Narrative, Blogs, and Social Knowledge Management

Here are the criteria for the dissertation proposal, as laid out by DSU:

The dissertation proposal will be evaluated based on the following key criteria, in addition to the overall quality of writing and presentation.

• Problem statement
  • Is the problem statement clearly defined?
  • Is the research problem well motivated? Does the author include supporting data/references to show the importance of the problem?
  • Is the research problem interesting and current? Are there recent publications addressing the general research area?
• Literature review
  • Is the literature review comprehensive and complete?
  • Does it include obvious and highly relevant references?
  • Does the literature review include current and latest developments in the area?
  • Is the literature review well organized? Does the author use tables or other artifacts to categorize or summarize the literature review?
• Research Model / IT Artifact
  • Is the research model / IT artifact clearly articulated and described?
  • Does the research model / IT artifact have a sound theoretical base?
  • Is the research model / IT artifact logically derived from theory and past literature?
• Methodology
  • Is the methodology clearly described?
  • Does the methodology section includes details of experiment/survey design and instruments/case studies if employing quantitative and qualitative research methods?
  • Does the proposal include validation mechanism if employing design science research methods?

In addition to the above criteria, the dissertation proposal will be evaluation based on originality and impact. The following points clarify the nature of an original contribution:

• Something that has not been done, found, known, proved, said, or seen before that results from:
  • Asking or identifying new questions, topics, or areas of exploration
  • Applying new ideas, methods, approaches, or analyses to an old question, problem, issue, idea, source, thinker, or text
  • Developing or applying new theories, theorems, theoretical descriptions, or theoretical frameworks
    o Inventing, developing, or applying new methods, approaches, computations, techniques, or technologies
  • Creating, finding, or using new data, data sets, archives, information, materials, or sources
  • Applying old ideas, methods, approaches, or analyses, to new data, material, or sources
  • Developing or applying new analyses, analytic approaches, frameworks, techniques, models, or statistical procedures
  • Coming up with new ideas, connections, inferences, insights, interpretations, observations, perspectives
  • Producing new conclusions, answers, findings, or proofs
  • Combining or synthesizing things (experiments, facts, knowledge, models of inquiry, problems, sources, technologies, theoretical constructs) from other fields or disciplines
• Is publishable
• Adds to knowledge
• Changes the way people think
• Moves the field forward/advances the state of the art

No problem, right? :-)