Welcome to the Ph.D. News Webpage. This Webpage site contains items of interest to Ph.D. students at University of Texas at Austin.

Don't forget:
Grete Pasch defends her Dissertation
Monday, April 26, 3-5 PM, SZB 556

Weekly Current Events of General Interest to Ph.D.s

Monday, April 19 to Friday, April 23. Varions venues. Earth Week Celebration. Join the Campus Environmental Center as we celebrate Earth Day with an entire WEEK of festivities. Bleed Orange, Think Green, and become environmentally aware! For more information, visit the event Website. See the schedule of events below.

Monday, April 19, 1:30-3 PM, SZB 468, Dr. Lynn Westbrook, Here There be Dragons: Seeking a Unified Field Theory of Interactions Between Individuals and Information. A special colloquial presentation sponsored by the School of Information. Dr. Westbrook. is an Associate Professor, School of Library and Information Studies, Texas Women's University. She will examine the research and conceptual frameworks used in the post-web world to explain elements of individual-information interactions and will discuss why the identifying, organizing, and synthesizing so many disparate frameworks requires an organic, rather than a navigational, approach. All are welcomed to the talk.  A question and answer session follows the presentation. Refreshments will be served. For more information, please contact Dr. Glynn Harmon via email or phone 471-3972,

Monday, April 19, 3:15-4 PM, SZB 468, Dr. Lynn Westbrook, Meeting with Ph.D. students. All Ph.D. students are invited to attend. Jennifer Jobst and Joe Sanchez, doctoral student representatives on the Faculty Search Committee, will be soliciting doctoral student reactions on Monday and Tuesday. For more information, please contact Dr. Glynn Harmon via email or phone 471-3972,

Monday, April 19, 7:30-9:30 PM, LBJ Auditorium, Ehud Barak, Lecture. Ehud Barak is the former Prime Minister of Israel. Admission is now fully subscribed. The pass you may have received is required for this event but does not guarantee admission. All individuals entering the auditorium will be subject to search and must pass through a metal detector. For the safety and security of everyone in attendance, prohibited items in the auditorium include but are not limited to: backpacks, purses, briefcases, books, bags, satchels, cameras, binoculars, tripods and recording devices of any kind. For the sake of gaining quick and easy admission, the sponsors strongly recommend that you arrive early and bring as few personal belongings as possible. Doors will open at 6:00 PM

Tuesday, April 20, Various times and venues. The 18th Annual Sweatt Symposium for Civil Rights celebrates 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education a decision that overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and desegregated public education and public accommodations across the nation. Dr. John Hope Franklin, the James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of History and former professor of legal history at Duke University, will be the featured speaker."John Hope Franklin is among our last living connections to the Brown case. We are honored and fortunate to have him come to The University of Texas at Austin to help us celebrate this important anniversary," said Dr. Juliet Walker, a professor in the Department of History at UT Austin and a former student of Franklin's. See below for symposium details. For more information, including a list of panelists, visit the event Website or contact Stella Smith via email or phone, 232-4850.

Tuesday, April 20, 3:30 - 5 PM, SZB 556, Dr. Clay Spinuzzi, Who Killed Rex? Tracing Texts Through Three Entangled Networks. Dr. Spinuzzi is an Assistant Professor, and Associate Director, Computer Writing and Research Lab, Division of Rhetoric and Composition. In this presentation, an unlikely event -- the death of a dog -- leads us to investigate the inner sociotechnical workings of a telecommunications company. Who is to blame for Rex's death? Drawing on actor-network theory and activity theory, Dr. Spinuzzi will explore how distributed theories of activity handles questions of responsibility and competence. Refreshments will be served. For more information, please contact Dr. Bill Lukenbill, Chair , Research and Colloquia Committee, via email or phone, 471-3701.

Wednesday, April 21, 11:30 AM - 12:45 PM, Texas Union 4.110, Martha Cotera, Co-Founder, Mujeres Por La Raza, 197, Angelita Mendoz Waterhouse, State Chair, Mujeres Unidas (RUP), 1977-78, Elvia Rios, Member of Mujeres por La Raza Unida, 1976-77, Round Table Discussion. This discussion is part of the series: Women and the Raza Unida Party: Three Round Table Discussions. The School of Information class on oral history ("Memory, History and Oral Narratives: Mexican American Politics in Texas History," taught by Emilio Zamora), in conjunction with the Public Policy Institute (Department of Government), the Mexican American Library Program (Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection) and the Center for Mexican American Studies will be hosting three round table discussions on April 7, 14, and 21 featuring nine Mexican American women who began their singular political careers as Raza Unida Party stalwarts between 1970 and 1978. We are bringing the nine women for interviews to augment our oral history and archival holdings at the Mexican American Library Program. The Round Table Discussions will provide our visitors an opportunity to share their experiences and views with the university community. They will address the following topics: the history of the Raza Unida Party; women in the Mexican American social movement of the 1970s and 1980s; the political dialogue between feminists and nationalist in the Mexican American community; and the pan-feminist challenge. For more information contact Maria Gonzalez.

