Dissertation management built from the ground up for doctoral programs. Not a repurposed CMS. Not a file-sharing app. A purpose-built system for the full committee lifecycle.
Marcus Chen, PhD Candidate, Biomedical Engineering
Advisor: Dr. Patricia Liu
Most doctoral programs run their committee workflows through platforms that were designed for something else entirely. File shares, email chains, outdated CMS tools, or systems that were repurposed and never quite fit.
The results are the same: committee members working from different document versions, faculty unsure of review status, program directors with no clear visibility into where each candidate stands, no insight or live data on student progress or bottlenecks, and doctoral candidates navigating a fragmented process at the most critical phase of their academic careers.
Corvus DM was built to replace all of that. One platform. Every role. The full lifecycle from committee formation through final defense.
Corvus DM is role-based from the ground up. Each committee position has its own access level, its own workflow, and its own view, built around what that role actually needs to do.
Each committee member is notified automatically when new drafts are submitted for review, submissions are made, or steps obtained. All communications are internal to the system, and can be external if desired.
The primary academic supervisor. Full access to all dissertation drafts, committee correspondence, review history, and candidate progress. Can lock courses, approve milestones, and manage the full committee roster.
Reviews research design and methodology sections. Access to assigned chapters, scoring rubrics, and committee discussion. Notified automatically when new drafts are submitted for review.
Domain-specific reviewer for subject matter accuracy. Chapter-level access with annotation and scoring capabilities. Each review round is logged separately.
Advisory role with limited access. Views the dissertation and forum but does not score or approve. Added and removed without disrupting primary review workflow.
Corvus DM records every stage of the doctoral journey. The workflow is linear and visible: no candidate falls through the cracks because a milestone was missed or a review was never scheduled.
Candidates submit drafts through Corvus DM. Every version is stored, timestamped, and permanently accessible, not overwritten. Committee members can compare the current draft against any prior submission.
When a committee member requests revisions and the candidate submits a new draft, Corvus DM links them automatically. The review history builds a complete audit trail of the dissertation's evolution. Specific revision requests can become to-do tasks for the student.
Every faculty member with committee assignments sees their full workload in one dashboard: pending reviews, upcoming defenses, candidates awaiting response, and recent submissions requiring attention.
Program directors get an institution-wide view: active candidates by stage, completion rate trends, committee workload distribution, and time-in-stage analysis across the doctoral cohort.
Every candidate has eight document spaces: a personal folder, a shared committee folder, a data folder, and additional structured spaces organized for research files and analysis outputs.
Access is automatic based on committee role, with no manual permissions management required. Committee members see exactly what their role permits. Nothing more.
Corvus DM includes group-based forums for doctoral programs: spaces for announcements, peer discussion, research sharing, events, and calendar coordination. Separate from committee work, but integrated in the same platform.
Program directors post to all candidates simultaneously. Candidates connect with cohort peers. The platform becomes the program's institutional memory.
Program directors and deans get a dedicated administrative view: active candidates by stage, committee formation status, time-to-completion trends, faculty participation timeliness, and overdue milestones across the full program.
No more chasing faculty for status updates. No more separate spreadsheets. The data is live from the moment a candidate is admitted to the moment they defend.
Corvus DM is deployed on AWS ECS Fargate with S3 for file storage and native AWS Cognito for authentication, and if desired, integration with institutional authentication is also possible. Access controls enforce what each role can and cannot see, with a complete audit trail of actions on candidate records.
Multi-tenant ready for institutions operating multiple doctoral programs. Each program is isolated. Data does not cross program boundaries.
Corvus DM records defined program milestones automatically from admission through final defense. Candidacy exams, proposal approvals, IRB clearances, chapter completions, committee reviews, and the defense itself are all logged with timestamps, approving faculty, and notes.
Program directors define which milestones apply to each program. Candidates see a visual timeline of their own journey. Faculty see milestone status across their full committee roster. Every transition is recorded.
When a milestone is approaching and has not been initiated, the system flags it proactively before the deadline.
Corvus DM runs two parallel notification channels: one for committee communication and one for retention. Committee notifications keep the workflow moving when chapters are submitted, deadlines approach, defenses are confirmed, or revisions are requested.
