Fall, 2004: Saturdays and WebCT
This course will meet in Worcester on alternate
Saturdays (9/11, 9/25, 10/9, 10/23, 11/6, 11/20, and 12/11) from 10 a.m.
to 1 p.m. Help sessions will be provided if needed between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m.
Alternate weeks' classes (9/18, 10/2, 10/6, 10/30,
11/13, and 12/4) will be delivered asynchronously via WebCT.
Dates of topics below may be shuffled if
necessary. Dates of assignments should be more stable. Annotated bibliography
and final paper are due on Saturdays when we don't meet in person, and are to be
submitted as e-mail attachments.
| Dates |
Topics |
Assignments & Class Activities |
Sept 11
|
Introduction: Research as a way of knowing
Language of research
Quantitative and qualitative methods
Research and evaluation: an uneasy partnership?
Reading for research: Getting started on the final paper
|
Self-introductions; photos; student information forms
Form teams for user study
|
| Sept 18
|
LIS
research literature: where to find it
Stages of research: problem statements and purpose
statements; defining variables, research questions and hypotheses;
selecting research
methods; planning; collecting, evaluating, and interpreting data;
conclusions and reports
|
Trochim, "Write-Up";
"Selecting
Statistics"
Wallace & Van Fleet,
Chapter 1
|
| Sept 25
|
Quantitative research: Surveys
Questionnaire design, sampling issues, and
variables
Measurement
scales
Getting started on the team user studies
|
Read for class discussion: Burkell
(2003)
|
Oct 2
|
Community analysis and needs assessment:
Approaches to the user study
|
Annotated bibliography
due
Wallace & Van Fleet, Chapter 2
|
Oct 9
|
Guest
speaker: Peter Deekle
Traditions of library evaluation:
academic, public,
school, and special;
Trends in
library evaluation: LIBQUAL+
|
Wallace &
Van Fleet,
Chapter 6
|
Oct 16
|
Qualitative research:
Focus groups and participant observations
Evaluating user services |
Wallace & Van Fleet,
Chapter 2, Case Study 2.2
|
| Oct 23
|
User studies and community analyses
|
Team presentations
due
|
| Oct 30 |
Quantitative research:
Issues in surveys and evaluating reference effectiveness |
Wallace & Van Fleet,
Chapter 3, 3.2
|
Nov 6
|
Evaluating research:
Statistics; rigor in qualitative research |
|
| Nov 13 |
Research ethics: Knowledge and privacy |
Final paper
due
|
Nov 20
(Comps) |
Quantitative
research: Experiments and field studies
Applications:
information literacy
|
|
Dec 4
|
Content analysis: A
stand-alone method or a tool for analyzing qualitative result
Application: Web sites |
Wallace
& Van Fleet,
Chapter 5
|
| Dec 11
|
Using and communicating
research and evaluation: Grants and PR |
|
