Information communication technologies (ICT) have long been important in supporting doctoral study. Though ICTs have been integrated into educational practices at all levels, there is little understanding of how effective these technologies are in supporting resource development for students and researchers in academic institutions. Enhancing the Role of ICT in Doctoral Research Processes is a collection of innovative research that identifies the ways that doctoral supervisors and students perceive the role of ICTs within the doctoral research process and supports the development of guidelines to enhance ICT skills within these programs. While highlighting topics including professional development, online learning, and ICT management, this book is ideally designed for academicians, researchers, and professionals seeking current research on ICT use for doctoral research.

Mixed methods research provide researchers with an opportunity to understand problem for multiple perspectives and for this reason it is becoming prevalent in many fields. Little, has been done to elevate mixed methods research in information science. Research has demonstrated that its application in information science is low. This book is dedicated to this emerging methodology and promotes it's potential for providing a comprehensive picture of information science problems. This book will give international perspectives from people involved in the mixed methods research movement. This book is a appropriate for all types of researchers, students, supervisors, academicians, practitioners, and policy makers.

Using Non-Textual Sources provides history students with the theoretical background and skills to interpret non-textual sources. It introduces the full range of non-textual sources used by historians and offers practical guidance on how to interpret them and incorporate them into essays and dissertations. There is coverage of the creation, production and distribution of non-textual sources; the acquisition of skills to 'read' these sources analytically; and the meaning, significance and reliability of these forms of evidence. Using Non-Textual Sources includes a section on interdisciplinary non-textual source work, outlining what historians borrow from disciplines such as art history, archaeology, geography and media studies, as well as a discussion of how to locate these resources online and elsewhere in order to use them in essays and dissertations. Case studies, such as William Hogarth's print Gin Lane (1751), the 1939 John Ford Western Stagecoach and the Hereford Mappa Mundi, are employed throughout to illustrate the functions of main source types. Photographs, cartoons, maps, artwork, audio clips, film, places and artifacts are all explored in a text that provides students with a comprehensive, cohesive and practical guide to using non-textual sources.

Mastering the Semi-Structured Interview and Beyondoffers an in-depth and captivating step-by-step guide to the use of semi-structured interviews in qualitative research. By tracing the life of an actual research project-an exploration of a school district's effort over 40 years to address racial equality-as a consistent example threaded across the volume, Anne Galletta shows in concrete terms how readers can approach the planning and execution of their own new research endeavor, and illuminates unexpected real-life challenges they may confront and how to address them.The volume offers a close look at the inductive nature of qualitative research, the use of researcher reflexivity, and the systematic and iterative steps involved in data collection, analysis, and interpretation. It offers guidance on how to develop an interview protocol, including the arrangement of questions and ways to evoke analytically rich data.Particularly useful for those who may be familiar with qualitative research but have not yet conducted a qualitative study, Mastering the Semi-Structured Interview and Beyondwill serve both undergraduate and graduate students as well as more advanced scholars seeking to incorporate this key methodological approach into their repertoire.Anne Gallettais Associate Professor at the College of Education and Human Services at Cleveland State University.William E. Cross, Jr.is the author of Shades of Black: Diversity in African-American Identity.In theQualitative Studies in Psychologyseries

This book examines the underlying assumptions and implications of how we conceptualise and investigate poverty. The empirical entry point for such inquiry is a series of research initiatives that have used mixed method, combined qualitative and quantitative, or Q-Squared ( Q(2)) approaches, to poverty analysis. The Q(2) literature highlights the vast range of analytical tools within the social sciences that may be used to understand and explain social phenomena, along with interesting research results. This literature serves as a lens to probe issues about knowledge claims made in poverty debates concerning who are the poor (identification analysis) and why they are poor (causal analysis). Implicitly or explicitly, questions are raised about the reasons for emphasising different dimensions of poverty and favouring different units of knowledge, the basis for distinguishing valid and invalid claims, the meaning of causation, and the nature of causal inference, and so forth. Q(2) provides an entry point to address foundational issues about assumptions underlying approaches to poverty, and applied issues about the strengths and limitations of different research methods and the ways they may be fruitfully combined. Together, the strands of this inquiry make a case for methodological pluralism on the grounds that knowledge is partial, empirical adjudication imperfect, social phenomena complex, and mixed methods add value for understanding and explanation. Ultimately, the goals of understanding and explanation are best served if research questions dictate the choice of methodological approach rather than the other way around.

