Dissertation

The development of the dissertation is formally monitored at both the proposal stage and the final defense.

Dissertation Proposal

A dissertation proposal provides a plan for completing a dissertation. It sets the goals for the enterprise, links the current work to previous efforts, describes the anticipated advance in knowledge and/or practice, and describes the steps to be taken to reach the goal (including methods to be used to ensure valid, reliable, and unbiased assessment/documentation/ research).

The proposal will be reviewed and approved by a doctoral (Ed.D.) dissertation committee which consists of a minimum of three individuals, at least two of whom are Rutgers faculty members. Any full-time faculty or staff member at Rutgers with an earned doctorate and appropriate expertise is eligible to serve as a committee member if recommended by the chair of a dissertation committee. A person with appropriate expertise outside Rutgers may become a member of a specific dissertation committee if recommended in writing by a committee chair and approved by the associate dean for academic affairs. A vita for an outside committee member must be provided.

It is the student's responsibility to form a committee that is approved by the dissertation chair. Each dissertation committee is composed so that the following conditions are satisfied:

1.   The chair should be a current member of the Graduate School of Education

(GSE) faculty.

2.   At least one member of the committee should be affiliated with the concentration

for which the student is fulfilling the Ed.D. requirements.

3.   At least one member of the committee should be from outside the student's

concentration.

Subsequent changes in the composition of a doctoral committee require concurrence among the chair of the committee, the associate dean for academic affairs, and the faculty members involved.

The student must accept responsibility for developing an acceptable dissertation proposal in consultation with his or her committee. When the proposal is ready for committee consideration and action, the dissertation committee is formed by the student in consultation with the student's adviser. An open defense is required before the proposal can be given final approval and assigned.

An announcement of the proposal defense, including an electronic copy of a one-page abstract, is to be submitted to the Office of Academic Services two weeks prior to the defense date. This abstract will be used to publicize the proposal defense. After the proposal has been successfully defended, two copies of the approved proposal, signed by each committee member, are required to be filed in the Office of Academic Services.

Preparation

Certain requirements must be adhered to during the preparation of dissertations. Specific regulations, such as those pertaining to format and style, must be followed in order to ensure that the dissertation can be accepted by the school for submission to the candidate's doctoral committee and to the university library for filing. The final date for submission of the dissertation and abstract is posted on the GSE website http://www.gse.rutgers.edu.

A copy of the final defense draft should be available to the committee at least one month prior to the defense date. Upon completion of the oral defense, the student is required to submit an electronic copy of the dissertation, including the abstract, on the RUetd website: http://etd.libraries.rutgers.edu. The electronic copy must include the names of the candidate's doctoral committee without signatures. Additional materials required for final submission include one paper copy of the abstract, one copy of the signed title page, the receipted payment form, the ProQuest agreement forms, and survey forms. All of the above forms must be submitted to the Office of Academic Services no later than the announced deadlines for completion of degree requirements.

Dissertation Defense

In addition to the public presentation of the dissertation, each student will prepare a dissertation defense. The dissertation defense is conducted with members of the student's dissertation committee, chaired by the chair of the committee, and conducted to provide a thorough and systematic examination of the candidate on the content of the dissertation. Approval of a dissertation requires a unanimous vote of the committee. The chair of the committee reports the result of the examination to the Office of Academic Services. All members of the university community are invited to be present during the oral examination.

Dissertation defenses are not held during the months of July and August. In exceptional cases, with the unanimous consent of the members of the dissertation committee and the concurrence of the department chair, arrangements may be made to hold an examination during these months.

Publication

After a candidate has been awarded the doctorate, the Graduate School of Education requires that the dissertation be microfilmed. Therefore, the dissertation must be prepared with the same care as if it were to appear in printed form. The abstract, which is to accompany the dissertation and which must not exceed 350 words, will be published in Dissertation Abstracts. It also should be submitted ready for publication. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan, will microfilm the dissertation and publish the abstract. Publication by microfilm does not preclude publication by other methods.