Recently, a tweet from @jessmcculloch (Twitter is another Thing!) got me thinking. She was moaning about transcription work, and I immediately suggested using Transcriva) to make transcription easier. I realised that I use a lot of tools that others may also find useful, but maybe don’t know about. Hence this post. What are my favourite Things in academia? For working, learning and teaching in a university context and for engaging in research? What would I put in “23 Things for Academics”?

So here’s my list (in no particular order!):

1. Trascriva: a great tool for transcription on the Mac. I don’t know what I’d do without it! Probably curse a lot more at MS Word
2. Blogging: You’re reading it now. My blog(s) act as an online notebook – the hub of my learning, recording, and doing!
3. Zotero: A reference/citation manager that runs rings around EndNote because it cuts down on data entry to the n’th degree and has an online backup system. If you haven’t checked it out, go now! Stop reading this list! Go!
4. Google Scholar: I thought this was a given but I’m continually surprised by how many people don’t use it, and how many lecturers tell their students not to use it! Being able to search effectively, whether that be with Google Scholar or through databases directly, is an important skill in academia. Plus you can see how many people are citing you :). Before there were track-backs there were still citations!
5. Twitter: If you follow celebrities, you’ll find out what they had for lunch. But if you follow people working and researching in your field you’ll find out what has their attention. And it’s likely something you’d like to attend to!
6. Wordle: I find this incredibly useful for visualising my writing in different ways, analysing interviews, looking at over-used and under-used words… it’s on my list not just for Languages teachers
7. Turnitin: I was a bit anti-Turnitin to begin with (how DARE they keep a copy of my work on file!) but as a marker, I really appreciate it. It’s not so much about catching plagiarizers (it’s often oh-so-obvious when it’s not a student’s own work), it’s about building a case against them. Previously I’d have to find the articles/essay/whatever and match it all up manually, building up the evidence that it is indeed more copying than you’d expect in an undergraduate essay. With Turnitin, it’s all there! Brilliant! And it’s a great tool for students (and researchers!) to inspect their own writing and check their paraphrasing.
8. Google Calendar: This calendar has replaced my diary. I don’t know what I’d do without it now. I love how it syncs to almost anything I want it to, that I can share calendars, that I can get automatic alerts for conferences, and that I can colour code everything. It just works!
9. Google Docs: Continuing my ode to Google, Google Docs are fabulous for collaborative work and generating quick surveys
10. A RSS Reader: It doesn’t really matter which one, but a way of managing RSS feeds is essential in academia. Subscribing to RSS feeds of important journals, blogs, and other news sources for the field is essential.
11. PHD Comics: OK, this might count more as a procrastination tool than an ICT tool, but I have absolutely loved following this comic over the course of my studies. It reminds us that we’re not alone in this “journey” and the comic hits so close to home, so often, that I wonder if the author isn’t spying on our office
12. Delicious: One of the best tools for managing bookmarks. Mine’s a bit of a mess at the moment (like many of these things it needs some nurturing and pruning from time to time!) but I have long since given up trying to remember website addresses or keep them bookmarked on my computer. Much easier to be able to access them from Delicious whenever I want, wherever I want! Delicious is also a great place to search for webpages that people have tagged as relevant to a topic/keyword, and not a machine.
13. The Book Depository: Cheap books!! Amazon may still be cheaper for some academic texts, but Book Depository with its free shipping is catching up!
14. LibX Toolbar: Oh how much easier this makes searching the Murdoch Library Catalogue! You can read more about why a LibX toolbar is so useful it in a recent blog post by Kathryn Greenhill. She’s much more eloquent than I in waxing lyrical.
15. Slideshare.net: A great place to publish slides so that they’re embeddable in other media (e.g. blog, wiki, etc) and also to find presentations to inform, adapt, or model on. Check out Death by PowerPoint for an absolute must-view.
16. Search @ CreativeCommons: For making all of those presentations! Copyright free / Creative Commons images are the way to go, and this helps you find them. And then record where you got them from using Zotero! (Thanks Kathryn for that tip!!)
17. The FireFox Browser: There’s just so much more you can do with FireFox than you can with other browsers. I regularly use extensions such as “Scrapbook” to archive websites, “FireFTP” to quickly transfer files, “Firebug” to find sneaky pieces of web code, and of course helpers such as LibX, Delicious, and Zotero.
18. Scrivener: I’ve only just begun using this but I like it so far! It seems to ‘organise’ writing the way that I like to work. We’ll see how it goes!
19. Skitch: A mac app for assisting with screen capture. I use this a lot to create instructions for students, to take quick snapshots of pages (or parts of pages), keep Twitter messages safe, and so on. Also a great tool when constructing PowerPoint presentations.
20. A program for annotating .pdf’s: Adobe Professional ($$$) and Preview (on Mac) both make annotating .pdfs easy. I mark student assignments using Preview by inserting comments and scribbling (literally) over their work. I find it far easier and more flexible (especially with the scribbles!) than using “track changes” in Word.
21. CoverItLive: A great tool for ‘covering’ a conference by bringing in a range of feeds and peoples to a web audience. It can be quite intensive to use (I end up focusing so much on what is really a transcription exercise that I don’t listen/engage in the same way I normally would or make my own notes and meta-notes) but it is one of my favourite tools for relaying conference presentations due to its ease of use. Plus you can always go back and re-visit what was said! Check out my EuroCALL Conference posts to see it in re-action
22. Freemind: An open-source mind-mapping tool. There’s other ones around, but this one is free, easy to use, and offers a range of formats.
23. QuickTime: I do a lot of video editing in my research work and the new version of QuickTime with its “trim” functionality has dramatically reduced the number of steps and time it takes to edit clips!

