It seems to me that the essential issue is not whether your dissertation is
hypermedia or print. The essential issue is the content of it, and who can
guide research on that particular topic. Once you have developed a better
feel for the research questions and content of your dissertation, then I
think it will be easier to invite faculty members to be on your committee.
What issues are you interested in addressing regarding electronic
publication? Who is writing about those issues? Are you reading the
journals that discuss such issues? Are you on the listserves where such
issues are discussed? Have you found any faculty in those forums whose you
admire? Have you sought out their work to read or perhaps shared some of
your own?
Have you written anything on this topic yourself? If so, perhaps you can
share it with people whose work you respect and see what they think of it?.
Have you presented at any conferences on this topic? That's another good
way to meet people. Have you asked the faculty member at your campus who
will support you who he might recommend?
In short, choosing a dissertation committee should be the last stage of a
lengthy process of academic networking. By the time you choose a
committee, you should know the people fairly well, have communicated with
them, read their work, shared your own work, etc. It might not always work
that way exactly, but ideally that's the way it should work.
An excellent article on academic networking (though not specifically on
dissertation stuff) is Phil Agre's "Networking on the Network":
<http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/network.html>.
One more point: in reaching out to potential committee members, it's not
very fruitful to come off as desperate (e.g., there's absolutely nobody out
there to help me because I'm doing something so avant garde and only you
can come in and save me). Build a relationship with potential committee
members on your mutual interests, show them your own strengths as you
develop them, and make it evident that the time and effort they put into
guiding your work will be rewarding and beneficial to them in terms of
having a chance to learn from a hard-working and creative young scholar.
Few faculty members have the time or interest in co-authoring your work,
but you should be able to find several who are willing to help guide the
work of a sharp, independent doctoral candidate
Anyway, that's my dos centavos.
Good luck!
Mark Warschauer
http://www.lll.hawaii.edu/markw
At 6:37 PM +0300 5/8/00, Jude Edminster wrote:
>Hi, Everyone.
>
>I'm embarking on the project of developing a hypermedia dissertation
>focusing on electronic publication issues which will ultimately be published
>in the National Digital Library for Theses and Dissertations. It will never
>exist in print.
>
>There is only one faculty member in my department who can truly support me
>in this endeavor, and I have chosen him to direct it. But it is becoming
>clear that I will need to go outside my department in order to find other
>computers and writing faculty who can serve on my committee. I want faculty
>on my committee who are truly capable of evaluating (and essentially
>co-authoring) my dissertation research, construction, and publication.
>
>I have no idea how to go about such a search for interested faculty from
>institutions other than my own.
>
>I imagine that there must be many other graduate students and their mentors
>who find themselves within departments like my own, and are facing these
>same issues.
>
>Any ideas on how they can be addressed?
>
>Jude Edminster
>
>
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