Welcome to the Ph.D. Course Comments Webpage. This page provides comments on courses of general interest to Ph.D. students and evaluations by other iSchool Ph.D. students. Use this information with caution. The information provided is strictly the opinion of the individual student providing the information and may not be all that current. Also, different professors place different interpretations of a topic. And the same professor may teach a course radically differently than the previous course of the same name. Suggested additions, corrections, and other comments, as well as your specific opinion on specific courses, are always appreciated. Email.

Ph.D. Students Informal Comments on
Research Methods and Other Graduate Courses

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. The following provides comments from iSchool Ph.D. students on some of the courses. The views reflect only the opinions of the students and not the university or iSchool.

Qualitative Methods, EDP 482K. Jason Turner provides the following on Dr. Suzanne Dancer's course: I've had EDP 482K but with Dancer; I've heard that reactions to this course vary strongly based on the prof. Dr. Dancer was fantastic and I was surprised how much she actually made me enjoy a stats class--I've talked to others who took the class from different profs and their experiences were not so positive (but that's just my little slice of experience).

Research Methods in Information Systems, MIS 381N.26. Earlier, Lisa Kleinman 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).

Field and Observational Methods, SOC 388K. Our colleague Jason Turner provided the following on SOC 388K taught by Dr. Christine Williams. I took Soc 388K with Williams along with another fellow iSchool Ph.D. student--I can't speak for her, but I really REALLY liked Dr. Williams; the class was enjoyable and covered a lot of territory that was pretty alien to both my experience and more traditional ways of thinking about research and research philosophy. If you haven't ever had a qualitative methods course before, I can't personally think of a better survey type overview of various qual methods than her class. A word of caution though--your comfort level with qual methods as a whole will obviously influence how well to take to her course. We did spend a good deal of the first part of the class talking about theory and philosophy--but if you've never had a qualitative methods course before, I believe you honestly need such discussions to get an appreciation for where these methods come from, why they're appropriate, what using them implies about the kinds of questions you can ask of the universeand how to answer them, and how the methods themselves reflect on the world viewof the scientist employing them. It IS far more than a "how-to" course in particularmethods, and I personally found it more useful in that regard because I was alsointerested in the philosophy behind the methods--not just the methods per se.If you have an interest in the philosophical, epistemological, or scientificimplications of using these methods, then I think Williams gives a great overview--ifyou just want to know how to conduct interviews, field observations, or traceevidence studies, then this might not be the best choice. However, you DO getsome field practice in the class--you're required to do some field observationsand direct interviews, coding and interpreting the transcripts and descriptivedata, and have to put them all together for a final project report.

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).

Dissertation Courses 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..

iSchool Dissertation Research and Theory (DRT) courses. There are two mandatory Ph.D. courses for iSchool. Ph.D. students, DRT 1 and DRT 2. Dr. Philip Doty, course instructor, for the fall 2006, DRT 1 course has provided his course syllabus for our enlightenment and reading pleasure. It provides an excellent set of references that we would do well to read if we have not read them already. Dr,. Doty would appreciate any comments or suggestions for future courses. lease provide you comments directly to Dr. Doty. at pdoty@ischool.utexas.edu.

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.

Other Courses and Workshops

There are various other workshops and short courses available on campus. Follow these links for more information.

Graduate School Workshops

UT Employee courses.

Last update: 2006 September 24