660A:
This is the first of two thesis courses for all MFA candidates in Digital Arts. It is the fourth course in the DDA MFA thesis process, following the completion of DDA-606B Graduate Seminar II, and it is a pre-requisite for DDA-660B Thesis II. Students are expected to begin the production of a DDA-660B Thesis II. Students are expected to begin the production of a significant original contribution to the field of Digital Arts.

660B:
This is the culminating course for all MFA candidates in Digital Arts. It is the fourth and final course in the Digital Arts MFA thesis process, following the completion of DDA-660A Thesis I. Students are expected to complete and present a significant original contribution to the field of Digital Arts in the form of a visual project and a written documentation of the entire process, from research through completion.

This course is your thesis-project course. During it you produce the thesis project you planned in DDA-606A and DDA-606B (the Graduate Seminar courses of first year). The course is run as a seminar. There is no preset list of instructional topics. Instead, conceptual, artistic, and technical issues are dealt with as they are raised by your projects. Students are expected to work regularly and at a steady pace without formal tests or assignments. This requires independence, maturity, self-motivation, and self-scheduling on your part.

I will serve as an advisor to you in all this. I will make suggestions to you on various aspects of your project. But, with few exceptions, I will not be telling you specifically what to do or exactly when to do it.

Entry Requirements

Thesis I: Students should have developed a viable thesis plan in DDA-606B, Graduate Seminar II and should come into this class already having a good familiarity with the principles and practice of the area of digital art-making in which they intend to work for their thesis project.

Thesis II: Students will have successfully completed DDA-660A, Thesis I.

There will be no predetermined technical instruction during these classes; technical issues will be addressed as they come up, in an ad hoc manner. Most of the discussion and critique of the sessions will deal with the intellectual and artistic aspects of your project.

Progress Expectations

The Dept. of Digital Arts expects students to finish their thesis work, both projects and papers, by the end of Thesis II — that is, in two semesters of Thesis, with each semeseter being a 6-credit course.

Thesis In Progress (TIP): If a student has not completed their thesis by the end of Thesis II, they may be permitted to continue thesis beyond Thesis II. This is called Thesis In Progress (TIP). Note that continuing your thesis work as TIP requires explicit approval from the Department and that approval to continue as TIP is not automatic. If a student has done reasonable work in Thesis II in terms of both quantity and qualilty, they may request and receive approval from the Department for a TIP semester. If they have not completed their thesis after one TIP semester, they may request and be granted one more TIP semester. The maximum number of possible TIP semesters is two. If a student has not fully and successfully completed their thesis work by the end of TIP 2 they will receive an F.

The DDA faculty have assembled a document called Thesis Benchmarks which describes what the faculty consider appropriate progress for the first semester of your thesis work — that is, for Thesis I. You should consult this document frequently to help you assess whether your progress is consistent with the faculty's expectations. The Thesis Benchmarks document can be found at:
http://www.michaelorourke.com/PrattCourses/dda660/ThesisI_Benchmarks.pdf

Group Meetings

Every fourth week, we will meet as a group. (See the weekly schedule below.) These sessions will be treated as seminars, an opportunity to discuss and get feedback on issues that you are encountering in your thesis project. These issues might be aesthetic, conceptual, technical, motivational, logistical — anything that comes up.

The group meetings are an important opportunity for you to get feedback and constructive criticism on your project. This will come primarily from your peers, and secondarily from me. It is extremely important that you all play an active role in critiquing each other's work. You cannot hope to assess and critique your own work if you cannot assess and critique someone else's work. I would like as much as possible to have you be the ones who do the talking, make the suggestions, ask the questions, raise the issues, rather than have me do that.

At each of these group meetings, each student should assemble their work into a current version of the whole project. That is, do not bring in and show just isolated segments (models, sketches, scenes, images, etc.) Instead, assemble your work-to-date into an updated version of the whole project, in whatever state it currently is. For animation, this means a next version of the complete animation, block-timing test, or animatic, depending on the stage you are in. For imaging and installation students, it means an updated version of the whole composition and/or installation.

We will discuss and critique each student's work as a group. Try to take advantage of the group meetings as an opportunity to get advice, suggestions and criticism from a lot of very smart and very talented people — your classmates. If there is something you are concerned about and no one brings it up, bring it up yourself — ask for criticism about it.

