers, printers and scanners, spaces for quiet work or group projects and designated 24/7 spaces. Librarians and library staff—including a liaison librarian for computing and informatics—are available for individual research consultations and to answer questions about materials or services.

CCI Commons

Located on the 10th floor of 3675 Market Street, the CCI Commons is an open lab and collaborative work environment for students. It features desktop computers, a wireless/laptop area, free black and white printing, and more collaborative space for its students. Students have access to 3675 Market's fully equipped conference room with 42” displays and videoconferencing capabilities. The CCI Commons provides technical support to students, faculty, and professional staff. In addition, the staff provides audio-visual support for all presentation classrooms within 3675 Market. Use of the CCI Commons is reserved for all students taking CCI courses.

The computers for general use are Microsoft Windows and Macintosh OSX machines with appropriate applications which include the Microsoft Office suite, various database management systems, modeling tools, and statistical analysis software. Library related resources may be accessed at the CCI Commons and through the W.W. Hagerty Library. The College is a member of the Rational SEED Program which provides cutting-edge software development and project management software for usage in the CCI Commons and CCI classrooms. The College is also a member of the Microsoft Academic Alliance known also as “DreamSpark” that allows students free access to a wide array of Microsoft software titles and operating systems.

The CCI Commons, student labs, and classrooms have access to networked databases, print and file resources within the College, and the Internet via the University’s network. Email accounts, Internet and BannerWeb access are available through the Office of Information Resources and Technology.

CCI Learning Center

The CCI Learning Center (CLC), located in 3675 Market Street's CCI Commons student computer lab, provides consulting and other learning resources for students taking computer science classes. The CLC is staffed by graduate and undergraduate computer science students from the College of Computing & Informatics.

The CLC and CCI Commons serve as a central hub for small group work, student meetings, and TA assistance.

Research Laboratories

The College houses multiple research labs, led by CCI faculty, in 3675 Market Street including: the Drexel Health and Risk Communication Lab, Interactive Systems for Healthcare, Socio-Technical Studies Group, Intelligent Information & Knowledge Computing Research Lab, Evidence-based Decision Making Lab, Applied Symbolic Computation Laboratory (ASYM), High Performance Computing Laboratory (SPIRAL), Drexel Research on Play (RePlay) Laboratory, Software Engineering Research Group (SERG), Social Computing Research Group, Vision and Cognition Laboratory (VisCog) and the Vision and Graphics Laboratory. For more information on these laboratories, please visit the College’s research web page.

Information Science Faculty

Denise E. Agosto, PhD (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey). Professor. Youth information behaviors, public libraries, multicultural issues in youth library services, and qualitative research methods.

Yuan An, PhD (University of Toronto, Canada) Director of International Programs. Associate Professor. Conceptual modeling, schema and ontology mapping, information integration, knowledge representation, requirements engineering, healthcare information systems, semantic web.

Ellen Bass, PhD (Georgia Institute of Technology) Joint Appointment with the College of Nursing and Health Professions. Professor. Characterizing human judgement and decision making, modeling human judgement when supported by information automation, computational models of human-human and human-automation coordination.

Andrew Calhoun, MS (American Military University). Social engineering, ethical hacking, information assurance, business continuity & disaster recovery planning, Computer forensics, and Computer security

Christopher Carroll, MS (Drexel University) BSCST Program Director. Associate Teaching Professor. Information technology within healthcare companies, computer networking and design, IT infrastructure, server technology, information security, virtualization and cloud computing.

Chaomei Chen, PhD (University of Liverpool). Professor. Information visualization, visual analytics, knowledge domain visualization, network analysis and modeling, scientific discovery, science mapping, scientometrics, citation analysis, human-computer interaction.

Michael Chu, MSE (University of Pennsylvania). Associate Teaching Professor. System, server, computer networking and design; IT infrastructure; information technology management and security; Web system programming; database and mobile application development.

Andrea Forte, PhD (Georgia Institute of Technology) PhD Program Director, and MS in Information Program Director. Associate Professor. Social computing, human-computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, computer-supported collaborative learning, information literacy.

Susan Gasson, PhD (University of Warwick). Associate Professor. The co-design of business and IT-systems, distributed cognition & knowledge management in boundary-spanning groups, human-centered design, social informatics, online learning communities, grounded theory.

Tim Gorichanaz, PhD (Drexel University). Assistant Teaching Professor. Human information behavior, human-centered computing, neo-documentation studies, and information ethics.

Jane Greenberg, PhD (University of Pittsburgh) Alice B. Kroeger Professor. Metadata, ontological engineering, data science, knowledge organization, information retrieval

Peter Grillo, PhD (Temple University) Associate Department Head for Undergraduate Affairs, Information Science. Teaching Professor. Software economics, Project management, Strategic applications of technology within organizations.

Thomas Heverin, PhD (Drexel University). Associate Teaching Professor. Computer security, ethical hacking, computer forensics, network forensics, cloud security and cybersecurity.

Gregory W. Hislop, PhD (Drexel University). Professor. Information technology for teaching and learning, online education, structure and organization of the information disciplines, computing education research, software evaluation and characterization.

Xiaohua Tony Hu, PhD (University of Regina, Canada). Professor. Data mining, text mining, Web searching and mining, information retrieval, bioinformatics and healthcare informatics.

Jina Huh-Yoo, PhD (University of Michigan at Ann Arbor). Assistant Professor. Human-computer interaction, humancentered design, Health informatics, mobile and wireless health, social computing.

