Validation of Courses Older Than Five Years

By University policy, course work completed at UNF or elsewhere more than five years prior to the completion of a graduate degree program may not be applied toward the graduate-level coursework requirements of that program unless validated.

The School of Computing Graduate Director is the program administrator responsible for the validation of graduate courses for the MS degree program in Computer and Information Sciences. Some leeway is granted for coursework having content that does not change significantly over time, but the 5-year clause is enforced for courses that are technology dependent.

As per University policy, course work which has exceeded the five-year limit may be validated by the Graduate Director according to the following procedures:

1. Specific application for validation of the course work should be made to the Graduate Director. The petition should include information pertinent to the course work.
2. The Graduate Director will review the request and either permit or deny validation. The decision may be reached through testing or any other procedures the Graduate Director determines appropriate.

The Graduate Director will make the validation decision based on one or more of:

1. Information supplied by the student and verified by the Graduate Director,
2. An oral validation visit with a current expert chosen by the Graduate Director,
3. A written validation exam,
4. Review of the case with the School of Computing Graduate Committee.

It is always permissible for the student to simply take another course determined to be acceptable by the Graduate Director as a replacement on the student's graduate program of study for the course that has been brought into question.

The validation procedure is normally not invoked if the student has completed the coursework portion of the program of study within the validation parameters and is in continuing significant progress on thesis or graduate project.