This is a classic example of "what goes around, comes around." 506 is the first pure online course I taught at Arizona many, many, years ago. It convinced me that we can, in fact, teach online although it is not for everybody. Anyway, onward.
A word of advice here. Read the whole syllabus now. If there is critical information in here somewhere, and you miss it because you did not read this thing, guess whose fault it is.
A Tentative Schedule
I have things noted in weeks here. Think of this as a once-a-week class that meets at 8 a.m. on Thursday. In fact, that is when the lectures will pop up on D2L. I don't expect you to be sitting at your computer at 8 a.m., but I would think that by Sunday evening you had best have the lecture read. Hence, Week 1 starts Thursday, August 28. Week 2 starts Thursday, September 4. Etc. Etc. I say tentative because I have rarely been able to stick to a syllabus in my life. Who knows what we'll get going on?
When in doubt as to what is going on check the SIRLS calendar at http://www.sirls.arizona.edu/calendar or the UA calendar at http://catalog.arizona.edu/calendar/0809cal.html paying particular attention to such things as drop and add dates.
I will be on the road October 10-18, but there will be a class. Thanksgiving is exactly when it usually is and there will be no class. And nothing due. Enjoy the massive overeating that ensues. Keep Thanksgiving in mind when we get to correlation statistics. I have a story to tell.
| Week 1: Introduction to Research | Week 2: Research in LIS | Week 3: Paradigms, Hegemony, and the Like |
| Week 4: Introduction to Statistics | Week 5: Descriptive Stats II: Measures of Variability | Week 6: Descriptive Stats III |
| Week 7: Theories and Hypotheses; Evidence and Variables First Stats Exam Due |
Week 8: On Probability and Statistical Significance | Week 9: Inferential Statistics |
| Week 10: More Inferential Statistics | Week 11: Experimental Design Issues Second Stats Exam Due |
Week 12: Evidence: Numerical and Historical |
| Week 13: Thinking About History | Week 14: Guest Page Research Article Evaluations Due |
Article Evaluations Due Week 15: Final Considerations Final Posts |
506, as taught by the Professor is more or less mainstream social science research methodology. The idea is not to make researchers out of you, but to make you better consumers of research. Libraries and information agencies are frequent targets of research, as well as depositories of research. Many users are both producers and consumers of research, so it is best that the librarian involved have at least some idea of what the process is all about.
Text and Readings
The text for the course will be Ronald R. Powell and Lynn Silipigni Connaway Basic Research Methods for Librarians 4th Ed. Libraries Unlimited, 2004. It is available in paperback from Amazon new for $40, used for $23.97 (as of July 7. '08.) We'll use it largely as supplemental and background material for lectures. I'll try and make reading assignments, but feel free to use the index and chapter headings to find what you need to know.
Five other articles will become available to you on the D2L site in PDF format. You won't need any of them from the get-go and I will let you know when I have them posted. Other readings will all be online, either in a database available through the UofA library at http://www.library.arizona.edu/search/articles/ ,or http://sabio.arizona.edu or simply floating on the web.
Some Techno Suggestions
Go get the Firefox browser from http://www.mozilla.org/ and use it instead of Internet Explorer. Other techno items you will need- Adobe Acrobat, mentioned below. Those of you with high speed connections should have the latest version of the Quicktime streaming video software- http://quicktime-2008.com/. For those of you without high speed access get an audio plug-in for your browser such as RealPlayer, Microsoft Mediaplayer, or some other streaming audio player. I will be posting audio clips in both RealPlayer and WMA format. You can go to Microsoft or Realplayer directly, or go to WinPlanet or Tucows and see what you like the looks of. There will be an audio component, so start looking.
Gizmos
A basic four function calculator will handle anything we are going to do in this class but it will require a lot of notes and keeping track of in-between stages on your part. A reasonably priced calculator with one or two memory functions will work nicely, or something that has some statistical functions will do even better. Eventually I will let you use a spreadsheet, but first we must learn some basics. Pretty much any spreadsheet will do. There is a tutorial on the beasties at TBA
The course will consist of lectures and discussion of common readings. Heavy emphasis will be placed on the student's ability to analyze and critique published research in the field. Participation in class discussion sessions is essential. See the schedule below for due dates. Everything but the final will be due while class is in session.