Retention notifications surface inactivity before it becomes dropout: a candidate with no activity, a committee with no meeting history, or a milestone past due with no progress. Program directors are alerted early so intervention is still possible.
Every notification type is configurable at the program level, including frequency, channel, threshold, and recipient.
Corvus DM replaces ad-hoc faculty feedback with structured, program-defined rubrics. Each chapter type, proposal, and defense can have its own scoring framework defined by the program and applied consistently across every candidate and committee.
Committee members score independently. Scores are visible to the chair after all reviewers submit, reducing anchoring bias. The system aggregates scores automatically and generates a structured feedback summary delivered with the committee decision.
Rubrics are fully customizable at the program level, and scoring history is preserved across all review rounds.
| Criterion | Weight | Score | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Research Design Clarity | 25% | 4 / 5 | 20 / 25 |
| Methodology Appropriateness | 30% | 3 / 5 | 18 / 30 |
| Literature Integration | 20% | 5 / 5 | 20 / 20 |
| Data Analysis Plan | 15% | 4 / 5 | 12 / 15 |
| Writing Quality | 10% | 4 / 5 | 8 / 10 |
Doctoral programs operate under institutional requirements and accreditation obligations that are easy to lose track of across multi-year candidate journeys. Corvus DM makes compliance automatic.
Program administrators define the rules for committee composition, review timelines, IRB prerequisites, candidacy requirements, and milestone sequencing. The system enforces them as advancement gates.
Compliance reports are available any time for accreditation reviews, audits, and program self-assessment with timestamped logs of every action, role assignment, and approval outcome.
No two doctoral programs run the same way. Corvus DM is designed to reflect your program's structure instead of forcing your program into a fixed template.
Program administrators configure milestone definitions and sequences, role requirements, rubric frameworks, notification thresholds, compliance gates, and terminology. Changes apply immediately while historical records and audit logs remain preserved.
Define milestone sequence, prerequisites, deadlines, and approval rules for each stage.
Build scoring rubrics from scratch or adapt standard frameworks by chapter type and review event.
Set minimum role requirements, access levels, and quorum expectations for each program.
Define when alerts fire, who receives them, and how committee and retention channels differ.
Configure enforced advancement gates and prerequisite chains that lock restricted actions.
Manage faculty accounts, program director access, and administrator privileges across the environment.
Customize labels and language throughout the platform so it reflects your program's identity.
Export compliance reports, activity logs, committee records, and completion analytics on demand.
Run multiple doctoral programs in isolated, separately configured environments within one deployment.
Most doctoral programs lose candidates not to academic failure, but to administrative silence. A committee that stops responding. A milestone that slips. A candidate who goes quiet for months and nobody notices until re-enrollment risk becomes immediate.
Corvus DM was built to end that silence.
The retention engine monitors activity across every candidate, committee, and milestone. It watches for patterns that precede dropout and alerts the people who can act before the situation becomes irreversible.
No platform activity for 30+ days triggers a warning. At 45+ days another triggers an escalated alert to program leadership. Thresholds are configurable per program. Trigger timelines are fully customizable. Students receive gentle reminders to remain active, also fully configurable.
If a submitted chapter receives no response within the review window, the chair is notified automatically. A second alert fires at 150% of deadline. A third can notify the Department Head or Dean.
Milestones past expected windows with no progress logged are flagged and surfaced in the program director view.
Candidates nearing funded-period limits or showing multi-semester stagnation receive proactive advisor check-in prompts.
Retention is not a report you read after someone leaves. It is a signal you act on while they are still here.
Doctoral programs are among the most demanding journeys in higher education. A candidate can spend three to seven years working toward a single milestone, and the path is rarely straightforward.
Committees change. Advisors go on sabbatical. Drafts multiply. Reviews pile up. And somewhere in the administrative noise, the actual work of becoming a scholar can get lost.
Corvus DM was built to clear the noise.
Not to replace the relationship between a candidate and their committee, but to give that relationship the infrastructure it deserves.
Every candidate deserves a process worthy of their work.
We will walk you through the full platform: the faculty view, the program director Insight view, and what deployment looks like at your institution.
