Wikidata:Property proposal/thesis committee chair

thesis committee member edit

Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Person

Done: thesis committee member (P9161) (Talk and documentation)

Description	a member of a student's thesis or dissertation committee; for any type of thesis (bachelor's, master's, doctoral, etc.)
Represents	thesis committee member (Q104450373)
Data type	Item
Domain	thesis (Q1266946), dissertation (Q1385450)
Example 1	Eddy Vertical Structure and Variability: Vortex Evolution and the Geography of Geostrophic Turbulence (Q98853409) → Charles C. Eriksen (Q98854503) object has role (P3831) chairperson (Q140686)
Example 2	Navigating and Responding to Raciolinguistic Ideologies: Refugee and Immigrant Students' Literacy Practices Across Contexts (Q104248274) → Anis Bawarshi (Q104216479) object has role (P3831) chairperson (Q140686)
Example 3	Multi-state Occupancy Modeling and Optimal Allocation of Survey Resources for Common Loons in Washington State (Q104396943) → Sarah J. Converse (Q46563504) object has role (P3831) chairperson (Q140686)
Example 4	Climate Warming and the Effectiveness of Restoring Longitudinal River Connectivity for Endangered Non-anadromous Taiwan Salmon (Oncorhynchus formosanus) (Q98971744) → Kristiina A. Vogt (Q98974018) object has role (P3831) chairperson (Q140686)
Example 5	Biology and Ecology of Hexacorallians in the San Juan Archipelago (Q104414919) → Kenneth P. Sebens (Q89226911) object has role (P3831) chairperson (Q140686)
Planned use	As we create items for our theses and dissertations and students and faculty, we will include this property in the thesis item.
Expected completeness	always incomplete (Q21873886)
See also	doctoral advisor (P184): person who supervised the doctorate or PhD thesis of the subject student of (P1066): person who has taught this person reviewed by (P4032): person who reviewed/refereed the work, e.g., scientific peer-reviewer opponent during disputation (P3323): participant in the defense of a doctoral thesis imprimatur granted by (P7010): person or organization authorizing publication of the book object has role (P3831): (qualifier) role or generic identity of the value of a statement ("object") in the context of that statement; for the role of the item the statement is on ("subject"), use P2868
Wikidata project	WikiProject PCC Wikidata Pilot/University of Washington (Q98970039)

Motivation edit

We are creating items for University of Washington faculty and dissertants (master's and doctoral graduates). We are also going to be creating items for the theses and dissertations, and in those items we would like to be able to add the thesis committee chair. This is found on the title page of each of our theses. According to Wikipedia, "In some countries, the student's advisor serves as the chair of the dissertation committee or the examination committee. In some cases, though, the person who serves those roles may be different from the faculty member who has most closely advised the student." For some of our dissertations, there are two reading committee chairs, so there should not be a single value constraint for this property. UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 23:04, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion edit

Is it likely that there would also be listings for other members of thesis committees? If so, a different data model might be preferable. --Yair rand (talk) 04:15, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The thesis committees here usually have three members, of which one or two are chair(s). In our catalog records and thesis metadata, we only provide access to the chair(s). It is possible that other institutions could want to record all the committee members, so I wouldn't be opposed to changing the proposal to "thesis committee member" as long as it would be possible to qualify one or more members as the chairperson. UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 04:27, 22 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think "thesis committee member" along with object has role (P3831) "thesis committee chair" would be better. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 23:50, 23 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, and have changed the proposal. The object has role (P3831) chairperson (Q140686) would also suffice.UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 00:49, 24 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agree too, and oppose therefore. Nomen ad hoc (talk) 15:12, 25 December 2020 (UTC).[reply]

