Ph.D. Student News

Welcome to the Ph.D. News Webpage. This Webpage site contains items of interest to iSchool Ph.D. students at University of Texas at Austin. This week's events are normally posted each Sunday. Special events, additions, and changes during the week are noted in red. Significant future calendar events are posted as they are received. Corrections and comments are always appreciated

SUCCESSFULLY DEFENDED HIS DISSERTATION THE USE OF PUBLIC WEB PORTALS BY UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

SUCCESSFULLY DEFENDED HER DISSERTATION Discovery and Information Use Patterns of Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine

MARGINS AND MARGINALITY:
MARGINALIA AND COLOPHONS
IN BULGARIAN MANUSCRIPTS
DURING THE OTTOMAN PERIOD
(1393-1878)

SUCCESSFULLY DEFENDED HER PROPOSAL
RURAL PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE FUND

Congratulations to Beth Letalien

She won a Fulbright-Hays
Doctoral Research Abroad Fellowship
Of a year of research in Rio de Janeiro Starting in the fall.

The title of her research is
Context, Nexus, Praxis:
Community Reading Room
and Activities Center Development

Monday, June 6, 1-3 PM, SZB 556,Hieko Haubitz, Doctoral Dissertation Defense. Heiko plans to defend his doctoral dissertation, titled, The Use of Public Web Portals by Undergraduate Students. His dissertation committee members consist of Drs., Phil Doty, Mary Lynn Rice-Lively, Oliver Chen, and Mary Erin Porter (Department of Management Science and Information Systems in the business school). Dr. Irene Owens also served until her recent appointment as dean of our sister LIS school at North Carolina Central. A print copy of the full dissertation is available on the table in front of Kai's cubicle, next to the administrative copier. Everyone is welcome. For more information please contact Dr. Doty.

Monday, June 6, 4-6 PM, Crown and Anchor Pub, Student Association, 1st ever UNofficial iSchool happy hour. The Crown and Anchor is located at 2911 San Jacinto and had $1.50 domestic pints all day long. For more information, please contact Courtney Chartier.

Wednesday June 8, 10 AM - 3 AM, Gregory Gym, University Hearth Services and Rec Sports, 3rd Annual Health Fair. Take advantage of health screenings including blood pressure, blood sugar, body composition, lung function, blood lipids (cholesterol), glaucoma, visual acuity, flexibility, grip strength, bone density and posture analysis. Get answers to your questions from a variety of health professionals, and make connections with campus and community health resources. For a complete list of health fair participants and health screenings/assessments (including special instructions for blood tests and charges, where applicable), go to the "Spotlights" section of the UHS web site. For more information please contact Sherry Bell

The presentation concludes with examples of efforts taken by operators to deliver what is perceived to be the best, most cost effective solution to customers. Fawzi Behmann is currently a Director of Strategic. Dinner preceeds the presentation at 6-7 PM. RSVP for is required but dinner is free for students. Email Howard Headrick if you plan to attend. For more information please visit the event Website, or contact R Talbot.

Friday, June 17, Concordia University, Schroeder Performance Hall in the Louise T. Peter Center, Csardas Hungarian Dancers of Austin, Nyareste: Summer Evening. If you are interested in some summer entertainment, Elizabeth Bittner's dance group will be doing a full length Hungarian dance show. They will be showcasing dances from many different regions of Hungary, almost all with different costumes. There will also be some live music. Come see the diverse Hungarian, Transylvanian, and Gypsy cultures through colorful authentic costumes, energetic dances, and distinctive folk music. Concordia is just north of 32nd St.at 3400 IH 35 North. The Performance Hall is in building "H" on the campus map. Tickets are $10 each. For tickets and more information, please contact Joane Rylander.

Monday, June 20, 11:30 AM - 1 PM Nuevo Leon, ARMA Austin Appreciation Luncheon. The agenda includes: Installation of Officers, Member of the Year, Attendance Prize Drawing, and Member Recognition. Nuevo Leon is located at 1501 E. 6th St. The menu includes Fajita buffet, chips, salsa, tea, soda. Admission: Member $10.00, non-member: $15.00. Since seating is limited, a reservation required by June 15. For reservation and more information, please contact Jannette Goodall via email or phone, 974-9045.

Tuesday-Sunday, August 16-21, New Orleans, SAA Annual Meeting. Please contact Dr. Gracy for more information.

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.

Information on professional associations, student governance organizations, 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.

The school of information sponsors weekly or fortnightly iForums (or iFora) of interest to School of Information Students and Faculty. Scholars from across the campus and occasionally from other universities are invited to present their work at a forum. From time to time, Ph.D. students are also invited to present their work to the forum. Each individual forum will be listed in the above schedule when details are known.

