Sneha's Dissertation Timeline

Sneha needs to write a prospectus and complete a dissertation in order to graduate from Northwestern. This page contains the project timeline and current to do list.

Outline of Prospectus
The dissertation will consist of three studies:
 * Study 1: The TWA study - this is currently a paper submission to CSCW.
 * Study 2: The Message Walls study - this will use data from wikia wikis that changed user talk pages to message walls, and see if that impacted newcomer retention in any way
 * Study 3: The Edit-a-thon study - this will examine whether 'offline' events such as edit-a-thons contribute to newcomer retention on Wikipedia

Milestones

 * Settle on a committee (and ask them to be on my committee)
 * Complete prospectus
 * Complete study 2
 * Complete study 3
 * Write everything up
 * Defend thesis
 * Profit!

Summer 2016

 * ASAP
 * Finalize committee members and ask them to be on my committee
 * Specifically ask around about our top choice for the fourth committee member who may not yet be publicly named
 * Obtain message wall data set
 * Friday, July 15th
 * Complete a detailed proposal for study 2
 * Friday, August 12th
 * Complete a detailed proposal for study 3
 * Thursday, August 25th
 * Complete a full draft of prospectus, and send it to Aaron for comments
 * Thursday, September 8th
 * Make revisions and send out the draft to entire committee

Fall 2016

 * Thursday, October 13th
 * Send out FINAL draft of prospectus to committee
 * late-October/early-November
 * Set up a meeting with committee members to defend prospectus

Winter 2016

 * Work on message walls study