Shaping the Digital Dissertation

Abstract

While digital dissertations have been around for many years, the processes by which they are defined, created and defended remain something of a mystery. Is an interactive PDF significantly different from its paper-based counterpart? What specific possibilities can a digitally networked environment open up that would be impossible in print? How are dissertation committees able to gauge the quality of natively digital work? What support systems and workflows do students need to complete these types of projects? How do digital projects change the ways faculty members advise doctoral students? What are the implications of born-digital dissertations for career choices, hiring potential and work beyond the academy? Shaping the Digital Dissertation: Knowledge Production in the Arts and Humanities addresses these questions in a book whose chapters explore the larger implications of digital scholarship across institutional, geographic and disciplinary divides. Indeed, the issues are all the more pressing as universities have moved online in response to the pandemic, revealing the need for both greater epistemological experimentation and more creative pedagogy. This raises even more questions about the future of scholarship. The book consists of two sections: the first, written by senior scholars, uses jargon-free language to tackle some conceptual concerns around directing and assessing dissertations, as well as doctoral education more broadly defended a natively digital dissertation. These narratives were carefully selected for their ability to represent a diverse set of disciplinary and institutional settings. Within these specialized contexts, however, the chapters also serve as case studies that address common themes faced by doctoral students as well as their advisors.