Weimao Ke, PhD (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). Associate Professor. Information retrieval (IR), distributed systems, intelligent filtering/recommendation, information visualization, network science, complex systems, machine learning, text/data mining, multi-agent systems, the notion of information.

Mat Kelly, PhD (Old Dominion University). Assistant Professor. Information retrieval, Web archives, metadata, digital humanities, archival privacy

Ehasn B. Khosroshahi, PhD (Drexel University). Assistant Teaching Professor. Computational cognitive modeling, artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analysis.

Xia Lin, PhD (University of Maryland at College Park) Department Head, Information Science. Professor. Digital libraries, information visualization, visual interface design, knowledge mapping, human-computer interaction, information retrieval, information architecture, informetrices, information-seeking behaviors in digital environments.

Chris MacLellan, PhD (Carnegie Mellon University). Assistant Professor. Artificial intelligence, data science, machine learning, human-computer interaction, cognitive modeling,

Danuta A. Nitecki, PhD (University of Maryland at College Park) Dean of Libraries. Professor. Library metrics and use in management, library as place, and academic library service models.

Jung-ran Park, PhD (University of Hawaii at Manoa). Associate Professor. Knowledge organization and representation, metadata, computer-mediated communication, cross-cultural communication, multilingual information access.

Alex Poole, PhD (University of North Carolina). Assistant Professor. Digital curation, archives and records management, digital humanities, and diversity, inclusivity, and equity.

Michelle L. Rogers, PhD (University of Wisconsin-Madison). Associate Professor. Human-computer interaction, healthcare informatics, human factors engineering, socio-technical systems, health services research, patient safety.

Aleksandra Sarcevic, PhD (Rutgers University). Associate Professor. Computer-supported cooperative work, human-computer interaction, and healthcare informatics.

Bhupesh Shetty, PhD (University of Iowa). Assistant Teaching Professor. Process pattern mining, data mining, operations management, sports analytics, information systems, and machine learning applications.

Il-Yeol Song, PhD (Louisiana State University). Professor. Conceptual modeling, ontology and patterns, data warehouse and OLAP, object-oriented analysis and design with UML, medical and bioinformatics data modeling & integration,.

Bo Song, PhD (Drexel University). Assistant Teaching Professor. Database management, Data mining, bioinformatics, big data analytics, and knowledge discovery.

Milad Toutounchian, PhD (Simon Fraser University). Assistant Teaching Professor. Data Science, Applied Machine Learning and Deep Learning.

Lei Wang, PhD (Drexel University). Assistant Teaching Professor. Biomedical data science, machine learning, deep learning, neuroimaging processing & analytics, natural language processing, simulation modeling.

Rosina Weber, PhD (Federal University of Santa Catarina). Associate Professor. Case-based reasoning, explainable artificial intelligence, machine learning, textual analytics, natural language understanding, language models, recommender systems, technological aspects of knowledge management, project management, and requirements engineering.

Jake Williams, PhD (University of Vermont). Assistant Professor. Data science, scientific programming, computational social science, computational linguistics and natural language processing, mathematics, machine learning, algorithms, and scalability.

Erija Yan, PhD (Indiana University Bloomington). Associate Professor. Network Science, information analysis and retrieval, scholarly communication methods and applications.

Christopher C. Yang, PhD (University of Arizona, Tucson). Professor. Web search and mining, security informatics, knowledge management, social media analytics, cross-lingual information retrieval, text summarization, multimedia retrieval, information visualization, information sharing and privacy, artificial intelligence, digital library, and electronic commerce.

Emeritus Faculty

Michael E. Atwood, PhD (University of Colorado). Professor Emeritus. Human-computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, organizational memory.

Thomas A. Childers, PhD (Rutgers University). Professor Emeritus. Measurement, evaluation, and planning of information and library services, the effectiveness of information organizations.

David E. Fenske, PhD (University of Wisconsin-Madison). Dean Emeritus and Professor. Digital libraries, informatics, knowledge management and information technologies.

Linda Marion, PhD (Drexel University). Teaching Professor Emerita. Formal and informal communication, bibliometric studies of scholarly communication, diffusion of information, information use in the social sciences, academic and public libraries, information science education.

Katherine W. McCain, PhD (Drexel University). Professor Emeritus. Scholarly communication, information production and use in the research process, development and structure of scientific specialties, diffusion of innovation, bibliometrics, evaluation of information retrieval systems.

Carol Hansen Montgomery, PhD (Drexel University) Dean of Libraries Emeritus. Research Professor. Selection and use of electronic collections, evaluation of library and information systems, digital libraries, economics of libraries and digital collections.

Delia Neuman, PhD (The Ohio State University). Professor Emerita. Learning in information-rich environments, instructional systems design, the use of media for learning, and school library media.

Gerry Stahl, PhD (University of Colorado). Professor Emeritus. Human-computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, computer-supported collaborative learning, theory of collaboration.

Howard D. White, PhD (University of California at Berkeley). Professor Emeritus. Literature information systems, bibliometrics, research methods, collection development, online searching.

Susan Wiedenbeck, PhD (University of Pittsburgh). Professor Emeritus. Human-computer interaction, end-user programming/end-user development, empirical studies of programmers, interface design and evaluation.

Valerie Ann Yonker, PhD (Drexel University). Associate Teaching Professor Emerita. Human service information systems, systems analysis and design, measurement in software evaluation, knowledge engineering.