Well, the new 5033 class is now up and running, and I seem to have lucked out yet again in terms of the people in it. Sometimes I can’t believe that I get paid for this.
Took a lttle blogging hiatus here, as it’s been a pretty stressful time of the semester: Digital Collections is reaching its exciting conclusion, I had to come up with my summer faculty research proposal about a topic that is almost totally new to me (explanatory models, very cool) last month, and finish getting ready for my twenty or so unsuspecting folks in “Information and the Knowledge Society” (aka “Survivor D2L”) next month.
Interestingly enough, Digital Collections wasn’t evaluated as an online class through the usual process (due to the fact that we had several face-to-face meetings over the course of the semester, I suspect), and probably wasn’t evaluated by anyone at all, since the process for evaluating a basically internet class without using the standard online process is absurdly convoluted (especially as I’m not supposed to have anything to do with it.) So I’m going with the hypothesis that this probably pretty much captures how people felt about certain aspects of the class. Quick, another reading!
No. But I monitor very closely. Blog posts and class discussions. For what it’s worth.
When I’m not fixing the server running OMEKA on Saturday morning or responding to emergency email requests at midnight, that is.
Interesting that some of my colleagues think that online courses are somehow easier. When we move to offering almost every course as an online option, as is the plan, the difficulties may become a little clearer.
On the other hand, they may be entirely correct in saying that I’m trying a bit too hard to move the pendulum towards more freedom and creativity. We may not be ready for Library School 2.0 after all. A pity.
One of the several reasons that I’m not enamored of the current comps process here at our school is that it takes time away from coursework to prepare for those mysterious “three questions,” and then if for some reason a person is called for an oral defense, that takes another week of high anxiety and frantic wondering about what might have gone wrong (which also takes away from focusing on my course at the exact point in the semester when we should all be immersed in it!)
So, in the interests of efficiency, here are the two things that are most likely to have gone wrong if you face an oral defense:
(1) Content. You didn’t directly address the question that was asked. Even if your essay was brilliantly done, if it didn’t answer the original question, it’s probably going to be flagged. (And this is why I advise people who are “original thinkers” not to do comps, as it’s too often a disadvantage for them if they let their creativity carry them out of well-charted territory.) A weak answer and one that goes off on a tangent are also problematic.
(2) Format. You didn’t provide a well-organized essay in reasonably good English. (And this is why I think I’m going to continue to push for people to choose the portfolio process, as the three totally different essays during the 4 1/2 hour comps time period really disadvantages people for whom English is not a first language, and we’re trying to attract a more diverse student body, hmm?) And, by the way, just providing an outline and not the required essay doesn’t work, in case you were wondering about trying that. [Post-comps update 10/31: actually, it does work, if you provide a very strong outline and no essay, but then write an excellent essay afterwards, cover all the relevant points, and recite it from memory as your opening remarks during the defense. Absolutely astonishing: I didn't think anyone could actually do that. But it's so stressful for the person involved, that I would never recommend it!] However, in general I should also say that it’s not an unreasonable expectation that a native English speaker should be able to produce such essays within the exam time period: communication skills will be critical throughout your ensuing career!
So, if you have to face an oral defense panel, remember to dress professionally, prepare your thoughts about the question in advance, make a good opening statement about how you would now address the same question (in general, don’t wait to be interrogated: this is a great opportunity to gently emphasize your knowledge of the particular topic, as you’ve had a few days to prepare for this exact discussion!), and try to relax: remember that the faculty actually wants you to pass. (Though I realize that it’s hard to believe that if you’re the one called for a defense.)
By the way, your advisor is allowed to give you advice about defense preparation, but you have to ask for it, because we really, truly don’t know who’s defending and who’s not!
Hmm, I’d love to use Brian O’Connor’s new book, Doing Things With Information, as a text:
“The relationship between a person with a question and a source of information is complex. Indexing and abstracting often fail because too much emphasis is put on the mechanics of description and too little on what ought to be represented. Research literature suggests that inappropriate representation results in failed searches a significant number of times, perhaps even in a majority of cases. Doing Things with Information seeks to rectify this unfortunate situation by emphasizing methods of modeling and constructing appropriate representations of such questions and documents. Students in programs of information studies will find focal points for discussion about system design and refinement of existing systems. Librarians, scholars, and those who work within large document collections, whether paper or electronic, will find insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the access systems they use.”
My suspicion is that a text like this would throw a whole new light on library and information studies for people just starting the program…. in fact, maybe even better for people just finishing the program?