Academic libraries have traditionally had two key functions, to support teaching and to support research. In an evolving and competitive university environment, along with the emergence of various technologies and substantial changes in scientific communication, university management has reached a turning point. Academic libraries are facing a paradigm shift in the role they need to play to achieve the research objectives of universities. Research support services in academic libraries have evolved as a response to these changes. They are heterogeneous, adapt to their university culture, adopt different points of view, take different approaches in their organizational structures, and include a diverse catalog of activities. Having an overview of different experiences will allow libraries to adopt best practices, redefine services, and even establish new management and collaboration models. Cases on Research Support Services in Academic Libraries is a critical scholarly resource that uses case studies to systematize the experiences of research support services in academic libraries for the support of higher education faculty. The cases focus on such items as the role of technology and its impact as well as how these services help to improve the excellence of universities. Featuring a wide range of topics such as library services, data management, and open science, this book is ideal for librarians, academicians, professionals, researchers, and students.

Covering a topic applicable to fields ranging from education to health care to psychology, this book provides a broad critical analysis of the assumptions that researchers and practitioners have about causation and explains how readers can improve their thinking about causation. In virtually every laboratory, research center, or classroom focused on the social or physical sciences today, the concept of causation is a core issue to be questioned, tested, and determined. Even debates in unrelated areas such as biology, law, and philosophy often focus on causality-"What made that happen?" In this book, experts from across disciplines adopt a reader-friendly approach to reconsider this age-old question in a modern light, defining different kinds of causation and examining how causes and consequences are framed and approached in a particular field. Each chapter uses applied examples to illustrate key points in an accessible manner. The contributors to this work supply a coherent critical analysis of the assumptions researchers and practitioners hold about causation, and explain how such thinking about causation can be improved. Collectively, the coverage is broad, providing readers with a fuller picture of research in social contexts. Beyond providing insightful description and thought-provoking questioning of causation in different research areas, the book applies analysis of data in order to point the way to smarter, more efficient practices. Consequently, both practitioners and researchers will benefit from this book.

The delivery and availability of information resources is a vital concern to professionals across multiple fields. This is particularly vital to data intensive professions, where easy accessibility to high-quality information is a crucial component of their research. Library and Information Services for Bioinformatics Education and Research is an authoritative reference source for the latest scholarly material on the role of libraries for the effective delivery of information resources to optimize the study of biological data. Highlighting innovative perspectives across a range of topics, such as user assessment, collection development, and information accessibility, this publication is ideally designed for professionals, managers, computer scientists, graduate students, and practitioners actively involved in the field of bioinformatics.

The second edition of this innovative textbook illustrates research methods for library and information science, describing the most appropriate approaches to a question-and showing you what makes research successful. Written for the serious practicing librarian researcher and the LIS student, this volume fills the need for a guide focused specifically on information and library science research methods. By critically assessing existing studies from within library and information science, this book helps you acquire a deeper understanding of research methods so you will be able to design more effective studies yourself. Section one considers research questions most often asked in information and library science and explains how they arise from practice or theory. Section two covers a variety of research designs and the sampling issues associated with them, while sections three and four look at methods for collecting and analyzing data. Each chapter introduces a particular research method, points out its relative strengths and weaknesses, and provides a critique of two or more exemplary studies. For this second edition, three new chapters have been added, covering mixed methods, visual data collection methods, and social network analysis. The chapters on research diaries and transaction log analysis have been updated, and updated examples are provided in more than a dozen other chapters as well. Provides comprehensive coverage of research methods used in library and information science, discussing their strengths, weaknesses, and biases Presents completely updated content that includes several new chapters on innovative methods (mixed methods research and social network analysis), and more than half of the methods chapters focus on critiquing new research studies Covers both qualitative and quantitative methods as well as mixed methods Analyzes examples of award-winning library research

This fascinating book gives readers an appreciation of how biomedical research should work and how the reality is all too often seriously flawed. Explaining the logical basis of the different research approaches used by biomedical research scientists and their relative merits, it will help readers to make more realistic appraisal of media reports linking aspects of lifestyle, environment or diet to health outcomes and thus judge whether such claims are a real effect worthy of consideration for behavior change or deserving of further research resources. Key features: increases awareness of research fraud and some of the characteristics of fraudulent science and scientific fraudsters shows that whilst outright fraud may be uncommon, fudging of results to help achieve statistical significance may be more prevalent incorporates real-life case studies highlighting some of the infamous cases of research fraud and major scientific mistakes and the impact that they have had provides a convenient overview of the research process in the biomedical sciences, with a focus on research strategy rather than individual methods find supplemental detail on the author's blog https://drgeoffnutrition.wordpress.com/about/ By raising awareness of the possibility that research data may have been dishonestly generated and outlining some of the signs and symptoms that might suggest data fabrication, Error and Fraud: The Dark Side of Biomedical Research will help students and researchers to identify the strengths and limitations of different research approaches and allow them to make a realistic evaluations of their own and others' research findings.

Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary. 'Muller's accessible and timely volume takes a bold step closer to keeping pace with the constantly evolving sub-discipline of tourism geographies, unafraid to challenge earlier foundations and keen to prioritise academic diversity and real-world contexts. The contributors' flair, perspective and passion comes across throughout what is arguably the ideal backdrop for shaping future research agendas in the field.' - Julie Wilson, Open University of Catalonia, Spain Over recent years, tourism geographies have developed into a vibrant field of research, facing increasing challenges from globalisation and environmental change. This Research Agenda presents a unique and original collection of contributions from both established and up-and-coming scholars in the field. Encompassing both contemporary issues, and paving the way for future avenues of research, this book explores and develops research on tourism geographies. Chapters address emerging themes and apply new methodologies, allowing for intellectual and practical challenges to be tackled. With fresh global insights, this book expands on the geographic dimension of tourism work and workers, the challenges brought by changing economic atmospheres, spatial dynamics, big data and climate change to provide a thorough understanding of the field. Ideal for graduate and post-graduate students of geography and tourism studies looking to develop thesis ideas, this Research Agenda highlights the interest and potential of tourism geographers to contribute to a geographical tradition and influence the future content of geography as a discipline. Contributors: M. Bauder, P. Brouder, R. de Cassia Ariza da Cruz, K. Debbage, M.G. Gren, M. Hall, H.V. Haraldsson, X. Honggang, E.H. Huijbens, Z. Ibrahim, D. Ioannides, D.K. Muller, R. Olafsdottir, J. Saarinen, R. Steiger, R. Tremblay, G. Visser, Y. Wu, K. Zampoukos

Researching Education for Social Justice in Multilingual Settings provides innovative guidance on carrying out qualitative research in education by offering a wide range of examples of research projects with a focus on the methodologies and data collection strategies used. Rather than decontextualised 'how-to' advice, the book offers insights into the complexities of actually carrying out research in multilingual settings. In this practical guide, examples of real-life projects are framed by chapters providing a theoretical background to the principles of ethnography and to the processes and practices of qualitative research, focusing on data generation and collection strategies. Case study chapters offer a rich understanding of the detail of qualitative research in education from the points of view of people who have engaged in it. Moreover, the book promotes understanding of current research that aims to make a difference to pupils, students, teachers and families whose diverse languages and cultural experiences are not fully valued in society and in mainstream education contexts. Pedagogical features that support private study and use on courses include a glossary of key terms, guiding questions for reading at the start of each section, and discussion questions to promote reflection as well as suggestions for further reading. Researching Education for Social Justice in Multilingual Settings is a supportive guide to the principles of ethnography and the processes of qualitative research for all those wishing to investigate complex problems in multilingual education settings.

Geoinformatics is the science and technology of gathering, analyzing, interpreting, distributing, and using geospatial information. It encompasses a broad range of disciplines brought together to create a detailed but understandable picture of the physical world and our place in it. ""The Handbook of Research on Geoinformatics"" is the first reference work to map this exciting interdisciplinary field, discussing the complete range of contemporary research topics such as computer modeling, geometry, geoprocessing, and geographic information systems. This expansive reference work covers the complete range, of geoinformatics related issues, trends, theories, technologies, and applications. Following are the features: 42 authoritative contributions by 67 of the world's leading experts in geoinformatics; comprehensive coverage of each specific topic, highlighting recent trends and describing the latest advances in the field; more than 925 references to existing literature and research on geoinformatics; a compendium of over 300 key terms with detailed definitions; organized by topic and indexed, making it a convenient method of reference for all IT/IS scholars and professionals; and, cross-referencing of key terms, figures, and information pertinent to geoinformatics.

