I will echo John Budd's concise explanation of the rationale, as I was on the ALISE Board at the time and also was responsible for organizing the first Works-in-Progress poster session.  The Works-in-Progress poster session is open to anyone, including doctoral students and faculty [and master's students and practitioners have presented posters as well].  The Doctoral Student Research Poster Competition was formerly the only poster session at ALISE conferences and open only to doctoral students.  When the Works-in-Progress venue became available, the Doctoral Student Research Poster Competition became focused, as the call for posters states, on "doctoral students who have completed or are near completion of their doctoral dissertation research."  

Linda C. Smith
ALISE Past President
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---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 4 Nov 2010 17:33:29 -0500
>From: "Budd, John M." <[log in to unmask]>  
>Subject: Re: ALISE doc student poster competition--what gives?!  
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>At a point not long ago the doctoral student poster session was becoming unmanageable. One year there were more than 90 posters. The Works-in-Progress poster session created so there would be expanded opportunities for communication and feedback.
>
>ALISE members can discuss the merits the change; this was the rationale.
>
>
>John M. Budd
>Professor
>School of Information Science & Learning Technologies
>University of Missouri
>303 Townsend Hall
>Columbia, MO 65211
>Phone: 573-882-3258
>Fax: 573-884-4944
>Email: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>________________________________
>From: Miksa, Shawne <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Thursday, November 04, 2010 5:25 PM
>To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: ALISE doc student poster competition--what gives?!
>
>When did the ALISE doc student poster competition become exclusively about presenting dissertation research?
>
>As a doc student I presented posters 3 years in a row and not one was my dissertation research. The description states that the competition "offers doctoral students an opportunity to share information about their research projects" --there is nothing that says it has to be dissertation research. The eligibility guidelines state that only students who have "completed or are near completion of their doctoral dissertation research" can submit an abstract.
>
>The spirit of the whole event was to allow students to interact with professors from across the board, get feedback about their ideas, ideas about research, research questions, different methodologies, etc. It also allowed students to network and find potential future employers. This is in line with "Professor Sutcliffe's dedication to the education of information professions" (http://alisedocsig.wordpress.com/ )
>
>My first experience with the presenting was tremendously helpful. I presented a poster based on some theoretical work resulting from Elfreda Chatman's theory development class. The next year it was a poster on some content analysis methodology and coding scheme resulting from a faculty-led research project.  Not only did the experience force me to learn how to present my ideas, but I received great deal of feedback from a variety of profs with different backgrounds and expertise.  I got ideas on what to read, how to ask a better research question, how to present data, etc. I don't see the same opportunities happening under this "eligibility" nonsense. It should be open to all doc students.
>
>I just found out one of my students was turned down because she didn't have her data absolutely or completely analyzed. Bulldada. She will be meeting with interested schools at ALISE, but she can't present any of the research she has done over the past few years. Some of this research, by the way, has already been presented on a reviewed panel at a significant annual conference. Something is wrong with this picture.
>
>Don't tell me it about the number of entries either because I've seen to from 10-20 posters to over 100 and still be manageable. I believe at one point they did two sessions--one for dissertation research and another for just research.
>
>What gives?
>
>**************************************************************
>Shawne D. Miksa, Ph.D.
>Associate Professor
>Department of Library and Information Sciences
>College of Information
>University of North Texas
>email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>http://courses.unt.edu/smiksa/index.htm
>office 940-565-3560 fax 940-565-3101
>**************************************************************