At each group meeting you will also be expected to bring in a next draft of your Thesis paper. I will advise you on what I expect in each successive draft.

Individual Meetings

On the weeks when we do not meet as a group, I will meet with each of you individually. These individual meetings will be scheduled to take place within the same time-slot that we are using for the group meetings. We will work out the details of this as the semester progresses. Once we have done so, I will post that schedule of individual meeting appointments on my Pratt website under your course page. To the extent possible, these individual meetings will take place in your DDA studios. If you do not have DDA studio space, we will make other arrangements.

Please note: These individual meetings with me are not optional. They are important and useful. Sometimes they are most useful exactly when you feel you have nothing to talk about or show. It is normal that you may sometimes have nothing "good" to show, or even nothing at all. It is still important that you keep your appointment so that we can talk about that. You are expected to keep your appointment. If for some very unusual reason you cannot make your appointment on a given week, please show professional courtesy and let me know ahead of time.

Additional Appointments

If you wish to meet with me outside of our normally scheduled class time to discuss your project or your situation, speak to me and we will schedule a time to do so. See above for my contact information and office hours.

The goal of this course is the successful completion by the end of Thesis II of your thesis project.

It is expected that you will make changes and improvements to your original proposal as you work on and develop your thesis project. In fact, I will push you very hard to do so. However, radical deviations from your proposed project — e.g, a complete change of story, or medium, or concept — are discouraged, as they may require extra semesters working on your "new" thesis project. This of course can be very costly, both financially and emotionally. Consequently, I will tend to encourage you to develop and refine your original project, rather than to abandon it or radically change it.

The Department expects all students to complete their thesis projects in two semesters — Thesis I and Thesis II. If for some reason your project remains unfinished after Thesis II, the Department, at its discretion and based on the assessment of its Thesis Committee, may grant you a semester of Thesis In Progress (TIP) to conclude your project. Note: A TIP semester is not automatic. It must be approved by the Thesis Committee. A maximum of two TIP semester is possible. If your project remains unfinished after two TIP semesters, you will receive an F for Thesis and will have to start the entire thesis process over.

Attendance/Participation

It is extremely important that you attend and fully participate in the weekly classes, both the group meetings and the individual meetings. Please note also that it is Pratt Institute policy that three unexcused absences constitute grounds for an automatic F for the course, and that two latenesses are considered the equivalent of one absence. Arriving more than 10 minutes after the scheduled start of class will be considered late. Arriving more than one hour after the scheduled start time will be considered absent. Students are 100% responsible for their own attendance and must allow for delays due to subways, traffic, etc. If you miss class because of illness, you should bring in a note from your physician to avoid your absence being listed as "unexcused". (Pratt Student Health services can be of help to you here.)

Blog Page

Each student will also create a blog page for this course and will keep their blog page up to date with samples of their research, thoughts, tests, and work in progress. This Blog page is extremely important, as it will serve as a record for both you and me of your day-to-day and week-to-week progress. Blog pages must be accessible to all students in the class without password protection. In this way, your blog page also serves as a way for you to get feedback from other students in the class. Your blog page for this course must be separate from any other blogs you may have. It can be embedded within another blog, but it must have a separate link so that we can easily access your entries that are specific to this course.

For Thesis II, you should make a new blog page just for this semester. Within that new blog page, you should include a link at the top of the page to your Thesis I blog. This will allow us to easily access any materials from Thesis I.

Your Project, Your Paper

You are expected to work steadily and well on your thesis project, both the visual project and the paper. Poor progress or work of poor quality will, as in any other class, negatively affect your grade.

Final Exhibition and Screening Day (Spring semester)

All graduating students will have their completed work exhibited by the Department at the end of the Spring semester. For time-based work this will be at the DDA Screening Day. For physical and installation projects, your work will be exhibited in a gallery setting. Details of exhibition and screening will be conveyed to you as that time approaches.

Deadlines for Completion of Thesis Project (Spring semester)

All graduating Thesis students must have fully completed their visual project by the Departmental deadline.

