Well, my proposal (basically half my dissertation) is off to the internal members of my committee. Many thanks go to the help of my doctoral supervisors who've asked a lot of questions of my previous drafts and helped me refine my writing :-)

Now the next step (assuming the committee likes my submitted draft) is to both find an external reviewer for this, and also defend it so that I can move onto the next phase: data collection and analysis.

Where do you come in? I need recommendations for an external member to my committee :-) If we've worked together in the past 5 years you would not be eligible to be on the committee, but if you know people who might be good, let me know :-)

Requirements for external committee member

Retrieved from: http://fgs.athabascau.ca/handbook/doctoral/candidacy.php
Also committee member criteria: http://fgs.athabascau.ca/handbook/doctoral/supervisors_and_committee_members.php

• At least one of the new members must be at arm’s length from the student and the proposal development <-- external="" li="">
• be active in the general area of the student's research
• have a tenured (or tenure track) faculty appointment
• If no tenure track person is identified, there is an 'other' category that the Faculty of Graduate Studies could approve. See the link for details. 
• hold a degree equivalent to or higher than that for which the student is a candidate (
• demonstrate continuing scholarly or creative activity of an original nature as defined in item 3.7.3.b. of the AUFA Collective Agreement.
• The proposed examination committee members must meet the eligibility criteria, and must not be in a position of conflict of interest (direct link to AU policy: http://ous.athabascau.ca/policy/humanresources/150_002.pdf 

My proposal details

(to better inform any recommendations you might have :) )

Title: Factors influencing the initiation and sustained engagement in collaboratives working outside MOOC parameters: an exploratory mixed methods case study

Abstract: This dissertation research will explore the factors for which individuals in an open educational environment choose to create, or join, collaboratives that produce certain mutually agreed-upon deliverables, and the factors that sustain individuals’s through this collaborative endeavor. As such, some of these factors may deal with characteristics and experiences that define such collaboratives, and what members of these collaboratives perceive as a gain from their involvement from such collaborative endeavors. The approach to research this topic will be an explanatory parallel mixed methods case study design that will initially explore quantitative results from the Community of Inquiry instrument as well as qualitative results gathered from an open-ended survey.  Survey participants will be invited to participate in subsequent interviews in order to explore the question in more depth. A better understanding of why such collaboratives form, and what sustains them, might provide clues as to how such collaborative formations may encouraged, or nurtured, in online learning.



Thank you in advance for your help in identifying potential externals :-)