Thursday, April 22, 3-4 PM, SZB 556, Hannah Fischer, Master's Presentation. Hannah presentation will address the ways in which legislative procedure and structure determine legislative information needs and behaviors. She writes, "Hell, I think it's interesting, and if you like international librarianship studies, interdisciplinary information science, or presentations with very few power point slides, then you might find it interesting, too." For more information, please contact Hannah.

Friday, April 23 - Sunday, April 25, Mexico. SAA Field Trip. SAA will be going down to the Valley and crossing over to Mexico to take
a tour of the local archives, historical museums, and culture.  Everyone welcome! At this point, however, we know very little specifics. Leave Austin at 6 or 7 am and arrive at in Edinburg for lunch. Have lunch at Willie's Barbecue. Visit the special collections department at the University of Texas - Pan American, and/or the Museum of South Texas History . Hop over to McAllen and look for a nice $40 a night hotel rooms. That evening go over to Reynosa and see the Reynosa Municipal Archives with Pedro Campos. Have dinner at El Pastor/or at the Alonzo's for some Paella. Saturday, depending on the order, visit the Brownsville Historical Museum, then to the museum in Matamoros with Andres Cuellar. Stay the evening and night in Matamoros at the Hotel Colonial, downtown. Dinner at Cafe Aromos. Sunday morning, head out to Raymondville. Lunch at the Casa Blanca cafe. 1-2 PM the Raymondville Historical Museum , or to the Port Isabel Museum and the Port Isabel Lighthouse . Maybe we'll even get to Hidalgo to see the World's Largest Killer Bee . Sunday, return to Austin ~9pm. For the latest information, visit the SAA Website or contact Daniel Alonzo President UT Chapter, SAA.

Friday, April 23, 2-5 PM, SZB 556, INF 391D.9--Introduction to Doctoral Research and Theory II. This is the first time for this second seminar in the new research series. This is the best part of the class--student presentations of their individual research papers. This Friday Jennifer Jobst, Tatiana Nikolova-Houston, and Deon Dempsey will present. Dr. Miksa invites all Ph.D. students to attend these presentations. If you are not registered but interested in participating please send your EID to Don Drumtra, course TA, in order to be added to the Blackboard course site. But you do not need to do this--it is OK to come unannounced. For further information on the course, contact Dr. Miksa.

Friday, April 23, 3-5 PM. PAR (Parlin Hall) 301. American Film Series. See below.

Earth Week Celebration
April 19-23

Monday, April 19, 6.30-8 PM, Texas Union Showroom 2.208. Kick-Off Symposium Edward's Aquifer and Barton Springs: Campus Responds. Professors from different backgrounds provide their perspectives on Austin's unique water features. Discover all the details about the water you've been swimming in.

Tuesday, April 20, 11 -12.30 PM, West Mall Campus Clean-A-Thon. Grab your friends and compete in the ultimate race to obliterate litter! Win a gift certificate or even airline tickets just by making campus beautiful! Register your group online at UTenvironment.org or until 11.15 a.m. at our table on the West Mall the day of the event.

Wednesday, April 21, 6-9 PM, PAI 3.02, Dinner & a Movie, Erin Brockovich. Join us for a night of entertainment and free Earth-friendly food. First come, first served, so don't be late! Erin Brockovich starts promptly at 6.30 PM.

Thursday, April 22, 11-3 PM, East Mall, Earth Day Expo & Green Picnic. Celebrate National Earth Day! Enjoy free food and festivities while learning about local environmental efforts. Bring your friends and a picnic lunch and discuss the Earth with us!

Friday, April 23, 7-8 PM, WEL 2.224, Environmental Science Institute Outreach Lecture, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Texas' Amazing Insects. Spend the evening learning about Texas insects with Dr. John C. Abbott or watch it from home via our Live Webcast! Join us before the event for refreshments outside the lecture room. For more information, visit the Science Institute Website.

