DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN COMPUTER SCIENCE

Philosophy of the Programme
The philosophy of the Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science is to develop and formulate
innovative technology and novel solutions to computing problems and disseminate
knowledge in the Computer Science discipline whilst at the same time influencing Computer
Science practitioners’ actions, understanding and policy direction using cutting edge research.
In pursuing this philosophy, the Department of Computer science expects that that doctoral candidates shall develop as
academic researchers by routinely developing research writing skills as author of scholarly
papers by themselves or co-author with their supervisors for publication in scientific journals
and conference proceedings. In addition, the doctoral candidates shall be expected to link
with industry and present findings from their research at various national and international
conferences. Recognizing the dynamic and emerging trends in computing, and the
importance of individual, organizational, communities and societal context complexities shall
guide our research agenda.

Rationale
In the recent past, there has been tremendous interest in the field of Computer Science,
especially with the demand for CS academicians, demand for high calibre CS practitioners
for industry, rapid changes in the CS area and the assimilation and institutionalization of CS
locally, regionally and globally, which is among several factors that has driven the Department of Computer science
research agenda.
The aim of reviewing the programme include alignment with the Department of Computer science’s research strategy, necessitated by the desire to align the School’s research strategy with the national and
regional academic and research needs, whilst at the same time meeting requisite Higher
Education Institutions regulations and standards. In addition, reviewing the programme
instils requisite Computer Science knowledge and skills necessary for the realization of
Vision 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals.
The review took into consideration the following factors among others:
(a) Best practices
(b) Experiences learnt over the last 4 years
(c) Alignment to the School’s research strategy
(d) Analysis of the current programme
(e) Analysis of stakeholder’s feedback
(f) Alignment the country and regional academic, research and development needs
(g) Benchmarking with other international doctoral programmes
(h) Alignment with the discipline’s global Joint Task Force on Computing Curricula
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the IEEE Computer Society
The Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science seeks to develop the science of computing
and advance research in its relevant areas. This program builds on the foundations of
Computer Science at Masters level.

The School of Computing & Informatics has established the following research groups that represent the broad areas of research:

• Distributed Systems
• Software Engineering
• Management Information Systems
• Artificial Intelligence

In addition to the areas stipulated above, other research areas shall be incorporated from time to time as recommended by the Institute of Computer Science Board and the Board of Postgraduate Studies and approved by Senate

A graduate of the Ph.D. programmes will, among others, be able to join research groups in Information Systems or Computer Science at universities or in industry, and teach information systems and/or computer science programmes at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

The objectives of the proposed programmes are therefore:

• to provide a progression path for graduates of our MSc. (Computer Science) and MSc. (Information Systems) programmes;
• to facilitate research at the Institute;
• to serve national and regional development needs with respect to staff development;
• to provide high quality training in computer science and information systems locally and internationally.

Contacts of support persons

dept-computing@uonbi.ac.ke