Well, why not? Here’s the wiki! And here’s the blog that started the wiki, if five weeks just isn’t enough for you. (“Five weeks to a social library” worked pretty well, though five weeks to the semantic library does seem like pushing it….)
Interesting post from Georgia Harper, well-known blawgger and current doctoral student at University of Texas-Austin’s i-school on how she’s approaching the challenge of choosing a dissertation topic. Since I’ve been hearing from a number of pretty talented folks here about the challenge of choosing a master’s thesis topic, I thought perhaps those folks would be interested in this too. (I’m tempted to do some kind of pun about “Georgia on my mind,” but all punmaking has now been outsourced to appropriate members of the Digital Collections class, and I’m reduced to mere punditry here.)
In any case, it’s food for thought for those mulling over doing a thesis (my own advice, of course, is “don’t bite off more than you can chew”— but then I famously failed to follow my own advice in my own dissertation— and I’m afraid I am still chewing on it!)
Her point about thinking about your next 10-15 years (though perhaps 5-7 years would be a fairer estimate at the master’s level!) is an excellent one. Seriously.
Since I’m not teaching a course on electronic resource management (though it’s most certainly related to Digital Collections, which I am teaching, and some people in the class no doubt wish that we’d do more with it!), Liblicense from the Yale University Library is somewhat peripheral to our focus, but it’s definitely worth a look as a digital collection in its own right.
Oh, and speaking of “Yale” and the complex history of such issues as copyright and licensing in America over the past century: Boomer, Sooner! (Of course, I do consider this a “transformative work”!)
Now, I’d also love to see our comprehensive examination questions answered in the format of these index cards by Jessica Hagy. Somebody do the “DIKW hierarchy” this way for me, please. (However, I can safely promise you that it won’t appear in comps next month!)
Since I don’t have to think about collections right now (given that 37 other people in KM/LIS 5990 are doing such an excellent job on that!), I thought I might think about comps, as the next administration of our comprehensive examination is coming up shortly. (Not my favorite topic, by the way, as I’m very much a fan of the portfolio or thesis “experience,” but not everyone else is, so I understand the necessity for having this option available.)
The following is taken from the SLIS Student Handbook:
Development of the Examination
“SLIS faculty generate a new set of questions each semester. Topics for the examination are not “course specific” but allow the student an opportunity to integrate content from several course areas and additional appropriate learning experiences. The questions focus upon six identified areas that all students are expected to master:
* the philosophical and theoretical foundations of our field
* the organization and control of information resources
* the provision and analysis of user services
* the management of information agencies
* acquiring and accessing information
* the application of research methods within our field.
Each individual question will require synthesis of knowledge from at least two of these areas.”
I don’t know whether students realize this, but every semester each tenured and tenure-track faculty member is requested by the Graduate Studies Committee to contribute at least three questions to the pool of questions for discussion (and, usually, modification) by the entire faculty as potential candidates as the questions posed for that semester’s examination. Only a few of these questions will “survive” this process, and those are the ones that will appear on the comprehensive exam for that semester.
There has been much angst lately over these questions (and the exam itself), so my suggestion for Comps 2.0 would be to require each student taking a “comprehensive examination” to submit three questions based on the “rubric” above to the faculty, and they would pass or fail based on the excellence of these questions they ask the faculty. In fact, I would do this as a semester-long “course” in Desire2Learn (since students have to be enrolled in order to take comps anyway), and the participating students could debate the merits of possible questions with each other and with any participating faculty before the deadline to place the questions in the dropbox. The questions would, of course, be submitted using the “comps administration number” system currently used to preserve student anonymity during the process, which seems to work pretty well. The closing of the dropbox would signal that the examination period was over.
This would involve having a “question bank” of all the questions (both successful and unsuccessful!) asked by students for the exam over the, say, past five years, so those particular questions could not be asked again by other students (at least not in the same or very similar way) while those questions were still “in the bank.” Interestingly, one of the things that might trigger “the defense” process might be the asking of very similar new questions by two or more individuals during the same semester, as further discussion might then be required to determine what differentiates those questions. But I’m still working on how “the defense” process might work in this scenario, and what might constitute “failure” in this kind of zetetic process.
Why do I think this is an improvement over the current examination procedure? Because none of the pretty good answers that one learns during graduate school will be nearly as useful in one’s professional life as the ability to ask the really good questions. Why do I think this would never be acceptable as a form of final assessment here? Now, that’s a really good question….
