PhDs submitted online in world first for RMIT

Two Melbourne researchers have completed the world's first PhDs in which the research was conducted, supervised, submitted, examined, and stored on-line, according to the university.

Drs Simon Pockley and Russell Naughton, postgraduates of RMIT's Centre for Animation and Interactive Media have been awarded the first two PhDs in Animation and Interactive Media.

Dr Pockley's thesis, entitled "The Flight of Ducks", is concerned with digital preservation, having been built around a deeply layered collection of archival material from a camel expedition into the central Australian frontier in 1933.

In 1997 the international examination of the project was held up for eight months by the RMIT University Human Research Ethics Committee because the committee believed the project contained secret and sacred Aboriginal material.

Dr Pockley's work, which is accessible at www.cinemedia.net/FOD, has been archived by the National Library as part of the Pandora project.

Dr Naughton's project on the history of radio, entitled "Adventures in CyberSound - A Future for Radio?, A Radio for the Future?", is available at www.cinemedia.net/RMIT/rnaughton.