Statistics Exercises
Students will solve two sets of statistical problems, outside of class. One set will involve the use of calculators, the other a spreadsheet program. In general I can read almost any version of Excel or QuattroPro, Windows or Mac. Work done on Microsoft Works for reasons that are totally mysterious to me, are difficult to translate.
Guidelines on Stats Quizzi
I. The first stats exercise is essentially descriptive in nature. I'll
provide you with some data and some relatively simple questions
involving descriptive statistics. You answer the questions, and
everything is fine.
RULE 1: Do your own work. This is not a committee, or team assignment.
RULE 2: You may use a calculator, abacus, Ouija board, whatever, but no computers.
RULE 3: Lay out all your work and all your calculations in a reasonably
neat fashion so I can figure out what went wrong if you come up with
the wrong answer. I tend to give a lot of partial credit for these
things, but I have to see what mistakes you made in order to figure out
how much you know, or don't know, about what is going on.
II. The second stats exercise is more complex. Questions, and data,
will be provided. In this case you will have to work out the answers on
a spreadsheet.
RULES: Rules 1-3 apply here except for the bit about no computers. There is no rule 6.
Article Evaluations
The four research articles mentioned above
will be posted on D2L. They are cited below should you have access to
the paper versions. Students will evaluate all of these articles as works of research. The articles are:
Buttlar, Lois, and William Caynon "Recruitment of Librarians Into the Profession: The Minority Perspective" Library and Information Science Research volume 14, (1992) pages 259-280.
Maxwell, Margaret "The Lion and the Lady: The Firing of Miss Mary Jones" American Libraries volume 9, number 5, May, 1978, pages 268-272.
Wiegand, Wayne "The Lion and the Lady Revisited: Another Look at the
Firing of Mary L. Jones as Los Angeles Public Librarian in 1905" Library and Information Science Research volume 5, 1983, pages 273-290.
Williams, Robert V. "Public Library Development in the United States, 1850-1870: An Empirical Analysis" Journal of Library History 21/1 (Winter, 1986) pages 177-201.
These are all a trifle old, but all, in one fashion or another, are excellent examples of points I wish to make. Besides which I already have them in PDF format.
A Final Exam
Along with the last class I will post a final exam. While not long (I hope) it will cover the entire semester. As of this writing I am not sure how Arizona schedules finals- if it is as I remember, the final will be due the day the final is scheduled. If not I will make it due roughly the middle of finals week.
Academic Code of Integrity
Students are expected to abide by The University of Arizona Code of Academic Integrity. 'The guiding principle of academic integrity is that a student's submitted work must be the student's own.' If you have any questions regarding what is acceptable practice under this Code, please ask an Instructor.
Accommodating Disabilities
The University has a Disability Resource Center. If you anticipate the need for reasonable accommodations to meet the requirements of this course, you must register with the Disability Resource Center and request that the DRC send me, the Instructor, official notification of your accommodation needs as soon as possible. Please plan to meet with me by appointment or during office hours to discuss accommodations and how my course requirements and activities may impact your ability to fully participate.Assignment Policies
Important Information
1. Late material will be graded down at the rate of 10% of the grade per day late. Which means that a paper that would normally grade a 90 is a day late, the grade is 81. If two days late the grade is 72. After that you don't want to think about it. If, and only if, you let me know beforehand that there are going to be problems we can make adjustments. Problems do not include vacation, family reunions, or trips to concerts. I can be flexible, but remember you are a student in graduate school.
2. I expect submitted papers to be written in clear, concise, and grammatically correct English. Material not meeting these standards will be redone until they do so, losing points along the way. Suggestions on how to write for this course are TBA. All material will be submitted in electronic format. Standards for submission are in the box below. Kindly read them and follow directions. My inclination towards mercy on this topic is not what it used to be.
3. Papers may be written in either Word or WordPerfect. I can translate pretty much any other wordprocessor, although if you are not using Word or WP please check with me first- send me a test file just to make sure I can translate before we get into difficulties. If you are using Microsoft Works, please try and find something else. For reasons known only to Bill Gates, Works is difficult to translate.
Standards for Submitting Material in Electronic Format
In order to facilitate the whole process of grading and returning papers, quizzes, and anything else, in electronic form the following standards should be followed. If material is not submitted according to these standards it will arrive back in your lap with no grade assigned. I will accept submissions written in Word, or WordPerfect, and saved as .doc, .wpd, or RTF files. If you are going to use anything else, check with me first. Do not write papers in HTML- I think I said that somewhere already.
