1. Technology and Social Research Peter Halfpenny GMCVO seminar 18 September 2009

2. Three disclaimers 1. By technology I mean Information & Communication Technology (ICT) 2. I’m a sociologist not a techie (so I don’t understand a lot of what I’m going to talk about) 3. Pardon? (I don’t hear a lot of what other people talk about)

3. Organisation of my talk  Some questions about you  Hype versus reality  Academics are spoiled  Basics  ICTs across the research life cycle  Courses  More resources  The future  The end

4. Some questions about you 1. Who has access to: a. a desk-top computer? b. a laptop, notebook or netbook? c. a hand-held or high-end mobile phone? 2. Who uses: a. Windows b. Apple 3. Who has access to the internet? 4. Who is outside academia? a. and outside any organisation? 5. Is there an ICT expert here?

5. Hype versus reality www.Gartner.com would a pen be easier?

6. Academics are spoiled  Access to:  hardware  software  support  online resources  Therefore befriend an academic  collaborate  honorary appointment  join a university as staff or student  But : non commercial only

7. The basics 1. hardware 2. software 3. internet connection 4. technical support 5. security

8. 1. Hardware  desktop  desktop replacement laptop 17” screen, heavy, poor battery life £500 to £1,000  notebook / ultraportable 12” to 14” screen, light, no cd/dvd £600 to £1,200  netbook 10” screen, web-browsing £250 to £400

9. 2. Software  commercial - expensive  open source – download to PC or server  often well-supported by user-community  web-based – runs on someone else’s server  example: Microsoft Office Professional - £450 Open Office: http://www.openoffice.org/ download freehttp://www.openoffice.org/ Google Docs: http://docs.google.com/http://docs.google.com/ use online free

10. 3. internet connection  Internet Service Providers  ispreview.co.uk for reviews  price comparison sites for costs  bundles  cost of support  connection mode  broadband land line (DSL)  broadband cable (Virgin)  wireless (hotspots; BTOpenzone; The Cloud)  mobile broadband (phone or dongle)

11. 4. Technical support  essential  budget for it  beware of expensive phone calls  hardware – buy with your kit  software – online support forums  restore points in Windows

12. 5. Security  essential for Windows  firewall (built into modems/routers)  antivirus programme www.free-av.com free.avg.com  anti-spyware Windows Defender  auto-update turned on  less needed for Apple Macs  not needed for Linux

13. ICTs across the research cycle 1. collaboration 2. literature review 3. secondary data 4. collecting data a. quantitative b. qualitative 5. analysing data a. quantitative b. qualitative 6. dissemination

14. 1. Collaboration …  email and attachments  distribution list of contacts  JISCMail list for subscribers http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/ e.g. vol-sector-studies-network@jiscmail.ac.uk vol-sector-studies-network@jiscmail.ac.uk  versioning Track Changes in Word  sharing Google docs online  https://www.getdropbox.com/ https://www.getdropbox.com/

15. … Collaboration  collaboration software (VRE, VLE)  contact list, calendar, email, blog, announcements, file manager, wiki, etc  complex to install  social networking websites  Facebook and many others  https://www.researchgate.net/ https://www.researchgate.net/  Create your own http://www.ning.com/ e.g. http://vssnmembers.ning.com/ http://www.ning.com/http://vssnmembers.ning.com/

16. 2. Literature review …  subject / topic http://www.intute.ac.uk/  books academic and specialist library catalogue http://copac.ac.uk/ http://copac.ac.uk/  articles BL’s electronic Contents of 20,000 journals and 16,000 conference proceedings http://zetoc.mimas.ac.uk/ Scopus is similar http://zetoc.mimas.ac.uk/

17. 2. … Literature review …  blogs http://technorati.com/  Google books http://books.google.co.uk/books http://books.google.co.uk/books  Google scholar http://scholar.google.co.uk/ http://scholar.google.co.uk/  Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

18. 2. … Literature review  keeping references http://www.endnote.com/ £145 http://www.endnote.com/  sharing references http://www.connotea.org/ free http://www.citeulike.org/ free http://www.connotea.org/ http://www.citeulike.org/  sharing bookmarks/tags http://delicious.com/web-based http://delicious.com/ http://www.diigo.com/http://www.diigo.com/web-based

19. 3. Secondary data …  huge amounts of data now available digitally  born digital  digitised  search similar to literature review

20. 3. … Secondary data …  UK Data Archive http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/ http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/  Economic and Social Data Service ESDS Longitudinal ESDS International ESDS Government ESDS Qualidata  UK National Statistics http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/ http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/

21. 3. … Secondary data  archives galore http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/ http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/  UK government archive http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/  newspaper archive lexisnexis®  BL sound archive http://sounds.bl.uk/ http://sounds.bl.uk/

22. 4. Collecting data  quantitative  online surveys – design, deliver, analyse http://www.surveymonkey.com/ http://www.surveymonkey.com/  lots of rivals from free to costly  qualitative  digital recording devices audio, photos, video constantly evolving microphone is critical

23. 5. Analysing data  quantitative  SPSS dominates  lots of rivals from free to costly http://en.freestatistics.info/  qualitative  CAQDAS packages – Atlas.ti, NVivo transcripts, photos, video data management – still evolving CAQDAS Networking Project http://caqdas.soc.surrey.ac.uk/ http://caqdas.soc.surrey.ac.uk/

24. 6. Dissemination  presentations http://www.slideshare.net/ http://www.slideshare.net/  websites http://www.google.com/sites/ http://www.webnode.com/ http://www.google.com/sites/ http://www.webnode.com/  photos http://www.flickr.com/ http://www.flickr.com/  video http://www.vimeo.com/ http://www.vimeo.com/

25. New dissemination opportunity http://www.policypress.co.uk/journals_vsr.asp

26. Courses  searchable catalogue of research methods training events http://www.ncrm.ac.uk/training/ http://www.ncrm.ac.uk/training/  research methods community networking http://www.methodspace.com/ http://www.methodspace.com/

27. … and more resources

28. The future  digitisation of archives / everything  technology convergence / integration  interoperability  ubiquitous -> invisible  computers embedded in many devices  sensor networks  radio-frequency identification devices (RFIDs)  context-aware services  methods and topics transformed

29. The end Thank you for your attention...... if I have had it. This presentation is available at: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/2060906/Technol ogy%20and%20Social%20Research.ppt

30. p.halfpenny@man.ac.uk