How does one become a researcher? Where does one go to find people, organizations etc. that need research done? i have the time and the interest but do not know how to begin.
I'm the advisor for an undergraduate student who, as his senior project, is going to record a CD with his band. But beyond that, to make it senior project-worthy, he wants to infiltrate a peer-to-peer network through a backdoor with MP3s of the music and track how much it gets downloaded. He is very excited about this, and I'm excited that he's excited, but I also don't want to be presiding over a senior project that creates ethical problems, especially at the institutional level. Any thoughts on this: whether this project seems totally kosher, whether it should be re-tooled and how, etc.? TIA, Holly ----- Holly Kruse Faculty of Communication University of Tulsa 600 S. College Ave. Tulsa, OK 74104 918-631-3845 holly-kruse@utulsa.edu
This is a great diffusion study! I guess what he can do upfront is to put a notice in the id tag that the song is going to be tracked. And also have that in the file name as well. Wondering on what basis he is going to track data? IP address? K -- =============================================== Karim R. Lakhani MIT Sloan School of Management & The Boston Consulting Group, Strategy Practice Initiative e-mail: karim.lakhani@sloan.mit.edu | lakhani.karim@bcg.com voice: 617-851-1224 fax: 617-344-0403 http://spoudaiospaizen.net/ http://opensource.mit.edu | http://freesoftware.mit.edu http://userinnovation.mit.edu
And while I'm on a posting roll... I have a colleague in the English Dept. here who is working on a paper/article on Ratemyprofessor.com. She's essentially doing a textual analysis of comments there -- she's in the humanities, not the social sciences -- and is not at all familiar with research about the Internet, and I'm wondering if anyone knows of anything out there that's been written on RateMyProfessor and related sites. I have already pointed to the air-l archives, and specifically to the brief discussion that took place on this list in June on the topic. Thanks again, Holly ----- Holly Kruse Faculty of Communication University of Tulsa 600 S. College Ave. Tulsa, OK 74104 918-631-3845 holly-kruse@utulsa.edu
Dear Elaine - Ok, I'll weigh in and say the obvious, one needs to be trained in the appropriate research techniques. I didn't check your website (as I didn't see one posted in your signature line) to find out what your qualifications are in this area. I would say that most often, social science researchers are trained in their graduate degree programs at universities. In that venue, researchers build the contacts required to submit grants to support their researching efforts. . . very few people just start in as full-blown researchers without doing a degree (in my world). I do know some excellent journalists who are researchers who have learned outside of their degrees and do professionally support themselves via their efforts but they have international names and international reputations as well. It's a bit obvious but if one is situated outside of the academic world it is a puzzle. But few people just 'do research' - mostly it's build the network to write the grant to be funded to 'do research' - part of a long process. Not like working the test tubes in the Biology lab, where one can be a full time technician without the advanced degree (if one so chooses). Cheers, Denise ===== "Stupidity is not just a lack of content; it's also a process" Denise N. Rall, Sustainable Forestry Mentoring Coordinator & PhD student, School of EnvironSciMgmt, Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, Lismore, NSW, 2480 Australia Phone +61-2-6624-8627 Fax +61-2-6624-8637 Office (Tuesdays) (02) 6620 3577 Mob 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/edu/research/deniserall/index.html __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
participants (4)
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Denise N. Rall -
Elaine Floyd -
Holly Kruse -
Karim R. Lakhani