Symposium for Civil Rights
April 20-23

Tuesday, April 20, 6:30-8:30 pm, Bass Lecture Hall, Panel: The Effects of Brown v. Board of Education in Austin, Texas.

Wednesday, April 21, 7-9 pm, Jester A121A, Performance: "Our Commitment To The Struggle,"University of Texas at Austin students, faculty and staff present musical, dramatic and poetry performances.

Thursday, April 22, Thompson Conference Center 1.110
12:30-1:15 pm, Opening Address: Mr. Kenneth Marcus, Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights
1:15-2:45 pm, Panel: The History of the Supreme Court Decision
3:15-5:45 pm, Panel:  African American, Asian American, and Mexican American Experiences in the Brown Period

Friday, April 23, Thompson Conference Center 1.110
1:15-2:45 pm, Panel:  Brown in the International Perspective (African Diaspora)
3:15-5:45 pm, Panel:  Brown's Legacy in the Post-Civil Rights Era

Friday, April 23, LBJ Auditorium, 2315 Red River Street
7-8:30 pm, Keynote Address:  Dr. John Hope Franklin

American Film Series and iMixers

Every Friday, 3-5 PM. PAR (Parlin Hall) 301. American Film Series. Dr. Joe Kruppa, is teaching the senior seminar, E 379S--Film Noir: Texts and Films. As part of the course he is screening a number of wonderful American films on Friday afternoons. There is plenty of room for anyone who wishes to join in.  Here's the schedule for this semester.

See you at the movies! For more information contact Ellen Cunningham-Kruppa, iSchool via email or phone, 471-8287.

Every other Friday, 7-10 PM. Bullock Museum, iMixer. What do you get when you mix live music, dancing and cocktails with your choice of an IMAX ® Theatre film? A great evening of mixing and mingling with I-MIXERS at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum! Jazz up your social life with swingin' tunes or spicy Latin beats from 7 - 10 pm every other Friday night beginning January 23. Choose from great films like T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous 3-D , Coral Reef Adventure , NASCAR 3-D and special return engagements at 8, 9 or 10 pm. A cash bar will offer a variety of beverages on site. Don't forget to take advantage of seeing the Museum's exhibits! Tickets for I-MIXERS are $10 for Museum Members and $12 for Non-members, for ages 21 and over with proper ID. (There is a $8 cover charge for those not attending the IMAX Theatre.) To reserve tickets, call (512) 936-4649.

For more information visit the Museum Website.

Future Events - Mark Your Calendar

Monday, April 26, 3-5 PM, SZB 556, Grete Pasch, Identifying, Selecting, and Organizing the Attributes of Web Resources. It is with his great pleasure that Dr. Miksa announces our colleagues Dissertation Defense. A copy of her dissertation is available in the School of Information office (SZB 564) on the small table near Kathleen Adrian's desk and on Grete's Website. Here is the abstract of the Dissertation:

Schemes derived from the tradition of library cataloging are being proposed as standards for the cataloging of Web resources.  Instead, such schemes should be based on the characteristics of Web resources, which vary considerably from those of the traditional library materials.  As an important step in the process of defining the attributes and entities that serve as building blocks for the new descriptive schemes, an in-depth study of a webpage collection was conducted.  The study focused on the process of  identifying, selecting, and organizing the attributes present on those webpages.  The working collection consisted of 300 resources, or 10% of the total listed in early 1998 at the LANIC (Latin American Network Information Center) website of the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin.  Two methods were used to organize the attributes found: a direct mapping into Dublin Core elements, and matching of each attribute to its parent entity.

For more information contact Grete Pach or Dr. Miksa.

Tuesday, April 27, 3:30 - 5 PM, SZB 556, iForum, Dr. David Gracy II, Making Information Happen: Researching George Washington Littlefield. Dr. Gracy is a Certified Archivist and the Governor Bill Daniel Professor in Archival Enterprise, the Director of the Center for the Cultural Record, and professor of Archival and Records Enterprise , Preservation and Conservation Studies, and Museum Studies. Dr. Gracy will discuss his experiences in researching the life and works of one of Austin's and UT's icons, George Washington Littlefield. Dr. Gracy will approach the topic with his usual enthusiasm for history and the recorded record. efreshments will be served. For more information, please contact Dr. Bill Lukenbill, Chair , Research and Colloquia Committee, via email or phone, 471-3701.

