Definitions

Advisory committee: During your doctoral studies, you will work closely with one or more faculty members both in SLIS and in your outside minor area. You must establish an official Advisory Committee before the end of your first year in the doctoral program. Your Advisory Committee consists of at least three faculty members who will work closely with you until you pass your qualifying examination. Two members of your Advisory Committee must be from SLIS; one member must be from your outside minor area. The chair of your Advisory Committee, who will serve as your primary advisor, must be a full-time SLIS faculty member. At least half of the members of your Advisory Committee, including the chair, must be members of the University Graduate School faculty. Because the chair of your Advisory Committee is critical to your success in the doctoral program, it is your responsibility to select a chair with whom you are comfortable and who can support and advance your research interests.

Research committee: After admission to candidacy, your next step is to assemble a Research Committee whose members will assume responsibility for guiding you through the dissertation process and conducting the oral defense of the dissertation. Your Research Committee must have at least four members, three of whom must be from SLIS and one from your minor area. At least one member of the committee should have particular expertise in the research method(s) you plan to use in your research. All members of your Ph.D. Research Committee must be members of the University Graduate School faculty and at least half of the Research Committee must be full members of the graduate faculty.

The committee chair must be a full-time member of the SLIS faculty. It is usual for the committee chair to serve as the dissertation director; however, it is acceptable for another committee member with particular expertise in your research area to direct the dissertation. Specifically, the committee chair and the dissertation director (if other than the chair) must be full members of the graduate faculty. If an associate or affiliate member of the graduate faculty has special expertise in the area of your research, the research committee chair and the Director of the Doctoral Program may petition UGS to allow that faculty member to direct your dissertation.

In some cases, it is possible to include a committee member who is not a member of the Indiana University faculty. To receive approval for such a substitution, two conditions must be met: The external member must have special expertise, either in the major area of study or in the research methodology, that is not available among the members of the graduate faculty; and the external member must have a strong, documented history of research.

The members of your Research Committee must be approved by the University Graduate School at least six months before the final defense of the dissertation. The UGS form for Nomination of Research Committee for the Ph.D. is available online.