In the Fourth Edition of this bestselling book, John W Creswell and new co-author Cheryl N Poth explore the philosophical underpinnings, history and key elements of each of five qualitative inquiry traditions: narrative research, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography and case study - putting them side by side, so that we can see the differences. They relate research designs to each of the traditions of enquiry and provide strategies for writing introductions to studies, collecting data, analyzing data, writing a narrative and verifying results.

In the past, choosing a breast surgeon and having the tumor removed were the very first steps in the treatment of breast cancer. Today, however, there are many steps that should occur prior to having a breast cancer removed-steps that .decrease the chance that the tumor comes back, .improve the chance that the right treatment is given, .decrease the complications from surgery, .more accurately determines if chemotherapy is needed.In addition, finding the right breast surgeon can improve one's chance of survival by as much as 35 percent, a benefit frequently larger than either radiation therapy or chemotherapy. Before Breast Cancer Surgery is a focused easy-to-read book written in a question/answer format to rapidly arm the reader with all the information she needs to ensure that she receives the best possible care.

Traditional approaches focused on significance tests have often been difficult for linguistics researchers to visualise. Statistics in Corpus Linguistics Research: A New Approach breaks these significance tests down for researchers in corpus linguistics and linguistic analysis, promoting a visual approach to understanding the performance of tests with real data, and demonstrating how to derive new intervals and tests. Accessibly written, this book discusses the 'why' behind the statistical model, allowing readers a greater facility for choosing their own methodologies. Accessibly written for those with little to no mathematical or statistical background, it explains the mathematical fundamentals of simple significance tests by relating them to confidence intervals. With sample datasets and easy-to-read visuals, this book focuses on practical issues, such as how to: * pose research questions in terms of choice and constraint; * employ confidence intervals correctly (including in graph plots); * select optimal significance tests (and what results mean); * measure the size of the effect of one variable on another; * estimate the similarity of distribution patterns; and * evaluate whether the results of two experiments significantly differ. Appropriate for anyone from the student just beginning their career to the seasoned researcher, this book is both a practical overview and valuable resource.

A comprehensive guide to everything scientists need to know about data management, this book is essential for researchers who need to learn how to organize, document and take care of their own data. Researchers in all disciplines are faced with the challenge of managing the growing amounts of digital data that are the foundation of their research. Kristin Briney offers practical advice and clearly explains policies and principles, in an accessible and in-depth text that will allow researchers to understand and achieve the goal of better research data management. Data Management for Researchers includes sections on: * The data problem - an introduction to the growing importance and challenges of using digital data in research. Covers both the inherent problems with managing digital information, as well as how the research landscape is changing to give more value to research datasets and code. * The data lifecycle - a framework for data's place within the research process and how data's role is changing. Greater emphasis on data sharing and data reuse will not only change the way we conduct research but also how we manage research data. * Planning for data management - covers the many aspects of data management and how to put them together in a data management plan. This section also includes sample data management plans. * Documenting your data - an often overlooked part of the data management process, but one that is critical to good management; data without documentation are frequently unusable. * Organizing your data - explains how to keep your data in order using organizational systems and file naming conventions. This section also covers using a database to organize and analyze content. * Improving data analysis - covers managing information through the analysis process. This section starts by comparing the management of raw and analyzed data and then describes ways to make analysis easier, such as spreadsheet best practices. It also examines practices for research code, including version control systems. * Managing secure and private data - many researchers are dealing with data that require extra security. This section outlines what data falls into this category and some of the policies that apply, before addressing the best practices for keeping data secure. * Short-term storage - deals with the practical matters of storage and backup and covers the many options available. This section also goes through the best practices to insure that data are not lost. * Preserving and archiving your data - digital data can have a long life if properly cared for. This section covers managing data in the long term including choosing good file formats and media, as well as determining who will manage the data after the end of the project. * Sharing/publishing your data - addresses how to make data sharing across research groups easier, as well as how and why to publicly share data. This section covers intellectual property and licenses for datasets, before ending with the altmetrics that measure the impact of publicly shared data. * Reusing data - as more data are shared, it becomes possible to use outside data in your research. This chapter discusses strategies for finding datasets and lays out how to cite data once you have found it. This book is designed for active scientific researchers but it is useful for anyone who wants to get more from their data: academics, educators, professionals or anyone who teaches data management, sharing and preservation. "An excellent practical treatise on the art and practice of data management, this book is essential to any researcher, regardless of subject or discipline." -Robert Buntrock, Chemical Information Bulletin