Department of Biomedical Engineering National Taiwan University

Department Regulation

Institute of Biomedical Engineering
Requirements, Regulations, and Procedures for Graduate Students

The following regulations lay out course, credit, and graduation requirements as well as various procedures for masters and doctoral students. These English translations are current as of March 26, 2013, and may not reflect revisions after that date. In the event of a discrepancy, the Chinese version shall be considered authoritative. Be sure to check with your advisor or a department administrator should you need clarification or further information regarding anything below.


Doctoral Degree Student Requirements

  • The English translation is current as of the Chinese version passed October 21, 2008.
Article One: Course and Credit Requirements
  1. The Number of Credits Required to Graduate

    Eighteen credits are required to graduate (not including Seminar on Advanced Biomedical Engineering, Seminar, the Dissertation [Thesis (Ph.D.)], and foreign language courses). Of these, at least nine credits must be from courses in this Institute.

  2. Required Courses

    Principles of Biomedical Engineering
    Dissertation (Thesis [Ph.D]) (a required course during the final semester)
    Seminar (required each semester, but exemptions may be granted during the last semester)
    Seminar on Advanced Biomedical Engineering (required each semester, but only a maximum of four credits from this course may be counted toward graduation)

  3. Other Required Courses

    In addition to the required courses listed in the previous section, doctoral students must complete the following courses before applying for permission to take the Dissertation Examination.

    1. Two core courses in the Institute
      The core courses are to be stipulated elsewhere. Please see Appendix One.
    2. Two Life Sciences courses
      (1) Human Physiology and Anatomy in Biomedical Engineering (I) and (II) (students with six or more undergraduate credits in either Physiology or Anatomy may petition for an exemption)
      (2) A relevant Life Sciences course at the graduate level of at least three credits other than those listed in
    3. Two Mathematics courses
      (1) Mathematics for Biomedical Engineering (1) and (2) (students with six or more credits of undergraduate-level Engineering Mathematics may petition for an exemption)
      (2) A relevant Mathematics course at the graduate level of at least three credits other than those listed in (1)
  4. Exemption from Credit Requirements

    Exemptions from credit requirements may be granted when the student has petitioned within the time frame stipulated by university regulations and received the approval of the Institute’s Curriculum Committee.

  5. Exemptions from Required Courses

    Exemptions from required courses may be granted when the student has petitioned within one month of matriculation and received the approval of the Institute’s Curriculum Committee.

Article Two: The Doctoral Degree Qualifying Examination

All doctoral students must participate in the Doctoral Degree Qualifying Examination. The examination is a written test. Students wishing to take the examination must apply within the stipulated period of time. Please refer to Appendix Two for details about the Qualifying Examination.

Article Three: The Doctoral Degree Examination
  1. Doctoral students must pass the Doctoral Degree Qualifying Examination and Publication and Coursework Review before arranging to take the Degree Examination. Please refer to Appendix Two for details about the Doctoral Degree Qualifying Examination.
  2. Publications and Coursework Review: Before organizing a Dissertation Examination Committee and taking the Dissertation Examination, students must first complete a Publications and Coursework Review application form, which must also include a list of courses taken and a list of publications and related information and be signed by the student’s advisor, and submit these to the Academic Affairs Committee for Dissertation Examination Qualification Review by the end of either March, June, September or December.
Article Four: The Dissertation Examination
  1. Students must first pass the Publications and Coursework Review stipulated in the previous section before applying to take the Doctoral Dissertation Examination.
  2. Excluding the Institute Chairperson and the student’s advisor, at least one of the Examination Committee members must be an expert in the student’s area of study, and another must be an expert in a field other than the student’s area of study.
  3. For the first part of the Dissertation Examination, students must give a public presentation. An announcement of this presentation inviting anyone to attend and raise questions and offer comments is to be posted on campus a week ahead of time. The second part is a closed examination attended only by Examination Committee Members.
Article Five: Other matters not stipulated in these Regulations should be handled in accordance with regulations of the Institute, university, or Ministry of Education.

Article Six: These Regulations and revisions thereto take effect upon passage by the Institute Affairs Committee.

Appendix One: Core Courses of the Institute

  • The English translation is current as of the Chinese version passed September 1, 2009.
  • Tissue Engineering
  • Medical Microsensor
  • Biomedical Polymers
  • Biomedical Electronics
  • Drug Delivery Systems
  • Nanobioscience
  • Cell and Molecular Biology
  • Physics for Medicine and Biology
  • Research in Prosthetics and Orthodontics
  • Data Mining
  • Biomechanics of the Human Neromusculoskeletal System
  • Fundamentals of Biomedical Image Processing
  • Experimental Biomedical Engineering
  • Human Brain Mapping Methods
  • Biological Effect of Light and the Application
  • Optical Microscopy

Appendix Two: Doctoral Student Graduation Requirements

  • The English translation is current as of the Chinese version passed September 1, 2009.
  1. The Doctoral Degree Qualifying Examination
    1. Students may not take the Doctoral Qualifying Examination more than twice. Students need not retake those subjects on a second examination that they have passed on the first examination.
    2. Students must pass the Doctoral Qualifying Examination within three years of matriculation (leaves of absence not included). Students who have not passed the Doctoral Qualifying Examination upon the second attempt may petition the Academic Affairs Committee for further consideration.
    3. The Qualifying Examination subjects are as follows:
      (1) Two Core Course subjects of the Institute
      (2) Anatomy
      (3) Engineering Mathematics (covering differential equations and linear algebra)
    4. At least 70 points are required to pass the Qualifying Examination unless otherwise decided by the professor or instructor who provides the test questions.
    5. The period to apply to take the Examination is from May 1 through May 31 each year.
    6. The Doctoral Qualifying Examination is held each year during the two weeks following the end of the second semester.
  2. Publication Review Requirements