Thursday, April 29-Sunday, May 2, Omni Austin Downtown, AIIP Conference. The Association of Independent Information Professionals. This conference is right here in Austin so you can take advantage of it without paying hotel bills. Selected events:
Thursday
1:00 – 8:00 PM: Exhibits Open
4:00 – 6:00 PM: First-Timers’ & New Member Orientation & Reception. We cordially invite first-time Conference attendees and new members to this orientation and reception. During this meeting, you will receive information to assist you in planning your personal conference program. You will learn more AIIP and meet past presidents, board members and fellow first-timers. We look forward to meeting you and sharing in your first AIIP Conference experience.
6:00 – 8:00 PM: Opening Reception in the Exhibit Area Meet and greet old friends and new. Meet your elected officers and board members. Visit with our vendors and learn about their new products. Win fabulous door prizes.
Friday
10:45 - 12:00 Noon: Alan Weiss , Keynote - Don't Charge for Informaion--Charge for Value.
What drives your business isn't the information you provide but the value you deliver. Learn to sell your value to clients and prospects with some key principles overlooked by many consultants. This high-energy session, led by internationally recognized consultant, lecturer, and radio and TV speaker of the Summit Consulting Group, Inc., will demonstrate how to find the true buyer in a client organization, set and earn value-based fees, establish brand recognition and positioning, and focus on project outcomes rather than inputs. No consultant or prospective consultant can afford to miss this unique opportunity to learn from one of the best in the business.
1:30 – 2:30 PM: General Session. Carolyn M. Vella and John J. McGonagle, Legal and Ethical aspects of Competitive intelligence.
Vella and McGonagle, CI practitioners and partners of The Helicon Group, in addition to being prolific authors about CI, will be discussing work assignments that raise legal and ethical issues for CI and information professionals. Topics will include trade secrets and the Economic Espionage Act, obtaining products and formulas for clients, drafting policies, and handling key ethical dilemmas.
3:00 – 4:15 PM: Concurrent Sessions:

• Sheri Lanza and Jan Knight, Humane Networking: Making the most of Networking Opportunities without Loosing your Sanity. Sheri Lanza, Global InfoResources, Inc., and Jan Knight, Bancroft Information Services, discuss how networking enhances your marketing mix. They will focus on types of associations and business groups that are common arenas for networking and provide tips for making the most of events and follow up, including Contact Management methods. Successes with networking specifically in the Federal Government community will be cited.
• Roundtable, Getting Published. Want to get published? Whether you have an idea for a book or magazine article, this roundtable discussion will provide you with useful tips and suggestions to increase the chances that your writing will reach audiences across the world. Participants will be John Bryans of Information Today and the following published AIIP members: Cliff Kalibjian, Mr. Health Search; Marydee Ojala, ONLINE, and Suzanne Sabroski, Sabroski & Associates.

4:00 – 6:00 PM: Fiesta and Exhibits "Link Up" with old friends and new after our information-filled day for nachos and fantastic door prizes.
7 -9 PM: Dinner Cruise. You do not have to attend the conference to attend the dinner. See below.
Saturday
8:00 – 9:30 AM: Timothy M. Andrews, the Roger Summit Award Lecture and Breakfast. The Honored Speaker is Timothy M. Andrews, President, Advertising Specialty Institute. The AIIP Past Presidents independently fund the Roger Summit Award for the purpose of sponsoring an industry leader to attend and speak at the Annual AIIP Conference. The award is named after the founder of Dialog, Roger Summit, who inspired us with his full participation in the 1998 Annual Meeting, in recognition of his demonstration of self-renewal and continual learning through dialogue at professional conferences and meetings. AIIP is proud to present its 2004 Roger K. Summit Award to Timothy M. Andrews, probably best known among AIIP members as the founding president and chief executive of Factiva. Prior to taking his current position as President of the Advertising Specialty Institute, he spent three years as CEO of Primedia Business Magazines and Media, where he was responsible for leading business, editorial and product strategy for the company’s 80 business magazines, 100 websites, 20+ trade shows and exhibitions and its group of 450 books and directories. Before Primedia, Mr. Andrews spent 16 years at Dow Jones & Co.; he launched the first real-time news alerting products in the industry and introduced a Web based version of Dow Jones Interactive long before other companies had recognized the importance of the Web. He has been profiled in the New York Times business section and has authored a wide range of articles in such publications as ComputerWorld.
9:45 – 11:15 AM: General Session. Robin Neidorf, Fill Your Practice with the Work You Want. In the early stages of a business, marketing often focuses on just getting projects in the pipeline. New infopreneurs tap previous employers, networks and other obvious sources of work, just to get going. Then what? How can you develop more sophisticated marketing efforts that get you past start-up and into the kinds of projects you really want? Robin Neidorf, Electric Muse, will help you advance beyond the "low-hanging fruit" stage of promoting your business. We'll look at tools that help you identify: the kind of work you really want; your strongest market positioning; how to research and target new markets or types of projects; what’s working and what isn't in your marketing plan; and valuable professional alliances and how to build them.
2:00 – 3:15 PM: Concurrent Sessions

