[22180] in Athena Bugs
Re: Thesis template change concerns
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Hawkinson)
Wed May 21 16:23:15 2003
Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 16:23:13 -0400
From: John Hawkinson <jhawk@MIT.EDU>
To: Laura Baldwin <boojum@MIT.EDU>, Jonathan Reed <jdreed@MIT.EDU>,
Oliver Thomas <othomas@MIT.EDU>
Cc: bugs@MIT.EDU, fuzzballs@MIT.EDU, thesis@MIT.EDU, ostock@MIT.EDU
Message-ID: <20030521202313.GA14468@coleco-sidewinder.mit.edu>
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In-Reply-To: <4823C856-8AE7-11D7-B763-000393A3632A@mit.edu> <p05200f08baefe785a0ff@[18.152.1.192]> <200305201342.JAA18676@geskekelud.mit.edu> <200305200531.BAA23569@multics.mit.edu>
Thanks, all for documenting the path by which the changes
occurred and why.
After I sent my initial mail, it was pointed out to me in regards to
this:
| 1. the thesis research is performed in whole or in part by the
| student with financial support in the form of wages, salary,
| stipend, or grant from funds administered by the Institute
...in fact most graduate students fall under this category, so most
students writing theses would need a TLO waiver in order to retain
personal copyright.
It was also pointed out to me that "fanfare" is the correct spelling :).
Jonathan Reed <jdreed@MIT.EDU> wrote on Tue, 20 May 2003
at 10:31:02 -0400 in <p05200f08baefe785a0ff@[18.152.1.192]>:
> I also updated the stock answer LATEX->THESIS->"Where to find the
> thesis template files?" (10->6->3) to clearly state how copyright
> works by default, how to change it, and that all students should
> check with their thesis advisor to find out which copyright their
> thesis should use. Thus the students are informed of copyright
> issues before they even get the thesis templates.
I don't think that most people who use the template get their through
OLC, and the thesis locker doesn't actually mention the stock answers.
If the stock answers contain relevent documentation, perhaps they
should be referenced from the locker's README(s)?
> We have also had since 1998 a stock answer on copyright ("Who should
> hold the Copyright on your thesis?") which makes it abundantly clear
> that students should contact the departmental headquarters, thesis
> advisor, or TLO to determine their individual requirements. That
> answer also quotes from Institute Policy.
It also references "documentstyle" instead of "documentclass", so
it ought to be updated for LaTeX 2e...
Oliver Thomas <othomas@MIT.EDU> wrote on Tue, 20 May 2003
at 13:19:58 -0400 in <4823C856-8AE7-11D7-B763-000393A3632A@mit.edu>:
> I have updated the README file to reflect the change and fix the e-mail
> address. I've revived the old thesis@mit.edu address and set it to go
> to the people who have write access to the locker.
There's a typo on the line you editted that is probably worth fixing.
> Aside from getting the changes documented, I don't believe there is a
> decision for Owls to make here. While we maintain thesis templates on
> Athena, the authority on these are the Libraries. If they tell us to
> change the defaults or the content of the templates, I expect we will
> continue to accommodate such requests without too much discussion. But
> we will make an effort to keep the documentation up to date.
Yup! I agree at this point that any advocacy about thesis copyrights
is not really germane in this forum, and that should probably be pursued
elsewhere, if at all.
I do find it apalling that the default is such that students may not
publish copies of their thesis on their personal web page without
serious red tape, at a minimum.
Thanks!
--jhawk