In 2001 and 2002 , Ph.D. students organized the Ph.D. students organized a colloquia to share their work in a friendly environment. The last series we had was the Fall 2002 Ph.D. Colloquia Series. Such a series could be reestablished if there was an interest. If you are interested in leading such a series, please contact Don Drumtra for his experience on leading the 2002 Colloquia

Disclaimer. The following information is compiled from various sources and is current as of the time it was written and the documents available. It is not official UT, Graduate School, or School of Information policy. It is offered to help Ph.D. students gain an overview of Ph.D. requirements. Please refer to official sources for current information before taking irreversible action.

General. UT Graduate School requirements for award of the Ph.D. degree are listed in the UT Graduate Catalog. Detailed requirements for the School of Information are listed the provided on the Doctor of Philosophy Webpage. Lisa Kleinman provided an unofficial summary of the requirements to the participants in the Fall 2004 Ph.D. Orientation.

Milestones. Program milestones consist of development and approval of a Program of Study, satisfactory completion of course work and a comprehensive doctoral examination including written, oral, and research components, presentation and approval of credentials to Graduate School (including a separate Program of Work), approval of a dissertation proposal, research and completion of a dissertation culminating in a final examination consisting of defense of the the dissertation and final presentation approval of the student's credentials to the Graduate School. Administrative progress through most of these milestones is described in the Checklist for the Doctoral Program (1993). Annual reviews are submitted to the students Advising Committee so that the committee may evaluate the student's progress. The student's Supervising Committee monitors the student's progress after the student reaches candidacy.

Graduate Studies Committee. Within the School of Information, the Graduate Studies Committee or GSC approves the students Program of Study and Annual review.

Qualifying Procedures. In order to qualify to apply for candidacy, the iSchool requires a written exam and oral defense (often called the comprehensive exam or "comps") and a research paper accepted by the student's committee. This committee (perhaps, it could be called the Examination Committee) ordinarily consists of three members of the iSchool faculty and one outside member. The three iSchool members could be your Advising Committee, potential members of your Supervising Committee, or any other three members who agree to serve.

Application for Candidacy. On June 1, 2004 the UT Office of Graduate Studies automated the application for candidacy and placed it online. Instructions for completion of and a link to the actual online form is provided in the application Webpage. Other candidacy requirements are also provided on that page including the requirement for the Program of Work.

Dissertation. Requirements for the content of your dissertation are developed between you and your Supervising Committee and the Graduate School sets guidelines for format. There are two format guidelines are provided by the Graduate School (Office of Graduate Studies or OGS), print guidelines and electronic submission guidelines. Even though you must submit your dissertation electronically, you would do well to meet both guidelines because someone might very well want to print your dissertation in the future. An a point of interest, the final authority on both the content and format of your dissertation is your Supervisory Committee--not the folks in the Office of Graduate Studies. However, the OGS folks can make life really difficult for you if you do not listen to them.

Dr. Harmon and eleven other UT advisors have published dissertation tips for doctoral students. It is posted on the UT Intellectual Entrepreneurship, Dissertation List-Serve and Resources Webpage. The Webpage also contains a dissertation writing bibliography, reflections of former graduate deans on dissertation completion, advice from UT alumni, and numerous other useful items for Ph.D. students.

Final Oral Exam (Defense of Dissertation. A satisfactory final oral examination is required for the approval of a dissertation. The Office of Graduate Studies publishes the time and place of this examination. The exam is open to all members of the University community and the public, unless attendance is restricted by the Graduate Studies Committee. Information is available in the Graduate Catalog and an application form are available from the Office of Graduate Studies.

Application for Graduation. There are lots of forms for graduation listed by the Office of Graduate Studies. You would be well advised to visit the office of Graduate Studies well before the deadlines to be sure you have the latest information and do not forget an essential form the absence of which might hold up your graduation.

Graduation. After all that work you won't want to miss the graduation celebration and fireworks at the end of the spring semester. UT introduced a new doctoral robe in 2001, which will be first available for graduating students in May, 2005. You can be one of the first scholars to wear one.

Additional Sources. 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 iSchool PhD Methods Courses Webpage lists many research methods courses available in the university that may be suitable for meeting the iSchool Ph.D. research methods requirements listed on the iSchool Doctor of Philosophy Webpage. 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).

Statistics Website. The Website, www.statpages.net, provides about 600 links and about 380 statistical calculators. It is now owned by AOL. Recently AOL has begun restricting its content to AOL members, so please let me know if this Website becomes inaccessible.

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).

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.).

Information on Qualitative Research Methods. In September 2004, Dr. Davis loaned a copy of the three-volume Sage Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods (2004) to the lab for our use. It not only provides excellent summaries of lots of issues and topics related to research methodology, but it provides reference sources under each topic to allow further exploration. A copy is also available is also at the PCL reference desk.