• Cynthia Hetherington and Alex Kramer, Information Discovery Using Open Sources and Proprietary Databases. Cynthia Hetherington, Hetherington Information Services LLC, and Alex Kramer, Kramer Research, will be demonstrating how your private lives and public information are available through websites as well as "Invisible Web" sources. Property records, liens, loans and judgments, lawsuits, newspaper articles, donations, death, birth and all that is in between help us to trace individuals and corporate moves. They will identify the sources for this information and compare them to each other based on quality and cost.
• Debbie Bardon and Wendy Katz, Do What You Do Best and Sub-Contract the Rest. A Case Study in Project Management Debbie Bardon of Bardon On Call, and Wendy Katz, Ph.D., Factscope, will discuss a sample project on which they collaborated. They will discuss the project from receiving the request for proposal (RFP) to preparing and submitting the final deliverable to the client. Topics will include the reference interview; bidding the project; identifying, hiring and managing specialty sub-contractors; managing client expectations; time management; cultivating sources; and lessons learned.

3:45 - 5:00 PM: Concurrent Sessions

• Panel, Niche Industry Research. All AIIP members are unique in their background and experience. This panel session will discuss how to turn our passions into profits. Bill Crowley (moderator), Competitive Analysis Technologies, will discuss the energy market, Stephen Adams, Magister Ltd. will discuss patent research, and Trip Wyckoff, Special Issues and Gary Price’s List of Lists, will discuss his passion, special issues of magazines. Each will present a short background on his company and take questions from the group.
• Amelia Kassel and Kim Burkhardt, Value Added Packaging. At one time delivering information meant sending results of research. Today, packaging research results has evolved into an art and skill necessary for increasing client retention. Organizing information into attractive, easytoread products minimizes information overload for customers while increasing dollar sales. During this session, Amelia Kassel, MarketingBase, and Kim Burkhardt, Burkhardt Research Services, provide practical advice and examples of report packaging--what to include and how to present it. Time and budget issues are considered. Come prepared to contribute your ideas and experiences to this session.

6:30 – 10:00 PM: Gala Banquet at Esther’s Follies.
Sunday
9:00 – 10:30 AM: Keynote. Gary Chapman, Future Trends on the Internet.Gary Chapman, director of The 21st Century Project at the LBJ School of Public Affairs of the University of Texas, will describe a few of the major trends affecting the future of the Internet, such as high-speed networking, digital identity and new data formats that may lead to the "semantic Web." This talk will be important to information professionals who want to understand how they can adapt to new opportunities on the Internet.
10:45m – 11:45 AM: Mary Ellen Bates and Amelia Kassel, Make Money by Opening Your Mouth. No, this isn't the latest get-rich-quick scam. While we know about using public speaking and teaching as marketing tools, they can also become a reliable source of revenue. Mary Ellen Bates, Bates Information Services, Inc., and Amelia Kassel, MarketingBase, will talk about strategies to move your public speaking and teaching from purely marketing to a fee-based service you can add to your business portfolio.

Registration: Student rates are $175 for the full conference with completed registration form.
Dinner Cruise: Even if you do not have time to participate in the full conference, please join us on the sunset dinner cruise Friday evening 7-9 PM. The price is $28 and includes to the opportunity to share the evening with career information professionals not to mention the delicious fajitas that are rumored to be part of the meal.
Additional information. For more information on the conference and related events see the Conference Webpage. For more information about AIIP, see the Association Website or contact the AIIP office via email or phone, 225-408-4400.

Thursday April 29-Friday, April 30, J. J. Pickle Conference Center, NAGARA, E-Records at Risk. This third annual electronic records conference of the National Association of Government Archives and Record Administrators (NAGARA) features nationally recognized speakers and is regarded as one of the best values for your training dollar. This year's focus will include Intellectual Property Rights and how the internet changed them; dealing with Information Security versus the Privacy and Freedom of Information Acts; Preservation, and Long Term Access Issues for Electronic Records. Cost:$175 (includes refreshments and lunch). See the conference Website for more program and registration information.