    The Institute must be the first affiliation credited in the publication, and the Advisor, a full-time faculty member of the Institute, must be one of the authors. The calculation of the publication score is to be based on the most recent journal ranking in its subject category as of the time the student applies for review. If the journal rank in the year of the publication is higher than the most recent journal rank score, and the student is able to submit verification of this, the Academic Affairs Committee may decide whether to use the better score.

    1. Doctoral students in the Institute must have accumulated at least five Publication Points before graduation. Of these, three points must be from articles of which the student is the first author. (When there are multiple first authors, the student must be listed first to count as first author.) The calculation of Publication Points is as follows:
      (1). Papers in journals with an impact factor (I.F.) rank in the top quartile count for four points.
      (2). Papers in journals with an impact factor (I.F.) rank in the second quartile count for three points.
      (3). Papers in journals with an impact factor (I.F.) rank in the third quartile count for two points.
      (4). Other SCI papers count for one point.
      (5). Papers in the Institute’s journal Biomedical Engineering: Applications, Basis, and Communications count for one point, and at most one paper therein may be counted.
    2. Students must present at least one paper as first author as a student of the Institute, either orally or as part of a poster session, at an international conference.
  3. These regulations and revisions thereto are drafted and approved by the Academic Affairs Committee and take effect after passage by the Institute Affairs Committee.

National Taiwan University Graduate Program in Biomedical Engineering Regulations for Exemptions to Required Courses and Credits for Masters and Doctoral Students

  • The English translation is current as of the Chinese version passed October 21, 2008.
  1. Exemptions from Credit Requirements
    (1) A new Masters or Doctoral student in the Institute who has already taken relevant courses of the Institute stipulated in the Regulations may petition to receive an exemption to the minimum credit requirement after matriculation in accordance with university regulations and the timeframe stipulated therein. If this coursework was completed outside of the Institute, please include information regarding the course content for reference. With the approval of the Curriculum Committee, the student may be exempted from taking required courses.
    (2) Doctoral students may only petition to be exempted from Principles of Biomedical Engineering. Masters students may petition to be exempted from Principles of Biomedical Engineering and one elective course, for a maximum of two exemptions. Exemptions to elective courses are limited to courses offered by the Institute during the academic year of the petition.
    (3) Masters students may not petition for exemptions of required courses based on the completion of undergraduate courses the credits of which were required for undergraduate graduation.
    (4) The Curriculum Committee reviews and issues decisions regarding all petitions for exemptions to required courses in accordance with regulations.
  2. These Regulations and revisions thereto are drafted by the Curriculum Committee, and take effect after passage by the Institute Affairs Committee.

Masters Student Requirements

  • The English translation is current as of the Chinese version passed March 30, 2010.
Article One: Course Credit Requirements
  1. Credits Required for Graduation:

    Twenty-four credits of courses related to Biomedical Engineering (not including Seminar on Biomedical Engineering, Seminar, the Thesis [M.S.], and foreign language courses) are required to graduate. Of these, at least fifteen must be from courses in the Institute. Other courses to be counted toward graduation must be approved by the Advisor.

  2. Required Courses:

    Principles of Biomedical Engineering
    Seminar on Biomedical Engineering (required each semester, but only a maximum of four credits may count toward graduation)
    Seminar (required each semester)
    Masters Thesis (required the last semester)
    Students without a background in medical sciences must take Human Anatomy and Physiology

  3. Exemption from Credit Requirements:

    Exemptions from credit requirements may be granted when the student has petitioned within the timeframe stipulated by university regulations and received the approval of this department’s Curriculum Committee.

Article Two: The Thesis Examination

Students must undergo a review of their Masters Student Thesis Proposal before taking the Masters Thesis Examination. The requirements for this are stipulated in Appendix One or according to other university regulations.

Article Three Other matters not stipulated in these Regulations should be dealt with according to regulations of the Institute, university, or Ministry of Education.

Article Five: These Regulations and revisions thereto take effect upon passage by the Institute Affairs Committee.

Appendix One: Procedures for Initial Review of Masters Thesis Proposal

  1. Time of Review

    The committee will comprise three to five members with the advisor as Chair. Suggestions for revision must be documented. Suggested revisions must be reviewed during the Oral Thesis Examination.

  2. Composition of the Thesis Examination Committee

    The committee will comprise three to five members with the advisor as Chair. Suggestions for revision must be documented. Suggested revisions must be reviewed during the Oral Thesis Examination.

  3. The Thesis Proposal must include:
    1. Thesis title
    2. The development, objectives, and significance of the proposed research
    3. A bibliography
    4. A thesis outline
    5. A discussion of initial findings
    6. Potential problems and solutions
  4. If the Thesis Proposal does not pass review, the student may again petition for review. If the Proposal does not pass review, the student may not apply to take the Thesis Examination that semester.