Welcome to Pre-Thesis!

IDM Pre-Thesis 2021
MS Pre-Thesis in Design & Media Arts
Mondays, 6:00pm-8:50pm

Professor: Ahmed Ansari (Office 362)
Section: DM-GY 9963 B
Room: 340 (For Lectures), 307 (For Workshops)
Contact: aa7703@nyu.edu
Office Hours: By Appointment

Professor: Elizabeth Henaff
Section: DM-GY 9963 A
Room: 340 (For Lectures), 308 (For Workshops)
Contact: ehenaff@nyu.edu
Office Hours: By Appointment

Professor: Dan Taeyoung
Section: DM-GY 9963 C
Room: 340 (For Lectures), 310 (For Workshops)
Contact: dtl238@nyu.edu
Office Hours: By Appointment

Slack Channel (Please sign on to receive announcements and to post discussions and share work and resources)

Zoom Link for All Remote Meetings (This link will be consistent throughout the semester)

Course Description and Learning Objectives

This is the first of a two-semester sequence, ending in a thesis project of depth and rigor through a process of conceptual exploration, research and execution. The goal for this semester in Pre-Thesis is to create a rich body of research that explores an idea, a theme, or a project in detail, that you will later synthesize into a practicum (an artifact or set of artifacts) in your thesis semester. The Pre-Thesis research model is intended to be open, creative, rigorous, and a place to find the right questions to ask about your topic, as well as  the methods and methodologies to address them. 

A Digital Media thesis is unique in that it is more than a paper and more than a project: it is the combination of the two and is created by synthesizing research in order to understand what to make, i.e, you will be engaged in doing practice-based research. The course is intended to guide you through the process of articulating a domain of interest and formulating a set of questions, develop conceptual and theoretical research for their topic, establish research methodologies with relevant methods, develop expertise on the topic, and crystallize research into practice through a series of prototypes. 

Working collaboratively

It is possible to work in a collaborative context for your Thesis. This could be collaborative work in the context of larger, ongoing projects such as: working with a research group or faculty lab at the University, working with a company/design studio/artist studio on a larger project, or in the context of an existing relationship with your stakeholders such as a non-profit or community organization. It is also possible to collaborate with another Thesis student on new work. In all of these cases, it is important that your part of the project be well-defined and that the research and writing you present be your own. If you are interested in this modality, discuss it with your professor to define appropriate scope.

Class Policies

Attendance

  • Attendance is mandatory. 
  • One absence is allowed; if you need to miss any other class and feel like you have a legitimate reason for your absence, you may seek documentation through the NYU Tandon website: https://engineering.nyu.edu/campus-and-community/student-life/office-student-affairs/procedures-policies-and-forms. And/or contact Deanna Rayment – deanna.rayment@nyu.edu – the Coordinator for Student Advocacy and Compliance. 
  • For each additional undocumented absence, your grade will be reduced by 1/2 a grade point (e.g. A to an A-).
  • Be on Time.
  • Contact the professor IN ADVANCE if you will not be in class (in person or by email ONLY) so that arrangements can be made. 
  • A note on the exceptional circumstances of 2021:  It is our job to push you to produce your best work and to hold you to a standard commensurate with receiving a Master of Science. We are doing our best to maintain the rigor of this class in a hybrid environment. However, we recognize the need for flexibility as well, and that some of you may be working under challenging circumstances. Communication will be key to our working well together. If you are struggling for any reason, please reach out to us directly so we can discuss the possibility of accommodations. 

Academic Honesty

Please review NYU School of Engineering’s academic dishonesty policy in its entirety.

All work for this class must be your own and specific to this semester. Any work directly recycled from other classes or from another, non-original source will be rejected with serious implications for the student. Plagiarism, knowingly representing the words, media, or ideas of another as one’s own work in any academic exercise, is absolutely unacceptable. Any student who commits plagiarism must re-do the assignment for a grade no higher than a D. In fact, a D is the highest possible course grade for any student who commits plagiarism. Please use the MLA or Chicago Manual of Style for citing and documenting source material.

You MUST have complete rights of use to any and all materials which appear in your thesis project. This includes images, illustrations, video, audio etc. The source of any materials NOT created by you MUST be documented. Please remember that you can collaborate with other students to create your own media or contact the authors of your media content for rights. I strongly encourage you to use original media for your thesis project, however should you absolutely require to use stock images, video, etc., you will need to provide a PDF of all source files and the usage rights you have purchased/negotiated or whether it is creative commons or copyright free.

Academic Accommodations

If you are student with a disability who is requesting accommodations, please contact New York University’s Moses Center for Students with Disabilities at 212-998-4980 or mosescsd@nyu.edu. You must be registered with CSD to receive accommodations. Information about the Moses Center can be found at http://www.nyu.edu/csd. The Moses Center is located at 726 Broadway on the 2nd floor.

NYU Institutional Review Board (IRB) CITI Training

This training  is not mandatory. However, instructors reserve the right to make it mandatory if a student conducts research with vulnerable subjects.  See IRB Decision Tree  for more info.

Under NYU’s Federal Wide Assurance, all researchers (e.g., principal investigators, co-investigators, faculty sponsors, student investigators, as well as other research personnel) who have involvement with human subjects need to demonstrate a basic knowledge of human research ethics, regulations, laws and local policies prior to initiating research with human subjects. At NYU, such training is assured for all research personnel who are involved with human research subjects by completing an online program through CITI: www.citiprogram.org The IRB recommends that you maintain copies of all research personnel training in hard copy or electronically for easy access and for spot audits and for uploading into your Cayuse IRB application. If you are a new CITI learner, please go to www.citiprogram.org, on the upper right hand corner of the screen, click on “Register.” The registration process will walk you through 7 steps. In the registration process, please affiliate with New York University. For research at the Washington Square Campus, NYU Tandon, NYU Shanghai and NYU Abu Dhabi, all investigators (student investigators, co-investigators, faculty sponsors, etc.,) must complete the Social and Behavioral basic course which consists of 16 learning modules. Please direct message your certificate to your instructor and the Graduate Assistant once completed.