Thanks! I'm thinking of formalizing the results of this discussion into
a rule to provide better guidance - so your general thoughts very welcome.
Here's a brief history of our standards from 2002 when I joined:
- When I joined, there was a word count standard that included a
progression in the form of credit for higher degrees: e.g.
The Degree of Associate of Nomic requires a Thesis of at least
150 words. A Candidate who already holds an AN Degree receives
a credit of 100 words towards the Thesis requirement for any
higher Degree, unless the Candidate also holds a BN Degree.
Levels were: AN 150, BN 250, Masters 750, Doctorate 1000
These are *really low* limits, and most theses blew these limits out
of the water regardless of level.
- Then, we went to a system where we appointed an official Thesis
Advisor who would recommend a level and review very critically,
the reviews were based on content (e.g. a 1000 word limited-scope
CFJ would be "lower" than a 1000 word deep philosophical essay).
- Then a vote where the voters had the Option of choosing any degree.
- Now the Herald has to pick which level to award before asking for
2 Agoran Consent - that makes it harder for voters to pick between
levels.
On Thu, 26 Oct 2017, Alexis Hunt wrote:
> No issues. It would be remiss of me to participate overly much in the
> discussions
> of the academy in regards to my own thesis.
>
> On Thu, 26 Oct 2017 at 12:56 Kerim Aydin <ke...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>
>
> Hi folks,
>
> I'm still struggling a bit "leveling" Alexis's thesis. By sheer length,
> it is clearly more than a B.N. and would fit for Masters. However
> (wearing my academic review hat, seriously I just got out of a review
> committee for a RL master's thesis), it's subject matter of the CFJ is
> limited in scope - while very-well analyzed, as written it has limited
> applicability or generalization outside of carefully analyzing a set of
> rules that have now been fixed.
>
> I'm going to give 24 more hours for discussion - there's currently no
> standards for theses in the rules.
>
> Just by word count, Masters.
> by content: B.N., but e has that already, so A.N.
> (ais523's suggestion of changing the rules to allow multiple degrees
> at each level is a good one, but I don't want to delay the award
> further).
>
> Also: should we consider "academic progression" at all, e.g. "this
> would be a masters if you'd filled in the lower degrees first, but
> since you haven't, fill in the lower?"
>
> My apologies, Alexis, if I'm over-thinking this. I'm totally happy
> to error upwards in most things and give the higher award, but I'm
> having
> a hard time getting over the "jump" in RL between undergrad and graduate
> degree expectations in terms of the research topic being more general
> than
> a specific CFJ. Since this is one of the rare Masters candidates, the
> decision sets something of a precedent...
>
> -G.
>
>
>
>
>