So there you have it. My favourite web/computer-based Things. Of course, I use a lot more than this (I hardly mentioned productivity/presentation tools like Word, PowerPoint, iMovie, etc.) but in a 23 Things programme, I think these would make the list.

What would you add or replace?

There must be something more interesting for social scientists to do with their computers than coding data.

Mason & Dicks, 2001, p. 441.

And I certainly agree! I gave a “Friday Morning Seminar” presentation to the faculty of Education a couple of weeks ago in which I described how I am using technologies to research technologies.

When I first started this research “journey,” I was highly influenced by what I read in the Horizon Report. I knew that working and researching in the field of educational technologies would mean that my work would be quickly outdated unless I was very forward thinking. My “contribution to knowledge” may be obsolete before I could even start writing! In this goal of forward-thinking, the Horizon Report was of great help. The Horizon Project, for which the report is produced, “charts the landscape of emerging technologies for teaching, learning and creative inquiry.” And so in writing my research proposal, I paid close attention to the ideas and technologies the report charted for 3-5 years time (now!). I was particularly interested in the ideas of “The New Scholarship and Emerging Forms of Publication” and, of course, the many tools that would (could) be used for and in research.

Cue a few technological developments that occurred as I engaged field work, in a very short amount of time. Digital still cameras became far cheaper and accessible, often with video capture; netbooks (sub notebooks) were released and again, were cheap and accessible; USB digital video cameras became the norm rather than tape-based cameras; WiFi became widespread not just in libraries but also in cafes and many schools; wireless broadband coverage increased and became a viable option; and finally the iPhone was released. Online video (YouTube, for instance), blogging, and data storage in “the cloud” also became a part of many web users’ vocabularies. I experimented using all of these tools during my field work to capture, collect, collate and re-present data. With traditions of ethnography in mind, I was looking and seeing (ala Harry Wolcott) technology in classroom case-studies using technology to do so, and now I am evaluating its use. What happened? How? Why? Was there any (perceived) benefit to using ICTs when more ‘traditional’ methods may have sufficed? But my biggest question -

How do we ensure that looking with technology (in ethnographic fieldwork) is good looking?

Stay tuned – this is what I’ll be writing about over the next few weeks. But first, the nitty gritty of the methodology chapter!

All I can say is… wow. What a great job the two teams have done! At the moment, only the “notes” function in JID syncs (well, not “sync,” it’s a one-way upload) with Omeka, and another team is needed to finish it off so that photos, audio recordings and other data can also be uploaded, but I think that we’re well on the way to having a useful app! The fact that it will also work on the upcoming iPad is exciting as well. I love the idea that an ethnographer can capture and collect data in the field, upload it to “the cloud” (securely), and get feedback from a remote supervisor at point of need. And the data can’t be lost, left on the bus, etc. And! A lot of metadata entry is carried across! Fabulous! No more manually entering the time, date, location and so forth for each individual item.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to use this app myself in the field, but its design is based on my experiences of using other iPhone apps and ICTs whilst undertaking classroom observations. Lets cross our fingers and hope for another team to take up this project, and that it might enter the app store some day soon.