Friday, April 30, 7-9 PM. Dinner Cruise. The Association of Independent Information Professionals will be enjoying the sights and sounds of Austin during a Town Lake dinner cruise on Friday, April 29, 2004.   We cordially invite our Austin SLA colleagues to join us for a fun-filled evening, beginning at 7 pm.  The cost of this magnificent adventure is only $28. You need not be registered for the conference to experience this not-to-be-missed networking opportunity.   Celebrate the end of the work week by meeting leaders in the information industry and exploring the world of the infopreneur.  Hurry, seating is limited!  For additional information about the cruise, visit www.lonestarriverboat.com , or contact our office staff at office@aiip.org .  Conference information, as well as more about AIIP, can be found at www.aiip.org .

Friday, April 30, 7-10 PM, Bullock Museum, iMixer. See above. This is the last mixer of the semester. If you are not on the cruise, don't miss it.

Saturday May 1, 7-9 PM, Erwin Center, UT Marching Band, Band-O-Rama. The College of Fine Arts at The University of Texas at Austin will present Band-O-Rama, an Austin tradition featuring the legendary University of Texas Longhorn Marching Band, also known as the"Showband of the Southwest." The program will also feature the university's Drumline, Colorguard, the Texas Concert Band and Jazz Ensemble, and the Longhorn Concert Band and Jazz Ensemble. The Band-O-Rama performance will end with an exciting mass-band finale featuring all the great UT traditional favorites. Admission is free but tickets must be picked up in advance at the Frank C. Erwin Jr. Center Box Office or the UT Performing Arts Center Box Office in Bass Concert Hall. Reserved seating is on a first come first served basis. Because this is a free event, no tickets will be available by phone or online. For more information please visit the event Website or call  the band office at 471-4093.

Sunday, May 2, 7-9 PM, Bates Recital Hall, Franz Joseph Haydn, The Creation. The UT Choral Arts Society will perform Haydn's masterful oratorio under the direction of James Morrow. Soloists will include soprano Darlene Wiley, tenor David Stevens, and baritone Kenneth Shaw. Tickets are $16 general admission/$13 UT faculty and staff/$10 UT students and are available through the UT Performing Arts Center box office (477-6060 and www.utpac.org) and Texas Box Office. For more information, call 471-0806 or contact Dr. James Morrow, Director of Choral Activities via email or phone, 471-0806.

Thursday, May 6, 6:30-8:30 PM, University Club, 6th floor, Brad Harwick, "Dialogue Strategy: Making Relationships Productive." Brad Harwick is the Market Manager, Vinson & Elkins . He will provide an interactive evening learning the power of networking and what it can mean for you professionally. Online registration prior to 12 PM, May 3, $12 for Texas Exes Members or $15 for non-Texas Exes Members. Registration at the door after 12 PM May 3, $15 for Texas Exes Members or $18 for non-Texas Exes Members. For further information visit the event Webpage or contact Walt Esquivel.

Friday, May 7, 2:30-3:30 PM. Tower Garden. UT Remembers. At the university's annual "UT Remembers" memorial program, students, faculty and staff who died in the prior year are remembered.  Family and friends are invited to the public ceremony where Tower bells toll as each person's name is read.  We ask your help in reviewing the list of students and current and
retired faculty and staff who died in the period from March 1, 2003, to the present.  The list on the Website can be sorted by name, classification or department. If you are aware of an omission or error, please contact the following person who has responsibility for the categories noted.  Your prompt response will help us make sure each family receives a timely invitation to UT Remembers.
Students: Dean Teresa Brett, Current/Retired Faculty Members: Ms. Nicole Graf,
Current/Retired Staff Members: Mr. Luther Johnson. Should you have special questions, please contact Susan Claget by email or phone, 471-7753.

Saturday, May 22, 9-11 AM, Bass Concert Hall, Master Student Graduate School Convocation.

Saturday, May 22, 12-2 PM, Bass Concert Hall, Doctoral Student Graduate School Convocation.

