IMPORTANT NOTICE

To all students planning to take the DAIS qual in Fall 2003:

1. DAIS students should sign up now for the software qual. In other  words, the qual for DAIS students will still be oral in Fall 2003.

2. DAIS students will be questioned on the material from the DAIS qual reading list. In other words, you ***must*** prepare for the qual by carefully studying all the articles on the reading list for the proposed DAIS qual---as we hope you have already been doing for months now. If you only prepare by studying the papers that are handed to you as part of the software qual, you will fail.

3. The DAIS faculty will work to ensure that DAIS students are given software qual papers that appear on the DAIS reading list. In other words,  we do not want you to receive papers from outside the list. To make this happen, you must make sure that we know which qual-takers are DAIS  students! Be sure to let your advisor know that you have signed up for the software qual. Remember, though, that your questions will come not only from the  papers assigned to you via the software qual, but also from the other papers on the reading list.

For DAIS students taking the qual after Fall 2003: we will inform you of any new developments (e.g., any changes in qual format) as soon as we learn of them. As promised in the original DAIS qual proposal, we will publish a slightly revised reading list  during the first week of each semester. That reading list will be used for the following semester's qual. Independent of any possible format changes, qual  preparation will still consist of carefully studying those thirty papers on the reading list.

We apologize that we are unable to bring you the qual as originally planned. But keep on studying those same 30 papers!

DAIS - Database and Information Systems Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 201 N. Goodwin Ave., Urbana, IL 61801, USA.  Fax: 217-265-6494, Phone: 217-244-6241.