Animations: Deadline to Advisor is April 20. Your finished animations must be fully approved by me by this date. By this date, your visual project must be completely, 100% finished and approved by your Advisor. Approved finished animations must then be submitted to DDA for Screening Day by April 27.

Imaging: The final date and location of your final exhibiton have not yet been set. Your due date for final projects approved by me will probably be the same April 20. I will inform you as soon as DDA sets the date.

For non-animation projects, all visual documentation including the video documentation must be handed in by this date.

Paper and all Supporting Materials: All thesis materials, including your totally finished and approved paper and any supporting files are due to your Advisor by April 27. For a complete list of what must be handed in, see the Thesis Requirements document, a copy of which is on my Pratt website. On the date mentioned, all your disks, properly labeled, as well as the required copies of your paper, must be handed in to your Advisor. Note that your paper and all materials must be totally, 100% approved by your Advisor before this date. If you hand anything in that has anything wrong with it, even if it is minor, it will not be accepted. It is therefore important that you take responsibility to show your Advisor all materials prior to this final date (usually several times) and have them approved.

There are no required texts or other materials for this course, as each student's thesis project is individual and has its own specific requirements. The instructor may make suggestions and recommendations to individual students.

The DDA faculty have assembled a Thesis Benchmarks document. This document describes what the faculty consider appropriate progress for the first semester of your thesis work — that is, for Thesis I. You should consult this document periodically to help you assess whether your progress is consistent with the faculty's expectations.

You will receive a letter grade for each semester of your thesis, Thesis I and Thesis II, just as you do for other courses. Your final letter grade will be determined by the quality and the quantity of work you have done throughout that semester of DDA-660. See the Thesis Benchmarks document mentioned above as a guide to what is expected in terms of quantity of work. Please note several important points about grading for Thesis:

A) There will be no specific graded assignments. Instead, I will give you an informal written assessment part way through the semester. This will be my written feedback to you on how I think you are progressing in your project. It does not count into the actual calculation of your final grade, but it does serve to tell you what grade you might expect to receive if you continue working as you have been thus far.

B) After the last session, which is the Thesis Committee review, I will give you a final grade for the semester. Your grade will be based on the overall progress you have been making thus far on your thesis project. This means that you must take responsibility for working steadily and hard on your project throughout the entire semester. If your work is unsatisfactory, in either quantity or quality, you will receive an F and will have to repeat the course. This applies to both Thesis I and Thesis II.

C) Both semesters of Thesis are 6-credit courses, so the amount of work you do in these Thesis courses should be twice what you would do for a normal 3-credit course. Also, because of the six credits, your grades for Thesis have twice the importance of a grade from a normal course. It is therefore critical to pace yourself and work hard and steadily throughout both semesters to make good progress.

D) Be advised that grades are earned by a combination of effort + quality. It is assumed that all students will work hard. That is where we start. Thus, a grade of A means that you have worked hard and you have done excellent work; a grade of B means you have worked hard and done reasonably good work; a grade of C means your work is weak and just barely meets the minimum standards of the Institute; a grade below C constitutes a failure for graduate-level work. Graduate students are expected to maintain an average of B or better for all their courses combined.

Presentations to Thesis Committee

Requirement:
Every Thesis I, Thesis II, and Thesis-in-Progress student is required to present their work to a Thesis Committee at the conclusion of each semester. Sometimes these reviews are conducted as public sessions for all students. In this case, each thesis student must attend the entire session of presentations. Sometimes Thesis Committee reviews are conducted as individual sessions involving just you and several DDA faculty.

Scheduling:
Scheduling of Thesis Committee reviews will be announced later in the semester.

Feedback:
A principle goal of the Thesis Review is to permit the Thesis Committee to offer feedback to each student on the progress of their work. Time alloted to each student is very limited, so in order to get meaningful feedback you must organize your materials and thoughts carefully.

Advancement:
Thesis I students automatically advance to Thesis II as long as they pass the Thesis I class.
Thesis II students advance or not based on the decision of the Thesis Committee at the end of the semester.

Finished Theses:
On concluding their thesis project, each Thesis student must have his/her finished project approved by a Thesis Committee consisting of several faculty members. This entails presenting your finished project before the Committee, explaining it and answering any questions about it. Please note: All aspects of your project — 100% of the visual project, plus 100% of the thesis paper -- must be completed by the date of this presentation in order to graduate.