]]> http://www.exploringthehyper.net/blog/2010/03/upcoming-friday-seminar/feed/ 0 http://www.exploringthehyper.net/blog/2009/03/the-importance-of-good-data-management/ http://www.exploringthehyper.net/blog/2009/03/the-importance-of-good-data-management/#comments Wed, 11 Mar 2009 03:12:52 +0000 Penny Coutas http://www.exploringthehyper.net/blog/?p=261 I know the importance of organization during any project. Home renovations, cooking a lamb roast, going to a concert, conducting fieldwork for research. It will go a lot more smoothly (and be more useful) if you plan, conduct and keep it organized as you go.

I didn’t do this very well during my fieldwork. I was observing classes, taking video footage, conducting interviews and then dumping this data into the “in tray” or the “to do” tray (where “tray” might also be a folder on my desktop).  So now I’m having to revisit all of my data, figure out what it is (oh how I wish I had labeled all those video tapes!!), make it digital, and then archive it meaningfully.

The upside of doing it all at once is that my taxonomy (folksonomy?) is relatively consistent in my archiving. The downside? There’s just so much of it to do. I fully intended to do it as I went along, but just didn’t. There was the potential to be blogging from my iPhone, but I didn’t do this very much. There was also the potential to upload fieldnotes and photos as soon as I downloaded them to my computer, but I didn’t do this very much either.  This was mainly due to not having my archive set up (properly) in advance (and, indeed, the “front end” is still not set up) and being flat-out with the act of fieldwork itself. I didn’t factor in the time for data management very effectively.

And so, in revising the Action Reflection Cycle, I would highlight the importance of recording – recording the data, recording initial thoughts/reflections about those data, and labeling (tagging) as you go. I have adapted the “typical” action reflection cycle (below) to highlight this. I consider “observe” to be very important, but in my research, observation has very much been a part of the “act” stage of the cycle.

The Action Reflection Cycle (Image from CELT (2003) http://celt.ust.hk/ideas/ar/intro.htm)

My revised version of the Action Reflection Cycle. (Image adapted from CELT (2003) http://celt.ust.hk/ideas/ar/intro.htm)

In planning, acting, recording and reflecting by writing this blog post, it occurs to me that perhaps the “record” part should be added to every stage of the cycle, and not be seen as separate. The construction of an “audit trail” is oh-so-important when undertaking doctoral studies (because I’m constructing a thesis) and so shouldn’t every stage be recorded? But when do you stop? When is enough data enough?

My discovery? It pays not to be lazy. And not to procrastinate about data management. It also makes me fully appreciate the work of librarians!  I am very much looking forward to my next “round” of fieldwork in which I will archive-as-I-go, and see if I can achieve digital zen.

I knew that the iPhone would become an essential tool in my EdD research. I was using my (very pretty) Motorola flip phone to take photos, videos and record audio, but the iPhone would potentially allow me to upload content directly, and also download information at point of need, quickly. After following iPhone developments in the US for over a year, and having stroked and tapped around a few at PodCamp, of course I was in that line.

So a few months on, what have I discovered? First, I don’t use anywhere near my cap. I went for the $59 Optus Cap Plan because it was by far the best value. But I don’t use the 500mb of data and $350 of calls. It’s nice to know that I could and it’s nice not to fear the bill, but because most places I go have WiFi, I find that I don’t use the 3G network a great deal for data.

Second, there are amazing benefits and also surprising disadvantages. The lack of cut’n'paste and MMS messaging has been well documented and moaned about, as has the battery life. The benefits? The web browsing, intuitive nature, and all-round awesomeness have also been raved about. And I agree.

