Ph.D. Student News

Welcome to the Ph.D. News Website. This Website contains items of interest to iSchool Ph.D. students at University of Texas at Austin. The home page "Announcements," "Activities for this Week," and "Future Events" are normally updated each Sunday. Additions and changes to the current week as well as special announcements are noted in red (or other appropriate color) . Significant future calendar events are posted as they are received and time permits. Suggested additions, corrections, and other comments are always appreciated. Email me or grab me in room SZB 463 or in the hall.

Monday, May 1, 9 AM - Noon, SZB 468, iSchool, Capstone Presentations. The final three sets of Capstone 388L presentations are this week on Monday, Tuesday and Friday. next week. All students are encouraged to attend at least one of these presentations. A schedule is provided on the Capstone Website. For more information please visit the Website or contact Lee Ann Lacy via email or phone, 472-0170.

Tuesday, May 2, 1-4 PM, SZB 468, iSchool, Capstone Presentations. The final three sets of Capstone 388L presentations are this week on Monday, Tuesday and Friday. next week. All students are encouraged to attend at least one of these presentations. A schedule is provided on the Capstone Website. For more information please visit the Website or contact Lee Ann Lacy via email or phone, 472-0170.

ADDED EVENT. Wednesday, May 3, 9 AM - Noon, SZB 556, Ph.D. Doctoral Research and Theory II, Student Presentations. come meet, teach, learn from, grill. this year's first-year doctoral cohort -- or at least have a bagel with us. Dr. Bias writes, "As the semester winds down, the first-year doctoral cohort is just shy of completing their DRT sequence. In DRT II we have focused on identifying a research question and selecting research methods to address that question. The students’ final project for DRT-II is to create a poster to present a mixed methods approach (entailing both qualitative and quantitative methods) to address an information studies research question of their choice. The class and I would like to invite you to attend our poster session in the conference room. You should feel free to come and go, meet and learn from (and about) our first-year doctoral students, and have some refreshments. Allow me to set your expectations, just a bit. This will be a poster session, much like a poster session at any professional conference – think “ALISE-lite.” There will a few differences, however. To wit:

- Our doc students will NOT have undertaken the research (yet); their posters will offer research questions and the methods they MIGHT CHOOSE to employ to address the questions. These are “works in progress.” (The research – not the students. Well . . . ?)
- I have PRESCRIBED that they use a multi-methods approach, to give them experience choosing and designing qualitative methods AND an experiment. Thus, their approach has necessarily been a little backwards; they have not necessarily started with a theoretical basis and worked forward. That’s OK (at least it is with me) – the point of the assignment has been to gain experience designing a study to address a research question.
- Another objective of mine is simply to give us practice pitching a poster, so our iSchool students will be maximally prepared to present themselves when they do it for real at ALISE or elsewhere.

So, if you can, join us on May 2nd. Meet, or get to know better, one or all of our first year Ph.D. students. Talk with them about their research ideas, learn about their interests and help them work toward more mature research ideas, if you will. We look forward to seeing you." For more information, please contact Dr. Bias.

Wednesday, May 3, 4-5:30 PM, SZB 468, Laura Dabbish,iForum, Communications Technology: Interruption and Overflow. Over the last 50 years there have been dramatic changes in the way we communicate at work. Information and other people are easier to access than ever before. This has led to problems of communication overflow and stress as well as work disruption and fragmentation. Laura Dabbish's work seeks to understand the way people attend to communications in work situations and to explore design requirements for communication tools that can enable productivity and reduce disruption to ongoing work. The presentation will highlight a set of laboratory studies examining the trade-offs between sender and receiver of a communication, testing the use of awareness and message urgency visibility displays designed to maintain benefits of connectivity and reduce task disruption. There will also be a brief description of a survey study examining influences on the decision to attend to and respond to an email communication. This work provides an increased understanding of attention to communication and suggests interesting directions for future research. Laura Dabbish is a doctoral candidate in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University ( http://www.hcii.cs.cmu.edu) with an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from the University of Southern California. She studies Human-Computer Interaction and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, particularly the design and use of communication technologies. She has been supported in this work by a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Research Fellowship. Further information about her research can be found at her Website. For more information please contact Dr. Galloway.