For Thesis II and TIP students, the Commitee will also make a binding decision whether: a)the student's thesis project is finished satisfactorily and meets the standards of the Department; b) if the project is not finished, whether progress is sufficient to merit a semester of TIP; c) if the project is not finished and progress has been insufficient, whether the student must repeat Thesis II. In extreme cases, a student may be dropped from the program entirely for failure to work at the level expected. Note that it is the Committee, not your Advisor, who decides whether your project meets the standards of the Department and whether you are finished. If the Committee decides that you are indeed finished, it is then your Advisor who gives you a grade.

Institute Grading Guidelines

See this link for Pratt's official guidelines for Grading.

Given that graduate students must keep an overall GPA of 3.0 (B), this can be interpreted as follows:

A = Extremely good work
A- = Very good work
B+ = Good work, better than average
B = Reasonably good, but not outstanding
B- = OK, somewhat short of satisfactory
C+ = Slightly better than minimally passing, not acceptable quality
C = Minimally passing, not acceptable quality

Grades below C are considered non-passing at the graduate level

The Visual Project

There are certain specific formats that must be followed for your visual project. These vary depending on the nature of the project. A video animation has one set of requirements; an interactive project has another, etc. Make sure you are aware of the format requirements for your type of project. These requirements are spelled out in detail in the official DDA Thesis Requirements document. This document is available on my web site. It is also available from the DDA office.

Thesis Committee Approval

As described above under Grading, it is the Thesis Committee which gives final approval of a completed thesis. Only after the Thesis Committee approves your project can your individual Thesis Advisor approve it and grade it. Thesis Committees will review finished projects at the end of both the Fall and Spring semesters.

As with all DDA courses, you are encouraged but not required to seek occasional feedback from other faculty members on your project.

The Written Thesis

Every thesis project includes a written paper which explains and documents the conceptual, aesthetic, and technical issues you encountered in doing your project. This paper is normally between 20 and 30 pages in length. It must address certain issues, and should be clearly and thoughtfully written, carefully formatted and abundantly illustrated. Spelling and English grammar must also be correct. The DDA document Thesis Requirements describes many general issues relating to Thesis, including the production of the paper. There is also another document, available from the Library, entitled Thesis Submittal Guide, which describes the required formatting of the paper. Links to both of these documents can be found on my Pratt website.

This paper requires a significant writing endeavor. Do not underestimate how much time and effort you will have to devote to this written document. Normally, it takes a student anywhere from four to eight drafts of this document before it is finally in a state that can be approved. It is for this reason that I ask you to produce in-progress drafts of your paper during the two semesters of DDA-660.

Spelling and English grammar must also be correct throughout your paper. This can present special challenges for students whose native language is not English. You must correct the English and you must correct it before you hand me each draft of your paper. The Pratt Writing and Tutorial Center can help you with this. Be aware that appointments with the Writing and Tutorial Center may need to be made well in advance. However you do it, you must have the English correct before you hand papers in to me. If there are too many English mistakes, I will hand your paper back to you unread.


Deadlines

There are very specific deadlines for handing in your final project for approval. These deadlines vary from semester to semester, and are driven by the need of the Registrars Office to get information for graduation, of the Library to get its copy of the Thesis, and of the Department to process projects in a timely way. Make sure you are aware well in advance of all the deadlines — DDA, Library, Registrar — for the semester in which you hope to finish. Confer the Pratt Library document, Thesis Submittal Guide, for Library deadlines. Contact the Registrars Office, if necessary, for theirs.

See "Course Requirements" above for DDA deadlines.

Be aware that in order for a thesis to be approved, it must be 100% complete -- both the visual project and the paper — and be signed by two people — your Advisor (me), the Chair of our Department.

Each of these stages takes time. You must take the responsibility to hand in your work with enough time for each of the reviewers to review and sign your project and still be done by the deadline. The Chair usually requests a week to ten days. I usually need several days to a week for each draft. Don't hand things in at the very last minute and expect me or the Chair to stop our lives in order to push your late work through the system. Also be aware that at the end of the semester (especially the Spring semester) there are many other students handing in their materials to me and I will read papers in the order in which they are handed in.