So what is it I’m actually using? What apps form my research toolkit? A team of students in ICT333 are currently working on a specialised app for me to manage ethnographic fieldwork, but at the moment I use a grab-bag of apps. I also use different ones for my different hats as a Language teacher, as a Gen Y socialiser, and as someone who gets hours of entertainment from bubble-wrap. Here are my faves for research:

Used daily:

WordPress
This allows me to blog directly from my phone. Whether it’s notes at conferences and seminars, “to do” items, reflections while in the field, or ideas to follow up, my research blog is immediately accessible. And I can’t lose it or leave it on a train.

QuickVoice
This is the audio-recorder that I use for interviews. The iPhone’s internal microphone is adequate, but not at podcast quality. For research purposes though? Perfect. I chose this app over others because, months ago, it was the only one that allowed the audio to be downloaded to a computer, and that could be paused during recording. Considering the number of interruptions during interviews, this is important! Now there’s quite a few more on the App Store but I’ve stuck with what I know.

Maps
I haven’t used a map book since I got my iPhone. Finding my research sites is so much easier now! This also allows me to account for kilometers to claim back petrol when I’ve forgotten to reset my car’s odometer.

MyDelicious
Allows me to access and edit my delicious bookmarks.

These have potential:

DataCase and AirSharing
Backup work, documents, audio, etc. via WiFi (the iPhone becomes a storage device). Why this can’t be done via USB (as you could with older generation iPods) is beyond me.

iObserve
A data collection tool for observations. It’s unclear, though, whether you can have a text input field for extended responses – this could replace my (paper-based) Observation Schedules if it does. Then again, I find that I need to look at the keyboard on the iPhone when I type, unlike a normal keyboard or pen’n'paper. During classroom observations, it’s essential that I observe the class… not my iPhone.

Wish List:

• An app that allows me to upload data directly to my Omeka archive. This would be especially useful for photos, and cut out the step between collecting data in the field and uploading.
• A “to do” list that syncs with iCal.
• USB transfer of data – I can bake a cake in the time it takes to sync if I have a lot of interviews.

I’ll be writing about using the iPhone as Method/s as part of my methodology chapter. Maybe I should write it on my iPhone? Speak it? Photograph it? If only I could video it… ;)

So instead, this post will start my “discoveries” off with a list of my top 10 tools, or my top 10 “discoveries”, in terms of my online research toolkit so far. The things I use every day. And after this, I’ll just be blogging new discoveries (well, new to me, anyway!).

Penny’s Top 10 (Online) Tools for Research

1. Zotero, free citation management software that works from your Firefox browser. I love how it’s so easy to add journal articles and books from online sources such as Amazon!
2. Delicious, a “social bookmarking” site. You can see my bookmarks at http://delicious.com/pcoutas and a video explaining it all here
3. Google Scholar, the essential literature search tool for the Naughties. In fact, I rate all of Google’s services quite highly in my toolkit, especially Google Docs
4. LiveJournal Communities, a blogging site but with a bit of a difference. This isn’t your usual “listen to me” blog site, but rather works around communities of readers and writers. There are some great communities for academics and researchers that have really kept me grounded and made me aware of overseas contexts for postgraduate studies. I also use LJ (as it’s fondly called) as my RSS reader.
5. The Piled Higher and Deeper Comic, essential for procrastination (and reducing that feeling of isolation)
6. The LibX Toolbar, lets me access Murdoch’s library right from my toolbar!
7. Email, I like to keep my private and professional email separate, but somehow they end up blurring a bit!
8. Flickr is a great photo sharing site. It’s also a good place to find photos under Creative Commons licenses that can be used in presentations (and blog posts!).
9. My research website is hosted by Dreamhost, and so forms an essential part of my toolkit. I store all of my data in an archive powered by Omeka, built by the crew behind Zotero.
10. Online (synchronous) chat tools such as Skype, SecondLife and MSN Messenger are also a part of my toolkit, but I don’t use any to the exclusion of others: it depends on who I want to talk to, if we want to use video (or avatars!), or what everyone else is using (e.g. a virtual conference). I think SecondLife has a lot of potential for academic presentations and conferences: the feeling of co-presence is far greater than just watching a streamed PowerPoint and audio presentation

I also use my iPhone extensively for research, but that’s a whole other post :)

Is there anything you’d recommend I check out? Leave a comment!

