| Week 1: Identifying your dissertation topic |
| Dissertation topics covered by previous cohorts |
| Dissertation plan: poor example |
| Dissertation plan: needs work |
| Dissertation plan: good example |
| Online survey on the experience of research |
| Week 2: Articulating topic, research objectives and setting the scene for the literature review |
| Week 3: Structuring the literature review with concept mapping |
| Make a concept map of the following extract from Heath, C. and Heath, D. (2008) Made to Stick, Arrow Books: London |
| Good example of a concept map and accompanying references |
| List of references to be checked |
| Week 4: Evaluating the literature review |
| Review form |
| Literature review draft |
| Week 5: Research design and ethical considerations |
| BERA (British Educational Research Association) - 2004 Short version of the Code of Ethics |
| BERA 2011 - Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research |
| Oppenheim's ethical issues and research ethics |
| Example of consent form for the HoD |
| Consent form for participants |
| Interview schedule and consent form |
| Consent form in a survey |
| Week 6: Introduction to content analysis (CA) |
| Extracts from critical incidents in an academic library |
| Prliminary analysis of critical incidents in an academic library |
Exercise 1: Amanda
This short text is by a young woman who discovered she was pregnant. Read the 10 lines of text and decide which of the listed codes describes what is happening in each line. |
Exercise 2: Karen
This short text is by a young woman talking about leaving home. Read the 10 lines of text and then type in your own code for each line of text. |
| Explanations of Methodologies for qualitative data analysis (University of Huddersfield) |
| Week 7: Transcribing and analysing interviews - NB we'll be in G40 from 10 am |
| Interview schedule and consent form |
| Extract of recorded interview (mp3 file) |
| Full transcript of interview |
| Transliteracy: take a walk on the wild side Keynote presented at the World Library and Information Congress: 75th IFLA General Conference and Assembly "Libraries create futures: Building on cultural heritage", 23-27 August 2009, Milan, Italy. |
| Growing Knowledge. The evolution of research |
| Week 8: Introduction to quantitative analysis and basic SPSS |
| Introduction to SPSS |
| Hinton, P. R.
Statistics explained,
London; New York : Routledge, 2004 |
| Salkind, N. J. Statistics for people who (think they) hate statistics,
Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 2008 |
| Week 9: Survey design |
| Example of an online survey on JIL readership |
| Example of a survey on digital library policies |
| Questionnaire design |
| Sampling strategies |
Devise an online survey for one of the following:
|
Assessing user satisfaction of a service of your choice
|
| Establishing the information needs of a group of your choice |
| Week 10/11: Examining dissertations by previous students |
| Example 1 of a literature review for 'Late night opening in academic libraries: evaluation of the extended hours service at Kingston University Library' |
Draft 1 and Draft 3
Read the tutor's comments in draft 1 and look at the content of this first attempt of reviewing the literature. Now look at the third draft and identify at least three improvements from the first draft. |
| Example 2 of a literature review for 'To Facebook or not to Facebook: the use of Facebook for academic research' |
Read this final draft of the literature review and assess it in terms of the following criteria:
- Adequacy of rationale and literature review setting the study into context
- Breadth and depth of the investigation
- Coherence and consistency of arguments and adequacy of themes developed
- Demonstration of analytical and critical capabilities.
|
| Example 1 |
| Information is power: an evaluation of internal communications between Cutstomer Services LRC staff at Kingston University |
| 1) Dissertation plan |
| Example 2 |
| From Commonwealth to Independence: what impact has the implementation of UNESCO's information initiatives had on Tanzania's rural development |
| 2) Dissertation plan |
| Example 3 - Good account of CA - see Ch. 3 of the dissertation below |
| Information Technology Use in Year 5 State and Private Primary School Classrooms in London |
| 3) Dissertation plan |
| Supervisors allocated by Friday 10 February 2012 |
