# Instructor guide: Dissertation evidence-package compiler

Course: Dissertation and synthesis colloquium

Suggested time: 90–120 minutes

## Learning target

Researchers compile a bounded, reproducible contribution whose claims survive null preservation, robustness checks, independent reproduction, and adversarial defense.

## Prepare

- Define the contribution in one falsifiable sentence.
- Require immutable evidence-package links.
- Recruit an adversarial committee role.

## Facilitation moves

- Stop at the earliest failed dependency.
- Ask what survives the strongest null interpretation.
- Make public language no stronger than the compiled evidence.

## Misconception checks

- **A dissertation must prove the researcher's preferred theory true.** It must deliver an original, bounded, defensible contribution; rigorous constraints or nulls can satisfy that standard.
- **Committee approval replaces reproducibility.** Expert judgment evaluates the package but does not substitute for traceable data, code, methods, and independent checks.

## Accessibility and participation

- Provide a linear gate checklist and dependency graph.
- Allow oral defense artifacts with accessible transcripts.
- Use plain-language public-claim previews beside technical claims.

## Evidence of learning

- A bounded contribution statement
- A seven-gate evidence package
- An adversarially defensible public claim

## Extension

Produce a living post-defense synthesis that versions claim changes as new replications and critiques arrive.

## Evidence boundary

Assess the learner's reasoning only within the declared model and recorded observations. Do not upgrade a simulation result into a claim about an unmodeled physical system.