1. Formatting Your Submission
Word processed papers are the only kind I will accept. The following standards apply.
A. Margins.
Top and bottom margins: 1 inch.
Left and right margins: 1.25 inches, or as close as you can get. This
largely has to do with what I can see on a screen. Trifocals and old
age are not necessarily compatible with teeny tiny print.
B. Type Size.
Type size should be 12 points. I don't care about font, but have mercy
on my trifocals and set it at 12 points. I recognize that larger point
sizes are a way of artificially lengthening your paper, and will
automatically reset anything larger than 12 points back to the required
size. Please do not use the Courier typeface.
C. Heading. The heading of all submissions should include the following information:
Your name
The title of the paper, or whatever.
The class for which the paper has been written.
The name of the professor for whom the paper has been written.
The semester in which the paper has been written.
The word processor and version in which the paper is written.
Hence:
Another Country: Searching for the Southwest United States
Your Name
9450, Spring, 2008
Professor Seavey
WordPerfect version 11
I don't care if it is centered like, that, or in that particular order, but the information elements should all be present.
2. Checking Your Submission
A. Spell Checking.
Most, if not all, current word processors have a built in spell
checker. Use it. Spell check dictionaries are not always comprehensive,
so if the spell checker complains about a word that seems legitimate to
you, have a dictionary handy just to make sure you have it correct. If
my spell checker complains about something in your submission, that is
what I do... if it is a word that does not exist, or is spelled wrong,
woe be unto you.
B. Proof Reading
The spell checker only catches spelling errors, it doesn't care about
context. So if you are thinking "too many" and write "two many," the
spell checker won't catch it. The prof once wrote a lengthy explanation
of a statistical technique called "factor analysis," and distributed it
to a doctoral seminar. Everybody was fascinated with my somewhat
peculiar explanation of "factory analysis." The point is, read your
paper, and see if it makes sense. Or have your significant other read
it, or your next door neighbor. Most folks, after they have read their
own work once or twice, see exactly what they want to see, not the
mistakes.
C. Grammar Checking
Most word processors have a grammar checker. I have mixed feelings
about these because most of them are set to something akin to standard
business English usage, which may not be appropriate for academic
papers. Word underlines things that it does not like in green. I at
least look at those bits and see if I can figure out the nature of the
complaint. The use of "that" and "which," in my work has improved
considerably since I started using this.
3. Naming Your Submission
Filenames.
The name of your submission will be your last name, and only your last
name. Modifications are acceptable only where two classmembers share a
common last name. In that case the form of entry will be: last name
first initial: seaveyc, rather than just seavey. Note that
capitalization is not necessary. Do not worry if you wind up sending in
more than one thing with the same file name. The professor is old
enough to understand folders, sub-directories, and tree structures.
Trust me, I can keep all this stuff separate.
B. Extenders.
Most wordprocessor (in fact most current programs) assign an
identifier, known as a file extender, to files processed by that
program. The file extender identifies the type of file to the user-
human or computer- trying to look at the contents of that file. Some
examples:
Program - File Extender
Word for Windows - .doc
Excel (a spreadsheet)- .xls
WordPerfect (most recent version) - .wpd
Lotus Organizer - .org
A Joint Photographic Experts Group graphics file - .jpg
The program you are using will assign the file extender. Make sure that this is so. Experiment with whatever you are using and if file extenders are not assigned, ask the prof for advice.
That, I think, should do it. If there are questions, let me know.
A Few Words on Evaluating Research
The main thing to remember here when evaluating the journal and the articles is evidence evidence evidence evidence evidence evidence. I am not interested in the stories they collectively tell- I am interested in how you dissect each item as evidence. Think of the things you are reading as your unit of analysis- you are a researcher asking questions, the articles are the evidence you have collected. What can you tell me about each? Look at the evidence- how do you describe it? What questions does it answer? The research evaluation guide below provides at least one possible framework for an approach. This framework does not necessarily apply to all research, it is just a suggestion. There are many frameworks for research evaluation, and having such usually helps you approach the beast.