TIME CHANGE. Wednesday, May 3, 3-4:00 PM, Blanton Art Museum, ALA/TLA Tour. See what all the noise and construction has wrought. This will be an excellent chance to take a break from final projects and papers and take a guided tour of the new Blanton Art Museum. More information on this soon! For more information , please contact Melissa Keenan.

Wednesday, May 3, 4:30-6:30 PM, El Mercado, Student Association Happy Hour. It's a SASI Meeting and Happy Hour all mixed in to one! Everyone is welcome to join in on the...Student Association of the School of Information- last meeting of the year.Come discuss ideas you've had in your head concerning....well, just about anything. We're open-minded, and won't judge.... right then and there. Topics of discussion:

Friday, May 5, 9 AM - Noon, SZB 468, iSchool, Capstone Presentations. The final three sets of Capstone 388L presentations are this week on Monday, Tuesday and Friday. next week. All students are encouraged to attend at least one of these presentations. A schedule is provided on the Capstone Website. For more information please visit the Website or contact Lee Ann Lacy via email or phone, 472-0170.

Friday, May 5, 2-3 PM, Tower Garden, UT Remembers. At the university's annual "UT Remembers" memorial program, students, faculty and staff who died in the past 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 last twelve months. The list is available on the Web and can be sorted by name, classification or department. If you are aware of an omission, please contact the person below who has responsibility for the categories noted. Your prompt response will help us make sure each family receives an invitation to UT Remembers:

For more information or special questions, please contact the UT Public Affairs office at 471-7753.

Sunday, May 7, 5:30-7:30 PM, Westlake, SISA, End-of-the-year Potluck. Everyone is [in] SASI. Make plans to come join the celebration of yet another mighty keen semester! The location is Lisa Charbonnet's Lovely Home, 14 Sundown Parkway, Austin, 78746, TX, in Westlake, west of downtown, about a fifteen minute drive from
campus. Admission : A dish or drinks of your choice. SASI will provide hamburgers (cookout). Dress: Festive Casual. RSVP and let us know how many guests you will be bringing. For more information and to RSVP please email the student association.

Wednesday, May 17, 11:30-1 PM and 1-4:30 PM, Goodwill Temp Services Building Austin, Jenny Baker, Archival Preservation. This ARMA meeting will beheld in two sections--a luncheon followed by a workshop. If you are in the area at the break this is an excellent way to have a good meal and learn something about the practice of archives. You may attend the lunch presentation, follow-on workshop, or both.

The lunch presentation will cover the relationship between managing records and managing archives. This will include the life cycle of records, definitions, identification of records on the retention schedule, things to consider at the point of creation, types of archives.

The follow-on workshop is designed to teach records managers some basics of Archival principles and practices. It will include how archives fit into retention scheduling and the records management program. In addition there will be a hands on exercises designed to teach you about archival fasteners, pH content of paper, old newspapers, photo albums, and archival file folders. You are also welcome to bring your problems and examples of photographs, textiles, oversize documents, newspapers, old papers, family scrapbooks, and other things you think need special care. After all, not everything should be tossed into a 1 cubic foot records storage box!

Jenny N. Barker, CRM has been involved in Records Management since 1972 when she was hired to manage a central file room for a mineral exploration and mine evaluation division of an international mining company. She became a CRM in 1979 and has served in numerous capacities for the Institute of Certified Records Managers. She has also been a member of three ARMA Chapters: Denver, Houston, and San Antonio.

The Goodwill Temporary Services building is located at 1015 Norwood Park Blvd in NE Austin, just NE of I-35 and Anderson Lane. Getting there by bus is possible but difficult, driving is easy, so you should plan to drive. The luncheon is free (sponsored by the ARMA chapter). The workshop costs $25.00 per person payable at the door. You should RSVP for the workshop by May 12. For more information and to RSVP for the workshop, please contact Jannette Goodall via email or phone, 974-9045.