If you have not completely finished your project by the end of Thesis II, the Department may, at its discretion, grant you a Thesis in Progress (TIP) semester. Note: It is Departmental policy that a maximum of two semesters of TIP may be granted. If your project is still incomplete after two TIP semesters, you will be required to start your Thesis process all over at Thesis I.

If you are granted a TIP semester, there are several things you should know.

* Upon completion of your project, your IP grade for DDA-660B is changed to your actual grade.

* Normally, your Thesis Advisor from DDA-660 remains your Thesis Advisor during your TIP semester(s). However, since I am retiring at the end of the Spring semester, I will not continue as your Advisor. Instead, the Department will appoint another professor to serve as your Advisor.

* As a TIP student, you will be expected to work even more independently than you did as a Thesis student. You will not attend Thesis class and you will not meet with me every week. Normally you and I will meet once every few weeks. In the very final stages of your project we may meet more frequently. It is your responsibility to contact me to arrange meetings.

* Every TIP student must remain "in good standing" in order to remain enrolled. To remain in good standing, you must:

a) Meet with your Advisor periodically to show me your work and keep me informed of the progress of your thesis project.

b) Continue to make satisfactory progress, both in quantity and quality, on your thesis. Whether your progress is satisfactory is determined by the Thesis Committee before whom you present your work at the end of the semester.

c) Register and pay the registration fee every semester.

File Storage

As with all DDA courses, each student is 100% responsible for storing all of his or her files on their own removable storage media. You must make permanent backups of your files on regular basis onto your own storage media (Flash, CD, DVD, external HD, etc.). When you do so, please remember to make two backups -- the first is your "original", and the second is your "backup"

CLASSROOM ASSIGNMENTS

It is Pratt Institute policy that work done in one class cannot be submitted to fulfill assignments in another class. It is very possible to do work that overlaps or is closely related in two different courses, but you cannot fulfill two assignment requirements with one piece of work. If you have any questions, discuss the issue with all the instructors involved before proceeding.

STUDENTS WITH LEARNING ISSUES

If you have a significant learning issue or disability, you are strongly encouraged to work with the Offiice of Disability Services (Main Bldg, Tel: 718 636 3711). Through them you can get guidance and support and request special accomodations if appropriate. You are also very strongly encouraged to notifiy your instructor if you have a special learning difficulty, as we cannot help you or make accomodations unless we know what your situation is.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

(The following is derived from the Pratt Institute website. Please see also the Pratt Student Handbook for more details.)

Pratt Institute considers Academic Integrity highly important. Instances of cheating, plagiarism, and wrongful use of intellectual property will not be tolerated.

• Faculty members will report each incident to the registrar for inclusion in studentsí files.
• More than one report to the registrar during a studentís program of study at Pratt will result in a hearing before the Academic Integrity Board, at which time appropriate sanctions will be decided. These may include dismissal from the Institute.
• The nature and severity of the infraction will be determined by faculty members who can: ask students to repeat an assignment, fail students on the assignment, fail students in the course and/or refer the incident to the Academic Integrity Board.

For more details about these procedures please see the Pratt Student Handbook, the Pratt Bulletins, and the pamphlet entitled Judicial Procedures at Pratt.

CHEATING

If students use dishonest methods to fulfill course requirements, they are cheating. Examples of this include, but are not limited to:

• Obtaining or offering copies of exams or information about the content of exams in advance.
• Bringing notes in any form to a closed book exam.
• Looking at another student's paper during an exam.
• Receiving or communicating any information from or to another student during an exam.

PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism is a bit more complicated, but the rules of documentation and citation are very specific and are tailored to different academic disciplines. Types of plagiarism include:

• Including any material from any source other than yourself in a paper or project without proper attribution. This includes material from the Internet, books, papers, or projects by other students orfrom any other source.
• Using your own work to fulfill requirements for more than one course.
• The extensive use of the ideas of others in your work without proper attribution.
• Turning in work done by another person or a fellow student as one's own.

Please remember that all work must be the student's own. If it is not, the source should be cited and documented appropriately.

If there are aspects of this statement that are not understood, ask faculty members for help.