Sunday, May 23 - Friday, May 28. T A&M We've put the finishing touches on the evening lecture series for the
3rd annual Texas A&M Book History Workshop, scheduled for May 23-28. The speakers in this year's series are: Al Brilliant, founder of the Unicorn Press; Margaret Ezell, Professor of English, Texas A&M University; Tom Staley, Director of the Humanities Research Center, University of Texas; David Gracy, Professor of Library and Information Science, University of Texas; and Ron Tyler, Professor of History, University of Texas.  Topics range from "books behaving badly" to modern small press history to the forensic investigation of a controversial Alamo document to the royal octavo edition of John James Audubon's Birds of America.  The evening lecture series coincides with a week long workshop on the history of books and printing with an emphasis on hand press era printing. The workshop consists of a unique combination of hands-on laboratory experiences and overview seminar sessions. The evening series is free and open to the public. The daytime workshop sessions are limited to registered workshop participants. Enrollment in the daytime workshop sessions is limited to 20. Space remains but is going fast. For more information on the lecture series and the workshop, go to: http://lib-oldweb.tamu.edu/cushing/bookhistory/2004.html#Lectures

Saturday-Thursday, Nov 13-18, Providence RI, ASIST Conference. The information society, especially after recent world events, is displaying an increasing tension between forces that encourage and discourage integration and cooperation. A major focus of this conference will be on conflicts and solutions involving many national and international information cultures, including social, professional, educational, and technological interests. These themes and others will be explored by plenary and invited speakers and through refereed presentations. Submissions on a wide variety of information and technology topics are solicited, including (but not limited to):

• Social, ethical, political, legal, and economic issues: issues related to the role of information in society, such as information policy, access, security, privacy, and intellectual property, as well as the social uses and abuses of information technologies such as the Internet and World Wide Web in bridging or separating diverse communities.
• Technologies for computing and networking: developments in technologies for communication, collaboration, knowledge sharing and management, and security in environments that may include academia, government, and commerce.
• Information management, organization, and access: classification and representation, metadata, taxonomies, indexing, XML, information architecture, digital libraries, and digital preservation.
• Information seeking and use: the role of information in professional and daily lives, use of various types of information technology, and social contexts of information seeking.
• Information retrieval: information system performance, interoperability, search engines, natural language processing, data mining, intelligent retrieval, and multi- and cross-lingual retrieval.
• Interactivity and usability: design and testing of human-computer interfaces, visualization, and personalization, for all types of information technology.
• Information production and delivery: information product creation, publishing, media integration, dissemination, and access.

SUBMISSION DEADLINES
January 30, 2004 - Submissions due for contributed papers, special sessions, and seminars/workshops;
March 2, 2004 - Submissions due for posters;
April 2, 2004 - Authors/proposers notified of acceptance;
June 1, 2004 - Camera-ready copy due for conference proceedings

For further information and registration see the conference Website.

Who We Are Webpage

The information on the Ph.D. student Webpage is slowly growing. Names of all current Ph.D. students have been added. Your other information is needed to complete it . Please send Don a jpeg photo, information to post, and a link to your Website whenever you can. What is this Webpage? Well, as we agreed in spring semester, 2002, we wanted to have a summary page with a list of all Ph.D. students and links to more detailed information on each of us. The summary page consist of a photo, name, academic interest, contact information, and links to other pages. A detail page repeats the summary information and provides, education, a brief biography, and specialization. Students information should be linked to each student's individual Website with their vita, resume, and any other information they may wish to provide. If there is interest, we can also add Ph.D. alumni to this list. There is an input form that might work with your browser. Otherwise you can copy and paste.

Research Method and Other Courses of Interest

Research Method Courses. There are many research methods courses available in the university that may be suitable for meeting the iSchool Ph.D. research methods requirements. Lisa Kleinman has written an excellent summary that should be of particular interest. She describes her summary as follows, "yo, in case (like me) you were overwhelmed by the number of research methods courses that seemed available at UT, but were suspiciously vague in terms of description -- here is a list that I've compiled with/ course names & descriptions. the doctoral studies committee & your own advisor may be able to make further recommendations as to which would be specifically appropriate for you" (2003 Dec. 15, personal communications). Doctoral Committee recommendations will be posted on this Website as soon as they become available.

Research Methods in Information Systems, MIS 381N.26. Earlier, Lisa provided us this information on a this course. "The Information Systems department in the Business School is interested in having more iSchool folk taking their courses. In particular, Ph.D. students may want to consider taking “Research Methods in Information Systems” taught by Alina Chircu. I took this class last year, and it provides an excellent survey of the multitude of different research methods (both qualitative and quantitative) as applied to understanding the effects of information technology. Alina is very flexible about the core focus areas, so if a whole bunch of people want to “study X”, she’ll find a way to incorporate it. If you’re a Masters student, you can take this course if you’re interested in subjecting yourself to reading a ga-zillion journal articles from the latest sexy issues of MIS Quarterly... which ain’t the “Miss Quarterly” that I was hoping for, let me tell you... The course is offered in spring 2004" (personal communications). Information provided by Lisa Kleinman. For more information about the course see the Course Webpage or contact Dr. Chircu" (2003 Oct. 31, personal communications).