Friday-Sunday, May 19-21, Syracuse, NY, Bringing Together Emerging Information Studies Researchers: A Doctoral Conference in Information Studies. Connections 2006, aka the 11th Annual Great Lakes Information Science Conference, is a forum for doctoral students in information studies to meet one another, exchange ideas, present research and attend workshops and panels in a collegial and receptive atmosphere. In keeping with a tradition of convening Connections in a city near the Great Lakes, Connections 2006 will be hosted by Syracuse University's School of Information Studies in Syracuse, New York, from May 19-21. Our goal is to attract doctoral students working in one of three broad areas:
* Library and information science (LIS)
* Information systems (IS) and management information systems (MIS)
* Information and telecommunications policy
Doctoral students working in these areas are invited to submit abstracts for presentations, workshops and panels. Students at all stages of their program, from first year through ABD, are encouraged to participate. For more information on how to join the conference listserv, for the conference schedule, for and more detail on submissions please visit the Connections 2006 Website or contact the Conference Chair, Joe Rubleske.

IMPORTANT DEADLINES & CONTACTS

* February 24: Deadline for submitting a proposal to participate as a presenter, as a workshop leader and/or as a panelist
* March 17: Notification of acceptance
* March 20: Registration period begins
* April 21: Deadline for shortened and revised abstracts
* April 28: Registration period ends
* May 19-21: Connections 2006 is convened

Saturday, May 20, 9-11 AM, Bass, Graduate School Convocation.

Saturday, May 20, 7-10 PM, South Mall, UT Commencement. Commencement is the culmination of the academic year and a time that brings us together as a community. We celebrate students' accomplishments and the roles of faculty and staff in helping new graduates achieve their goals. You are invited to the university-wide Commencement on Saturday evening, May 20, an occasion rich in ceremonial elements and tradition. U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Antonio O. Garza, Jr., will be the Commencement speaker. For more information including information on other graduation activities scheduled for Friday and Saturday, May 19 and 20, please visit the commencement Website.

CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS: Volunteers help create a welcoming environment that contributes to a memorable Commencement experience for graduating students and their guests. This year, volunteers are needed to assist with the university-wide Commencement set-up and ceremony on Saturday, May 20. You can sign up to volunteer at the volunteer Website.

Thursday, June 1, 7-8 PM, HRHRC, Ed Nowotka, The Origins of Writing. Ed Nowotka, is a book critic and writer. He will host a panel discussion, An Ode to Typewriters, of writers who compose on typewriters. For more information please visit the HRHRC Programs Website .

Thursday, June 29, 7-8 PM, HRHRC, Dr. Barry Powell, Alphabetology. Dr. Powell is a Professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He will focus on the nature and origin of the Greek alphabet. For more information please visit the HRHRC Programs Website .

Thursday, July 27, 7-8 PM, HRHRC, Dr. Mark Van Stone, The Interaction of Pen, Paper, and Scribe: The Technical and Aesthetic Forces that Shape our Letterforms. For more information please visit the HRHRC Programs Website .

Friday-Thursday, Nov 3-9, Hilton Austin, ASIST Conference. The 2006 ASIST conference "Information Realities: Shaping the Digital Future for All" will be in Austin this year November 3-9 at the Hilton Austin. This is a unique opportunity you will not want to miss. ASIS&T 2006 challenges us to explore this moment in the history of information science as people seamlessly move between their physical and digital worlds to create information realities for themselves and others. Submissions by researchers and practitioners are solicited on a wide range of topics.

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 or "mini proposal" to be accepted by the student's committee. This committee (perhaps, it should 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. Ron Houston and Don Drumtra have volunteered to post their comps as two different examples of what was required. Their exams were open book and emailed to them on Monday at 8 AM with a response was due by Friday at 5 PM. But since the exams are student and committee dependent, another student's may be completely different. Ron and Don have volunteered to answer any questions you might have about their experiences.

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:

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.