Thesis and Dissertation Requirements
All graduate and Ph.D. students must submit a thesis or dissertation, respectively. However, Media Arts and Science students may elect to complete a capstone project instead of a thesis.
The Process*
- Selecting your Team
- Proposal
- Developing and Writing your Thesis/Dissertation
- Defense
- Publication and Archival
*Human-Computer Interaction students should review documents in the Forms & Documents page in addition to the information listed here.
Selecting your Team
An important step in preparing for your thesis or dissertation proposal is selecting the team that will help mentor and guide you through the project. This team is made up of the following key roles:
Research Advisor
The research advisor is the immediate supervisor of your research activity. This can be anyone approved by your academic advisor (and may be your academic advisor, if appropriate). The research advisor is not required to be School of Informatics faculty.
Thesis/Dissertation Committee
This committee must have at least three members, one of whom is the research advisor. Typically, the committee members are: research advisor, program director and a third person knowledgeable in the student’s research area. This third person can be a non-academic professional, as well as non-Informatics faculty.
Reviewer
The reviewer helps prepare your final approved thesis/dissertation before binding. This person assists with formatting and quality issues to ensure that everything is correctly assembled and produced for archiving.
Proposal
All thesis/dissertation work requires a proposal to direct the overall project. This must be established before the thesis/dissertation begins and approved by the research advisor and committee.
Proposals are evaluated by the following criteria:
- Background and rationale
- Does the project address a significant issue or problem in informatics?
- How well does the project connect to larger issues in the field?
- How knowledgeable is the student about these larger issues?
- Research project objectives
- Is the hypothesis clearly formulated?
- Are the objectives clear and concise?
- Are the objectives and hypothesis linked?
- Is the hypothesis entirely covered by the objectives?
- Can the project appropriately test the hypothesis or answer the question?
- Methods and plans
- Are the methods appropriate for the project goals?
- How detailed and specific are the methods?
- Can the project be completed with the time and resources available?
- Have all necessary commitments from participants been obtained?
- Are all tasks clearly assigned to participants?
- Has a method been devised to measure the project’s success?
- Student background
- Does the student have the ability (knowledge, skills, and resources) to undertake the project?
- Is the project appropriate for the student’s subject matter and career goals?
Developing and Writing your Thesis/Dissertation
Thesis/Dissertation work may begin after the proposal has been approved.
Students should consult “A Guide to the Preparation of Theses and Dissertations” and the IU Style Guide for direction on formatting. “A Guide to the Preparation of Theses and Dissertations” is provided by the IUPUI Graduate Office and contains most of the formatting rules you must follow. Exceptions are listed under Informatics Thesis Format. The IU Style Guide sets conventions to follow in general IU communications.
Additional formatting questions can be addressed by reviewing past theses and dissertations stored in IUPUIScholarWorks.
As the project nears completion, the research advisor and committee will suggest revisions for the final defense.
Defense
Students must defend their thesis/dissertation in an open seminar with the research advisor and committee. Based upon the defense, the committee may make final recommendations prior to publication.
Publication and Archiving
Once finalized and reviewed to ensure proper formatting, theses and dissertations must be hard-bound and archived. Two bound copies are required, with one copy given to the School of Informatics graduate office and the other to the research advisor. The graduate program director must also receive a bound copy if he/she is not the research advisor.
Bound theses must be printed on 100% cotton rag paper, single-sided only. Binding prices vary according to company and turnaround time. Typical cost runs between $30-$50/each for two to four bound copies. Students are responsible for this cost.
Unbound copies should be distributed to remaining members of the committee. Finally, an electronic version should be submitted to the reviewer via CD-ROM or email.
IUPUI holds past informatics graduate thesis in the IUPUI ScholarWorks digital archive. Please contact Mary O’Neill, assistant to the Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Research, for permission to electronically submit your final thesis. Note: Some Informatics graduate programs only require an electronic submission of your thesis/dissertation while others require both an electronic and bound copy.