Graduate School Courses provide a unique opportunity for School of Information Ph.D. students because they provide a multidisciplinary atmosphere of learning. Students from across the campus attend these courses and share experiences and viewpoints form their own departments. Two courses of major interest to our programs are:

Academic and Professional Writing, GRS 390W, normally offered in the fall semester. This course meets the Ph.D. program writing requirement.

Advanced College Teaching Methods, GRS 390T, normally offered in the spring semester. This course, with your advisor's and teaching supervisor's permissions, can be used to meet the academic requirement for Supervised Teaching in Library and Information Science, LIS 398T. UT requires students to take department Supervised Teaching in order to become Assistant Instructors (AIs).

Dissertation Couses and Other Information. In January or February of each year the Graduate School has a workshop on dissertations. The Graduate School Website also provide formats for dissertations, information on how to prepare digital dissertations, and various forms you will need for graduation..

Check to Be Sure. Please do not forget however, that not all of the courses listed will be satisfactory to meet any particularly student's Ph.D. program requirements. "Since advancement to candidacy is contingent on faculty approval of a course of work, the student should consult regularly with their committee on matters of course selection" (School of Information, undated, Academic Programs, Ph.D.).

Orientations

New students (and even old) might appreciate the following two Orientation Websites:

UT Graduate School: http://www.utexas.edu/ogs/orientation/
iSchool: http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/orientation/

Program Information

General iSchool program information and Degree Requirements may be found on the iSchool Academic Programs Description Webpage for the Doctor of Philosophy in Information Studies.

Program milestones consist of development and approval of a Program of Work or Study, satisfactory completion of course work and a comprehensive doctoral examination including written, oral, and research components, presentation and approval of a dissertation proposal, research and completion of a dissertation culminating in a final examination consisting of defense of the the dissertation. Administrative progress through these milestones is described in the Checklist for the Doctoral Program (1993).

Required content of the program of work or study is provided in the Guidelines for Development of the Doctoral Program of Study (ca. 1993). Lisa Kleinman and Don Drumtra have posted examples of their approved programs of study their Websites.

Required content of the Annual Reviews is provided in the Annual Review of GSLIS Doctoral Students (2002) and the Annual Review of Ph.D. Students (draft, 2003). Don Drumtra has posted an an example of an approved Annual Review on his Website.

The University of Texas and the UT Office of Graduate Studies provide the latest information on degree and administrative requirements requirements in three publications:

• The University of Texas at Austin, Handbook or Operating Procedures. The HOP provides basic policy and procedures on how the University of Texas at Austin operates. Probably of most interest would be "Chapter 1, Faculty Governance, Section II, The Graduate School" dealing with what the Graduate School and the Graduate Studies Committees do.
• The Graduate Catalog. This publication provides more update information than the HOP but not as much as the Policy Manual below. "Chapter 3. Degree Requirements" is probably the most interesting, but there are items of interest in other sections as well.
• Graduate School Policy Manual. This manual supplements the HOP and Graduate providing details on OGS administrative procedures not adequately covered in the two publications.
• In addition The University of Texas at Austin, Revised Handbook or Operating Procedures and the Original Policy Memoranda may provide curious details that could impact Ph.D. programs. Also, for any really interested, Texas Law and UT System Regent's Rules and Regulations provide the fundamental basis for the UT Austin HOP and other rules impacting Ph.D. students. "Part one, Chapter5, Graduate Education in the University of Texas System" is the section that is probably of most interest to Ph.D. students, but other sections are not without interest.

Email Lists and other Forums

Information on email lists and and other forums of interest to Information school Ph.D. students is provided through the Ph.D. Forums link on the left. Included is information on email lists, Blackboard, Websites and other forums.

Ph.D. Colloquia

The Ph.D. colloquia provide Ph.D. students the opportunity to share their work in a friendly environment. If someone would like to take the lead, we could have a Ph.D. Colloquia series sharing our current work with each other and professors who are interested in the Information School Ph.D. program. The last series we had was the Fall 2002 Ph.D. Colloquia Series. If you are interested in leading such a series, please contact Don Drumtra for his experience on leading the 2002 Colloquia

Content Manager: Don Drumtra
Last updated 2004 April 21