Support as 'thesis committee member'. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 00:18, 28 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
If I recall correctly, I think we had this some time ago and the outcome was to use "reviewed by". --- Jura
- "reviewed by" does not really fit, and it also doesn't make sense if one wishes to specify that the reviewers are part of a thesis committee, and which of them are the chair of it. "reviewed by" makes more sense for peer-reviewed publications, but it could also conceivably be used for persons who review a book or film or a musical work or sound recording. UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 23:51, 31 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - You can still qualify the statements. Sometimes it's clear that some committee members are unlikely to have read the thesis, but that seems to be the exception. BTW, proposal was at Wikidata:Property proposal/examination jury. --- Jura 09:21, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Support as "thesis committee member", and thank you for the proposal. This could draw out some interesting connections in the architecture literature. Prburley (talk)
Support I think our grad office and potential students would be very interested in having this information readily available, especially as we see more multi-disciplinary topics and committee members. I strongly support adding this property. Emwille (talk) 14:34, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose use existing property as per above. --- Jura 17:40, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Support I support this proposal. I would use "reviewed by" to describe a reviewer's relationship to a peer-reviewed article, but not for an academic thesis or dissertation. The reviewer and committee member are serving distinct functions. "Committee member" with qualifiers pointing to more specific roles makes a lot more sense for theses and dissertations. --Crystal Clements, University of Washington Libraries (talk) 02:59, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Question is there any aspect that isn't covered by the existing properties? Or are we just duplicating doctoral advisor (P184), reviewed by (P4032), etc? --- Jura 11:36, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- @Jura1: This is a completely different position. In the Czech Republic, the reviewer and the advisor cannot also be the thesis committee member for any given thesis.Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 11:48, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- Can you clarify what they are doing if they don't review the thesis? Maybe opponent during disputation (P3323) applies instead? Also, it's known that in some countries thesis committee members are unlikely to have reviewed the thesis, but that seems to be the exception and not what they are meant to do. --- Jura 19:26, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Here, they attend the doctoral defence, listen to opponent during disputation (P3323)'s and doctoral advisor (P184)'s review of the thesis, evaluate the presentation of the results and decide about the outcome of the defence. It is very similar to what happens at Master's or Bachelor's thesis defence. Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 19:49, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - So this could be captured with reviewed by (P4032) and qualified with object has role (P3831). Or are you suggesting that don't read or review the thesis? If not, maybe we shouldn't add it to Wikidata in the first place. --- Jura 20:15, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - No, it's distinct from reviewed by (P4032). They aren't obliged to read the thesis as far as I know. Why not adding it to Wikidata if it's in the databases? Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 20:30, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      - It's essentially the same as the existing property and we might end up with the same value in both, or worse, both qualified the same way. --- Jura 20:47, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        There would be 0% overlap with Czech theses.Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 10:07, 17 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Sounds terrible. If they aren't reviewed, there might not be much interest in including them. Maybe what you actually need is imprimatur granted by (P7010) which I don't think we mentioned above. --- Jura 12:21, 17 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Question @UWashPrincipalCataloger: I support this property but let's make one thing clear: is the proposal for just the chair(s) of the committee or for all members of it? The proposed English label is "thesis committee member" but the name of this proposal page is "thesis committee chair".Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 11:51, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- @Vojtěch Dostál: The proposal started out as "thesis committee chair", but after discussion I changed it to be "thesis committee member". That's what is now intended. The chair of the committee can be indicated with a qualifier for object has role: chairperson. UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 17:45, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - OK, thanks for clarification, Support Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 19:12, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - BTW, @UWashPrincipalCataloger: you seem to be planning an import in the field of academic theses. Which property would you use for an adviser to a Master's thesis or a Bachelor's theses? I.e., is there a more general version of doctoral advisor (P184)? Is supervised by (P7604) meant for that purpose? However, both doctoral advisor (P184) and supervised by (P7604) seem to be made for person items, not academic work items.Vojtěch Dostál (talk) 19:21, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - @Vojtěch Dostál: I don't think there is a property that could be used on an item for the thesis work. We will be using this new proposed property "thesis committee member" on our items. As you say, P184 and P7604 are only valid for use on person items. In our RDA bibliographic records for our theses we are using the RDA relationship property degree supervisor. But technically in our theses, what appears on the title page are the thesis committee members, so the new Wikidata property will be better. UWashPrincipalCataloger (talk) 20:07, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Done please make good use of it. --- Jura 12:37, 17 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]