In 2006, Lewins and Silver wrote a thorough working-paper guide to Choosing CAQDAS software and have also written a more formal step-by-step guide (2007). They give some general questions to ask when choosing a CAQDAS package (2006, p. 5), which I have found useful in guiding my own exploration and decision-making processes:

• What kind(s) and amount of data do you have, and how do you want to handle it?
  I will have a lot of data in digital form. I plan on working with audio, video, paper documents, web-based documents, and combinations of those media. I want it to be accessible online and from a variety of devices (e.g. mobile devices as well as computers).
• What is your preferred style of working?
  I have a range of working styles. I prefer to have my data available at “point of need,” which for me means online (so I can’t lose it!). I work at odd times, and quickly forget things, and so I like having a way of recording ideas and “moments” in a way that lets me revisit and remember them later. However, when I’m working, that is, intensive-writing work, I like to plan on paper and be surrounded by sources and data, working through each “bit” until I’ve covered everything I had originally intended to. There’s a saying that you’re either a Mozart (who wrote, re-wrote and polished a piece bit-by-bit until it was perfect) or a Beethoven (who wrote in one go after extensive planning) when it comes to writing, and I am more of a Beethoven.
• What is your theoretical approach to analysis and how well developed is it at the outset?
  My theoretical approach to analysis is not well developed at this stage. I am still unsure as to what “analysis” actually is, and will be seeking advice. I’ve been told that “themes will emerge” and in order to facilitate this I intend to make use of “tagging” and folksonomies (Beer, 2007; Good, 2006; Marlow et al. 2006). It will be interesting to see how my own tags compare to those of my participants’, and what forms from the “tag cloud.”
• Do you have a well defined methodology?
  I am using Hypermedia Ethnography as methodology, which is well-suited to CAQDAS because all of my data will be in digital form. What is not well-suited to CAQDAS is the use of hyperlinking beyond the CAQDAS package itself. Ideally I would like to be able to make links between and within data, and beyond it to outside sources.
• Do you want a simple to use software which will mainly help you manage your thinking and thematic coding?
  Simple to use? Yes. But it’s not so much to manage my thinking as to manage data and the links between them. I am leaning more towards using this blog to manage my thinking, and would like the blog to integrate with the CAQDAS package but not necessarily be my CAQDAS or EHE solution.
• Are your more concerned with the language, the terminology used in the data, the comparison and occurrence of words and phrases across cases or between different variables?
  For this particular study, no. I know that a lot of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) research focuses on the language but as this is an ethnographic study I am more concerned with (re)presenting the case studies in an accessible and rich manner.
• Do you wish to consider tools which offer suggestions for coding, using Artificial Intelligence devices?
  Yes! But, as mentioned above, I am also interested in the use of folksonomies and the “wisdom of the crowd” (Surowiecki, 2005)
• Do you want both thematic and quantiative content from the data?
  No, my data will be qualitative.
• Do you want a multiplicity of tools (not quite so simple) enabling many ways of handing and interrogating data?
  Yes! This is very important.
• How much time do you have to “learn” the software?
  Well, I would like to graduate some day. But I do have some time and am very familiar with online and offline tools.
• How much analysis time has been built into the project?
  6 months (and ongoing throughout fieldwork and writing, etc. Analysis will always be an ongoing process following an action-reflection cycle(CELT, 2008)
• Are you working individually on the project or as part of a team?
  I count my research participants as part of my “team” and would like for them to be able to access their data. This raises a lot of ethical issues and considerations (e.g. ability for password protection, different levels of permissions, etc.) and are important points to consider when choosing a CAQDAS / EHE solution. My supervisors should also be able to access the data and make suggestions. For the most part, though, I will be working individually.
• Is this just one phase of a larger project – do you already have quantitative data?
  This is not part of a larger project, but I am very interested in the potential for data-reuse by others, perhaps for different purposes, later on (see: Dicks et al.,2006; Mason et al., 2007).
• Is there a package – and peer support – already available at your institution or place of work?
  There are a number of researchers familiar with Nvivo at Murdoch University, but unfortunately no formal training or classes available (unlike SPSS!). Training courses are available from external providers for ~$600, and the software package itself costs roughly the same amount. The cost of the software is an important consideration – my student budget does not stretch very far.

