Upon entering the program, the student is assigned a temporary advisor until the selection of the Chief Supervisor. The Chief Supervisor is selected by agreement between the student and the faculty member, with the approval of the Associate Dean, usually just before the writing of the comprehensive examination, or immediately following its completion. The Advisory Committee consists of three faculty members competent to supervise work in the student's specific area of research.
The Chief Supervisor will be a permanent faculty member who has been approved as a supervisor in library and information science by the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. The second committee member may be any LIS faculty member approved as a supervisor or co-supervisor in LIS by the School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. The third committee member may be any faculty member within FIMS or the University, or, with the permission of the Vice-Provost (Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies), external to the University, with expertise useful for the thesis topic.
The following factors are considered when selecting Assistant Advisors: (1) the student's preferences for advisors (at least one member of the Committee should be a person suggested by the student); (2) the closeness of a potential member's expertise to the student's research interest; (3) the amount of PhD supervision already undertaken by a potential member; (4) the desirability of having a member on the Committee from outside the library and information science doctoral program.
Updated 06/08/2009