Prof. Michael O'Rourke DDA-606B, Seminar II

Assignment

Final Thesis Proposal

Your final thesis proposal is a collection of materials and documents describing your thoughts, intentions, and plans for the Thesis project you hope and expect to do next year in Thesis I and Thesis II.

The DDA faculty have collectively described what they expect to see in a good final thesis proposal. The details of what is expected vary depending on the type of work you are doing – Interactive, Imaging, Animation. All three concentrations, however, share certain requirements. And for all three the goal is for you to have done enough research, testing, thinking, and art-making that it is clear that:

What you are proposing is intellectually substantive

You have a good understanding of the relevant historical precedents

You have a reasonable control and understanding of the technical issues involved

You have done enough prior work of this sort to demonstrate that you are capable of this sort of project

You have produced some samples of the actual thesis project artwork

Refer to the Thesis Benchmarks document developed by the DDA faculty for details of what content DDA expects in a good Seminar II final thesis proposal.

Like your mid-term proposal, your final proposal materials should be assembled into one coherent PDF file and posted to your blog. This file should contain revised and expanded versions of what you began in your mid-term proposal, plus some additional materials. Consult the Sample Proposal Paper for the formatting of your paper. Specifically, your final proposal should contain the following:

A cover page that lists: Title of Thesis Project; Your Name; Intended Graduation Date; Current Date; DDA Seminar II; Name of Seminar II Instructor.

A one or two sentence Abstract of the general topic and form of your thesis project

A copy of the DDA Seminar II Benchmarks (only the section for your concentration)

Discussion of your concept and inspiration

Detailed descriptions of the physical form and technical details of the project

A preliminary production schedule

A preliminary budget

Supporting visual materials

A research bibliography

Visual information about the probable installation and exhibition layout of your project.

All of your final materials should be assembled into one coherent PDF file/paper and posted to your blog. The organization of your materials should be clear and obvious within this paper. The content of your materials should be thorough and thoughtful. Also print out one paper copy of this PDF file and hand it in to the instructor on the due date.

You will present this same material to the Thesis Committee of DDA faculty. You may do so using exactly the same PDF file that you posted to your blog, or you may organize your materials somewhat differently for your committee session. If you do so, you should not change the content, but you may organize things differently to facilitate your in-person presentation.