I decided to seek advice from others at my university, my online networks, and from the “blogosphere” of reviews and commentary. From this, I narrowed the choice of CAQDAS/EHE potential solutions to 9 possibilities:

1. Moodle
2. WordPress
3. MediaWiki
4. Google (particularly Google Docs)
5. Joomla
6. NVivo8
7. Collex
8. Omeka

My comparison chart is available here: EHE Comparison Document

Some of the options above were designed to be CAQDAS programmes, the others for different purposes but adaptable to my needs. It appears that there is no “one stop” solution (NVivo comes close, but is not online solution nor available for Macs) and I may end up using a variety of tools. What I have found most difficult about this decision is the need to think ahead. My ideas are influenced by The Horizon Report which describes trends in technology and academia, and in recognising that this doctoral research is going to take place over a long period of time (relatively speaking), I want it to be as “current” at the end as it is at the beginning. Using tools that are going to be supported, sustained and developed throughout the project is very important, especially given the fast-changing nature of technology itself. I want to ensure that whatever “hub” I use, whatever archive or “portable brain” is as adaptable, extensible and flexible as possible. And within my non-programmer, non-web-designer capabilities!

References

Beer, D., & Burrows, R. (2007). Sociology And, of and in Web 2.0. Sociological Research Online, 12(5). Retrieved March 9, 2008, from http://www.socresonline.org.uk/12/5/17.html.

Center for Enhanced Learning and Teaching (CELT). (2008). IDEAS – Action Research (AR). Retrieved March 20, 2008, from http://celt.ust.hk/ideas/ar/intro.htm.

Coffey, A., Renold, E., Dicks, B., Soyinka, B., & Mason, B. (2006). Hypermedia ethnography in educational settings: possibilities and challenges. Ethnography and Education, 1(1), 15-30. Retrieved March 9, 2008 from http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a743885188~db=all~jumptype=rss.

Dicks, B., Mason, B., Coffey, A. J., & Atkinson, P. A. (2005). Qualitative Research and Hypermedia: Ethnography for the Digital Age. London: Sage Publications Ltd.

Dicks, B., Mason, B., Williams, M., & Coffey, A. (2006). Ethnography and data reuse: issues of context and hypertext. Methodological issues in qualitative data sharing and archiving. Briefing Paper, United Kingdom: Qualidata. Retrieved from http://www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/hyper/QUADS/working_papers.html.

Dicks, B., & Mason, B. (1998). Hypermedia and Ethnography: Reflections on the Construction of a Research Approach. Sociological Research Online, 3(3). Retrieved March 9, 2008, from http://ideas.repec.org/a/sro/srosro/1998-34-1.html.

Good, R. (2006, February 1). Folksonomies: Tags Strengths, Weaknesses And How To Make Them Work. Independent Publishing News, e-Marketing Articles, Online Collaboration Reviews by Robin Good. Blog, . Retrieved March 9, 2008, from http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/02/01/folksonomies_tags_strengths_weaknesses_and.htm.

Lewins, A., & Silver, C. (2006). Choosing a CAQDAS Package. Working Paper.

Lewins, A., & Silver, C. (2007). Using Software in Qualitative Research: A Step-by-Step Guide (p. 304). Sage Publications Ltd.

Mason, B., Williams, M., Dicks, B., & Coffey, A. (2006b). Qualitative data archiving and reuse: mapping the ethical terrain. Methodological issues in qualitative data sharing and archiving. Briefing Paper, United Kingdom: Qualidata. Retrieved from http://www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/hyper/QUADS/working_papers.html.

Marlow, C., & Naaman, M. (n.d.). Boyd, d., Davis, M.: HT06, tagging paper, taxonomy, Flickr, academic article, to read. In Proceedings of the seventeenth conference on Hypertext and hypermedia (pp. 31–40). Retrieved March 18, 2008, from http://www.danah.org/papers/Hypertext2006.pdf

Surowiecki, J. (2005). The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few. London: Abacus.

Weinberger, D. (2007). Everything is Miscellaneous. New York: Times Books.

Wesch, M. (2007). The Machine is Us/ing Us (Final Version). Retrieved March 18, 2008, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g.