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Wednesday, August 23, 2006

A new paradigm for a new year

Greetings, colleagues! For 2006-2007, the Center for Social Research is moving to a new project management footing, of which this brand new weblog is a part. We are working to place new emphasis on our primary mission:  helping Calvin faculty improve our academic research in the social sciences. CSR’s support for community service organizations, the Christian Reformed Church, and Calvin administrative departments will not end, but we are working hard to emphasize faculty research as the organizing principle for these other CSR functions, which are after all part of our entire institution’s mission, not CSR’s alone. This note is primarily about the ongoing expansion of our high-tech research-support infrastructure. Read on to see a few of the steps we are taking…

1. Research workspace availability:  CSR’s workroom (Spoelhof Center 206) has room for a number of guest workers. We acquired new computers in the last few months, which are well-equipped with a wide range of tools useful for social science, including statistical software (SPSS 12.0, Stata 9), geographic information systems (ArcGIS 9.1 and others), textual analysis software (NVivo 7), and design software (Dreamweaver 8, Fireworks 8, Flash MX 2004, CorelDraw X3, etc.). Faculty, staff and students who need a place to access high-tech tools and have expert support available may request short-term use of the workroom (maximum one semester per request); contact us, or see the Project Proposal Form item below!
    
2. Weblog: Calvin faculty, staff and student research assistants are invited to join this weblog as a place to share information about social-science-related ideas and research findings. If you or your department have social-research-related news, events, publications or just ideas, you can use the CSR weblog as a calendar of events and a record of research news. Just send us your news by email; if you anticipate frequent posts, you can become an editor and make posts directly. Social Science Division department chairs and administrative assistants are especially invited to contact us about this exciting system.
    
3. Project Proposal Form: To ensure our project portfolio reflects our research goals and leaves plenty of time for informal consultation and training, we are implementing a batch project proposal process, with three primary proposal deadlines annually:  September 10, January 15 and May 1. We’ll consider short-term and informal needs as possible, but please give us as much lead time as possible for projects requiring more than a couple hours of time. If you are interested in any service from CSR, contact us in person or complete the Project Proposal Form and we’ll contact you.
    
4. Project Management Infrastructure: In addition to our research services, the CSR is developing expertise in new-era project management and accounting tools, including Microsoft Project and Intuit’s QuickBase and QuickBooks Online Edition. Key features include task assignment and tracking to on- and off-campus collaborators, online time tracking for student employees with project- and client-level detail (not available in Calvin’s current KnightVision timecard system). If your research project is complex, collaborative, or both, you may benefit by sharing CSR’s growing infrastructure.
    
5. Inquisite Online Survey System expansion:  Calvin recently upgraded our survey software to Inquisite 7.5 and added two great new packages, the Software Development Kit (SDK) and the Multi-Language Kit (MLK); we are also working with staff to disseminate Inquisite expertise to other on-campus divisions, so CSR can specialize in research-driven and off-campus client uses of the system. The SDK allows Inquisite to be linked to other systems; for example, answer options to a particular survey question can be dynamically drawn from an evolving database list. The MLK enables a consistent logical survey structure with multiple languages; respondents can choose a language to respond in, and analysts can choose a language for exported reports and datasets. The MLK also includes a translation utility that simplifies the process of providing a professional translator with the entire logical structure of the survey and importing the translator’s work into Inquisite.
    

Thanks for reading. Please make a comment, or see our Services page to learn more about CSR’s skill set.

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