3 credit hours for the pilot group of ABD's in advanced stages of dissertation
writing in the theory and technology of electronic research in the Humanities.
The ABD's will be primarily composed of those student chosen for the ETD pilot
group for submission in Spring '99. On-campus experts will be guest lecturers.
This plan serves a threefold purpose, beyond providing ongoing technical
support for the electronic dissertation design and creation process:
ABD's will apply for tuition scholarships (to be advertised via DEO lists, FYI, the
DI and various electronic e-mail lists on campus) for the seminar. Admittance
to the seminar will be prioritized for those Graduates chosen for the ETD pilot
group.
A group of 10 to 15 ABD's, in the advanced stages of writing their theses, will be chosen based upon their applications to submit in electronic format. Criteria for application are listed below, but must be ultimately predicated upon complete acceptance (in writing, must accompany application, see attached) of their submission in electronic format by their dissertation committee.
Those selected will register for and attend the Research and Electronic-textnology Seminar (tuition covered as part of the selection award) for 2 credit hours. A small upgrade scholarship is also part of the award for each student chosen to facilitate access to materials (software, Zip drive, memory, etc.) to aid the preparation of the electronic dissertation (e.g., tuition + $500.00).
Initial and final dissertation submissions will follow the current Graduate College
Calendar, but will be done electronically. Instructional colloquia will be offered
for committee members.
Date__________________
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Pilot Group Applications
The Graduate College
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242
Dear __________ (dean? committee? ***),
The members of the dissertation committee for _________________________________ (ABD's name) hereby agree that the development and submission of the Ph.D. thesis is to be done in electronic format, according to the current set of Graduate College standards.
The committee agrees that the archival or "canonical" edition of the
dissertation will be the electronic version submitted by the student according to
existing Graduate College submission deadlines. In addition, all content‹text,
graphic, and/or multimedia‹will be included in that submission and is duly
reviewed according to departmental standards.
The committee understands that, just as the traditional hardcopy submission
must conform to certain formatting specifications, it will also be the
responsibility of the Graduate Student to conform to the electronic
specifications (e.g., eXtensible Markup Language, JPEG graphics, MPEG
multi-media, etc.) currently established for this pilot group of Electronic Theses
and Dissertation submissions. Any electronic use of material that is not
contained in the actual electronic files comprising the dissertation (e.g., links to
sites on the World Wide Web) which may not be permanent will be considered
by the committee in the approval process as to whether the dissertation's
rhetorical stance is still valid should those links expire or change over time.
It is also agreed that the student, as part of being accepted into this pilot group, must be enrolled in the Spring '99 seminar: "Electronic-textnology & Scholarly Research" (course # ****).
_________________________________ ______________________________
Dissertation Committee Chair Committee Member
_________________________________ ______________________________
Committee Member Committee Member
_________________________________
Committee Member
The Graduate College announces a pilot program to begin
acceptance of theses and dissertations in electronic format.
Graduate students who are in advanced stages of dissertation
writing and who are anticipating completion in 1999 are
invited‹provided they have the approval of their respective
dissertation committees‹to apply for acceptance in the first group
of Electronic Theses and Dissertation (ETD) submission at the
University of Iowa.
Applicants who are accepted will receive a small tuition and
materials scholarship. The tuition scholarship is applied to the
costs of enrollment in a seminar to be required of all pilot
electronic submitters, entitled "Electronic-textnology & Scholarly
Research." They will also receive a small software/equipment
stipend. The submission must meet existing Graduate College
deadlines, and conform to the electronic standards (e.g., eXtensible
Markup Language, JPEG images, MPEG multimedia) identified for
Electronic Theses and Dissertations at the University of Iowa.
Colloquia will also be available to dissertation committee
members in how to review and make use of the electronic format in
the revision and defense process.
Application materials are available from the Graduate College,
Second Floor Gilmore Hall, or on the Web at
http://www.uiowa.edu/~gradcoll/etd/.**NOT ACTIVE YET**
Applications must
include a letter of consent for electronic submission (form
included with application materials) signed by the
dissertation committee before they can be considered.
Deadline for Applications is November 15, 1999.
Questions can be directed to (Welburn? Keller?
Gardner?*******)
This seminar will develop both the theory and the application of electronic
technology to electronic texts ("e-textnology" for short). Whether the text is
an article, book, primary source edition, or dissertation, the recent
development of eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and the widespread
professional, research, and commercial implementation of this standard marks
a significant change in the theory and development of all types of scholarly
resources. XML allows the consistency and reliability of an international
standard while affording the flexibility for individual researchers to tailor it to
their needs. This seminar and the majority of its participants are part of the
Electronic Theses and Dissertation pilot project of the Graduate College.
The first three weeks of this seminar will be an intense integration of theory and
technical training for how to apply the potential of XML to your research and,
ultimately, to each discipline as a whole. We will also learn the skills require to
design and deploy XML for electronic research. Several guest lecturers from on
campus whose expertise in theory, technology, or both will assist the inquiry
into the basic theoretical aspects of this technology. There will be extended
readings.
In the following three weeks, we will attend in detail to the architecture of XML
tags and how they can be applied to each person's research. Participants in
the seminar will make presentations of preliminary tag sets and present a brief
summary of the theory and methodological issues attendant upon their design.
Participants are encouraged to join scholarly e-mail list serves in their areas of
academic interest and invite feedback on the conceptual workings behind their
design. This content and the participant's own discussion will be incorporated
into the discussion of the XML design.
The remaining weeks will interweave detailed technical instruction in techniques
for generating content, interspersed with presentations of draft chapters of
the dissertation.
Throughout the course there will be brief written/presentation projects, all of
which are geered toward development of tools and theory for the electronic
dissertation.
Sessions will meet either in the Information Arcade (for practicums
and technical instruction) or in the regular meeting room. There
will be several media presentations in the seminar room.
The syllabus is designed to provide variety as well as specific development of technical skills. XML is relatively simple, but like any language, has a learning curve. So, theory will be integrated with practice to give the left and right brain alternate rest weeks. In addition, all projects are designed to immediately assist the production of the electronic dissertation, rather than drain time/energy from it.
Week 10