http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/26/dark-side-internet-freenet

Read it.

As a result, the real science of the eighteenth century was practised by social oddities: by eccentrics like the Cavendish or the Oxford antiquaries, by Unitarians and Quakers from the midlands, and by untaught mechanics like James Brindley who designed the whole system of English waterways, but never leared to spell “navigation.”

Yesterday, I received an email from a German colleague, a PhD student from Berlin who I met at SIPP in 2005.  He noted that he was also nearing the end of his program, and that his dissertation was about to be reviewed by his committee.  He attached the manuscript to the email – all 118 pages of text.  In this moment – what my wife would call a liminal space – after years of journeying toward the end of the doctoral process, and after the stifling of our social being in order to produce research that is hopefully novel and interesting, I think there is a need for recognition and communion.  To share what we have produced.  And yet most people beyond the committee either do not have the time or interest to engage deeply with us in this final mile of the process.

I was flattered that my acquaintance from Europe felt strongly enough to send me his manuscript.  In a few years – with any luck – neither of us will have the time to spend reviewing a manuscript that doesn’t pertain directly to our own subdiscipline.  But at this moment, I find joy in walking with him toward his path of completion, honoring the document itself, and recognizing the sacrifices that each of us makes as part of this process — even though most remain unspoken.

UW Milwaukee Library

For me this was brought home as I inserted the final changes recommended by my committee — I was sitting in Roast Coffee Shop and then moved to the UWM libraries for the final details to work on some faster machines.  The last leg was actually completed in the halls of an entirely different institution.  This felt comforting to me in some ways as I listened to the chatter of undergraduates about their papers – arguing about the meaning of the word “plurality” – thinking about the last 10 years of higher education, the process of transformation into a scholar and (hopefully) a healer.  In spite of the 2,000 miles between me and my home institution and advisor, the work of the university was going on around me.

It is fairly typical for one member of the committee join during the defense by phone — particularly consulting faculty.  However, I am wondering if and when the day will come for virtual or  tele-presence dissertation defense proceedings?  It would be interesting to hear if anyone has done this yet.  I don’t think it would be for me, but particularly for highly specialized topics, I can imagine this becoming common place in the future.

There are clearly important academic reasons for this:  First, institutions have different entrance requirements and they may want to ensure that all students in a particular class meet that standard; second, classes are typically approved by faculty senate or other governing body to ensure that the syllabus meets acceptable standards within the institution — accepting an other institution’s classes means that the quality of the class must be taken on some level of faith; third, even if a student were able to easily take a graduate level course at another institution, there would have to be some grade reconciliation between the two schools.  There are also substantial financial disincentives to simplified articulation systems between institutions — and by preventing students from seeking extramural course work, universities are able to monopolistically control tuition fees.

At one end of the spectrum, loose articulation standards create one of the avenues for diploma mills to function.  However, at the other, the lack of efficient, flexible, yet academically rigorous articulation systems is one of the drags on innovation within the modern university system. 

While I do not fully agree with the sentiment offered by David Wiley that “Universities will be irelevant by 2020″,  the ability to rapidly integrate course work from multiple IHEs into a customized learning experience — that also meets home institution academic standards — seems like an achievable and necessary step.

The defense of the dissertation is inherently a liminal space¹ — the candidate stands at the dividing line between being a student and entering the professional space occupied by his or her advisors. At the close of a successful defense, the student is in a small way transformed. The student also stands at the edge of their own knowledge, and if it is “done right” the student and committee have been brought to the edge of what is know in the field of study.

The metaversity concept suggest that another layer of liminality is added to this mix. In the process of defining and exploring the transdiscipline, the graduate student may come to posses an understanding of the disciplinary interesection that significantly exceeds the understanding of the committee (in terms of this narrow field of study), in effect inverting the structure of the committee. The student may have to use the committee members not so much in a pedagogical role, but rather as guides — using their accumulated knowledge and experience to structure lines of inquiry designed to address the developing transdisipline in a rigorous way, using established modes of inquiry while simultaneously working to integrate these approaches and innovating where necessary.