Thanks for the enlightening discussion on choosing a dissertation advisor. What about the dissertation topic? Does this come before the advisor, at the same time or after?

Two words which best describe a dissertation are Substantial and Original.
However the dissertation topic does not need to be a totally new or groundbreaking. Studying an old subject in a new way, from a different perspective, can be a new contribution.

Obviously, the topic chosen must be appropriate to your degree.

Be sure your chosen topic addresses a real problem or question. The chosen dissertation topic must be appropriate for the subjects you have available to work with.
Select a topic narrow enough to be manageable, with a study that can be done in the time allotted.
You must love the topic. If not, it will be hard for you to stay motivated. Also remember this is going to be a major pub for you.
Ideally, your topic should be of interest to your advisor. (This is why its important to narrow down your choice of advisors, before you slect your specific topic

Dissertation and crowdsourcing? I dont think so.

A dissertation is defined as a treatise advancing a new point of view resulting from research; usually a requirement for an advanced academic degree. This implies an Individual effort.

Crowdsourcing as you point out is very useful developing research idea, perhaps for a paper or book or grant. But the dissertation is and should be an individual effort, since it is a requirement for an advanced academic degree

Well, if we think about it, PhD students already crowdsource as they proceed forward with their dissertations. My original proposal was "Just post a new topic and have folks come by and discuss it."

Today's PhD student has an idea, what comes next? They discuss it with their adviser, then possibly with their peers (other PhD students) and then, members of their committees. The ultimate form of the dissertation will be shaped by all their inputs. That is pretty much crowdsourcing, if you ask me. Why limit the inputs to the local 'crowd' though?

So yes, the emphasis is not that external parties come up with the innovative idea or theory, but that we harness the power of the crowd as we already do today, but using advanced Web 2.0 tools e.g., MyNetResearch.

As with any dissertation, the topic is wide-open, but the research question(s) are of the most interest. So what is important about crowdsourcing? As pointed out, the technology, idea is not new, but the antecedents and impacts (outcomes) are of interest. Is it only younger users who get it? Does the use of crowdsourcing have any effect on national cultural differences? What other Web 2.0 ideas is it most like, most different. In general what are the impacts of user generated content (individual, group, or blended). Sorry, I could go on and on. We don't yet know much about the impact (if any) of this brave new world that is largely uncontrolled by conventional means - think Neda and the governmental crack down on information. Not only the breadth and depth, but the speed of information dissemination.

Hi Rajeev,

The literature Review is one of the most important tasks of a paper or dissertation. It therefore has to be UP TO DATE COMPLETE, ACCURATE, RELIABLE, AND EFFICIENT. I have found the MyNetResearch literature Tool to be very helpful in this aspect. It can provide you with an update list of the research papers in the area of interest. I typically use a snowballing technique to achieve this list.

This is what you should do,

Type in the keywords. Examine the citations (that is find out which other articles used that citation. This helps to drill down a complete list.

Taking this list you can use your library or find abstracts or complete articles on the internet.

Hope this helps

Mishra

Welcome! You need to do a few things.
1. Visit the site regularly, and read and contribute to the forum. In your case ask specific questions about the disseratation. The more specific the question, the more helpful members can be to you.
2. Visit the Main site MyNetResearch, its a treasure trove for the researcher.
3. Search the forum for key words (under search)

MNR members are very helpful. So good luck with your disseratation. So ask away!

I'd like to add one more thing about the choice of a dissertation topic. It is important to conduct a feasibility analysis for the topic chosen. In the hard sciences, if you need a piece of specialized equipment that you or your institution cannot pay for and you cannot obtain elsewhere, then your dissertation topic is not feasible. If you require large amounts of computational power that do not yet exist or are not available to you, then your glorious natural language understanding and computer vision project may have to be modified significantly. If that nuclear accelerator cannot be rented on the cheap, then you may have to set your sight elsewhere.

Likewise, in the social sciences, if you must have a certain piece of software that your university cannot afford, then you may wish to reconsider. If you cannot gain access to a military installation to conduct a survey then your topic is likewise infeasible.

Many instances are not as clear-cut as these examples though. Sometimes, in exploratory research, you may only find out about feasibility after you have invested time and effort on your research topic. In any case, while passion is a good thing, you must not be so dogmatic (or hard headed) that you fail to see what your advisers and others you respect are telling you about feasibility.

ya i m also in the same situation . anybody.................................... help me out pleeaaaaaaaaseeeee!