One Set of Criteria for Evaluating Research Reports
The following is presented as a guideline only. Not all of it will apply to all research pieces, nor are these the only possible criteria that should be addressed. Each piece will require additional thought on the part of the evaluator. There's a lot of language in here that you are not going to understand right away. Do not worry about it, by the time you get there, you will have the terminology you need.
I. Report of Prior Research:
Is the literature cited relevant?
Is the literature cited significant?
Is the literature cited sufficiently identified so that you could retrieve it?
II. Purpose and Justification
Is it sufficient, logical, and convincing?
Is there a general problem area identified?
Is a specific problem evident?
Are definitions given and are they clearly operationalized?
Are assumptions stated?
Hypotheses: Are they stated- implied, clear, precise? Are they directional?
Is lack of an hypothesis accounted for?
III. Sampling (if appropriate):
Is the population clearly described, implied?
Is the sample clearly described?
Is it representative, random, adequate in size?
Are limitations on generalizability presented?
IV. Instrumentation:
Adequately described?
Reliable?
Valid for the purpose?
V. Procedures:
Are they clearly described?
Are extraneous variables controlled?
Is procedural bias controlled?
VI. Data Analysis:
Are statistical methods appropriate?
Are limitations pointed out?
VII. Results
Clearly presented?
Written description consistent with data?
Are there a minimum of inferences?
Are they debatable?
VIII. Interpretation:
Is it consistent with the results?
Relevant to the purpose?
Does it place the study in a broader perspective?
What does it signal?
How to Write for this Course
Because this course is about research we will follow the instructions to authors of Library Quarterly, the original library research journal, as far as citation styles go. Ignore the formatting stuff, do pay attention to citation style. Otherwise:
"Say a thing in one sentence as straight as it can be made, and then drop it." William James
I expect that papers for a graduate level course will be written as if for publication. Not only must the basic facts of the subject be mastered, and all the relevant sources explored, but the text must be written clearly:
1. Who, what, where, when, and exactly how much must always be obvious. Know what you wish to say, and say only that; define new terms or new uses of old ones.
2. Avoid ambiguity. "You can't put too much water in a nuclear reactor."
3. Link sentences and paragraphs logically and intelligibly. The reader shouldn't have to rearrange your ideas to make sense out of them.
4. Sentences should not be so long that the reader loses his or her way. Otherwise you are likely to lose the readers attention, as so often happened with the prose of 19th century essayists such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, who was not only a doctor, professor, and novelist, but also the father of the famous Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (an intriguing character who combined the ideals of New England humanism with the prejudices of the upperclass, wealthy society in which he moved)...and before you know it you will have wandered very far afield. For practice, read lots of Jesse Shera. Or Barbara Kingsolver.
5. Avoid irrelevant or tangential topics. Stick to the point. [see number 4}
6. No obstacle should come between you and your reader. When revising, imagine the reader over your shoulder and apply the rules listed above before typing your final product.
Incompletes
The current catalog reads
The grade of I may be awarded only at the end of a term, when all but a minor portion of the course work has been satisfactorily completed. The grade of I is not to be awarded in place of a failing grade or when the student is expected to repeat the course; in such a case, a grade other than I must be assigned. Students should make arrangements with the instructor to receive an incomplete grade before the end of the term ...
If the incomplete is not removed by the instructor within one year the I grade will revert to a failing grade.
Students will be evaluated on the following:
Statistics Assignments: 30% taken together
Article Evaluations: 40%
Final Exam: 20%
Class Participation: 10%
All material will be graded on a numerical basis. The following standards apply in assigning final grades:
A= 93
B= 83-92
C= 73-82
Numerical scores are not rounded up when computing grades.
A Word on Grading
This is graduate school. Simply doing the work on time in a reasonable fashion earns a grade of "B." The grade of "A" is reserved for work that shows evidence of going beyond the mere requirements of completing the assignment. Heavy emphasis will be placed on the student's ability to analyze and critique published research in the field- in other words, critical thinking is a must. Participation in class discussion sessions is essential.
Professor: Charley Seavey
As of this writing I do not have access to D2L. As I understand it there is an internal email system or you may use Rangaslaws@gmail.com "Rangaslaws" refers to the Five Laws of Library Science set forth by Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan many years ago that I invite you to read and understand as they are applicable to all library situations.
In general I expect that you will check in on the class website at least every other day to see if you have email, or there are interesting class discussion notes on the bulletin board.
