Schedule & Readings

INF 1240H Fall 2013 schedule

Week 1 11 Sept	Introduction no reading; review of course organization, expectations, and key themes
Week 2 18 Sept	Major Paradigms in Information Research assigned reading Luker, ch. 1, 2 & 3 recommended reading see course blog post for this week
Week 3 25 Sept	Designing Research Proposals: First Steps assigned reading Luker, ch. 4, 5 & Appendix 1 SSHRC website: CGS Master's scholarship program recommended reading SSHRC website: SSHRC's priority areas for funding full application instructions for SSHRC's CGS Master's scholarship program (on Blackboard, see Assignments/supplementary materails)
Week 4 2 Oct	Research Ethics guest speaker: Dean Sharpe, Office of Research Ethics, University of Toronto assigned readings Knight, ch. 7 University of Toronto Office of Research Ethics Guidelines and Practices Manual, Chapters 1, 2 + sections 4.4 and 7.7 [http://www.research.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ERO_Guidelines_Manual-2007.pdf] School of Graduate Studies' Student Guide on Ethical Conduct in Research Involving Human Subjects recommended reading Zimmer, M. (2010). "But the data is already public": On the ethics of research in Facebook. Ethics and Information Technology, 12(1), 313-325. [http://go.utlib.ca/cat/7706641] 2nd edition of Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (2010): http://www.pre.ethics.gc.ca/policy-politique/initiatives/tcps2-eptc2/Default.aspx online tutorial on Tri-Council policy for ethical research involving human subjects: tcps2core.ca/welcome
Week 5 9 Oct	Thinking Through Writing: the Language of Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences SSHRC Program of Work due this week assigned reading Orwell, G. (1984 [1946]). Politics and the English language. In Essays (348-60). London: Penguin. Schryer, C., et al. (2004). Strategies in use in successful SSHRC applications. University of Waterloo Research Office. http://research.uwaterloo.ca/grants/documents/StudyonSuccessfulSSHRCApplications_000.pdf; see also this project's annotated bibliography: http://research.uwaterloo.ca/grants/documents/bibliographyforSSHRCapplicationstudy.pdf recommended reading Richardson, L. (2000). New writing practices in qualitative research. Sociology of Sport Journal, 17, 5-20. [http://go.utlib.ca/cat/7649630] Hammersely, M. (2010). Reproducing or construction: some questions about transcription in social research. Qualitative Research, 10(5), 553-569. [http://go.utlib.ca/cat/7747892] Thomas, K. 2010. Diary: working methods. London Review of Books, 32(11), 36-7. [http://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n11/keith-thomas/diary] Knight, Chapter 1, "Starting with Writing," and Chapter 9, "Writing, Disseminating, and Influencing"
Week 6 16 Oct	Ethnographic Methods guest speaker: Jenna Hartel (iSchool) blogs reviewed at the end of this week assigned reading Hartel, J. (2010). Managing documents at home for serious leisure: A case study of the hobby of gourmet cooking. Journal of Documentation, 66(6), 847-874. [http://go.utlib.ca/cat/7723987] for students interested in libraries: Foster, N. F. & Gibbons, S. (2007). Introduction, Chapter 6, and Chapter 7. In N. F. Foster & S. Gibbons (Eds.), Studying students: The undergraduate research project at the University of Rochester. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries for students interested in information systems: Taylor, A. S., & Swan, L. (2005). Artful systems in the home. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems (pp. 641-650). New York, NY: ACM. recommended reading Luker, ch. 8 Shaffir, W. (1999). Doing ethnography. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 28(6), 676-686. [http://simplelink.library.utoronto.ca/url.cfm/114850] Stebbins, R.A. (1987). Fitting in: The researcher as learner and participant. Quality and Quantity, 21(1), 103-108. [http://simplelink.library.utoronto.ca/url.cfm/114851]
Week 7 23 Oct	Surveys and Statistical Literacy guest speaker: Glen Farrelly (iSchool) assigned reading Neuman and Robson, Chapter 8: "Survey Research" + pp. 115-7 and 228-37 Knight, ch. 4, pp. 87-94, 176-82 recommended reading Luker, ch. 6
Week 8 30 Oct	Experiments and Quasi-Experiments assigned reading Neuman and Robson, Chapter 9: "Experimental Research" recommended reading Knight, ch. 3, subsection on experiments
Reading week 6 Nov	no class
Week 9 13 Nov	Analyzing Texts and Artifacts: Media Archaeology and Material Culture assigned reading Johns, A. (2012). Gutenberg and the Samurai: Or, the information revolution is history. Anthropological Quarterly, 85(3), 859-83. [http://go.utlib.ca/cat/7685525] Kirschenbaum, M.G. (2002). Editing the interface: textual studies and first-generation electronic objects. Text: An Interdisciplinary Annual of Textual Studies, 14, 15-51. [http://www.jstor.org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/stable/30227991] recommended reading Parikka, J. (2011). Operative media archaeology: Wolfgang Ernst's materialist media diagrammatics. Theory, Culture & Society, 28(5), 52-74. [http://resolver.scholarsportal.info.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/resolve/02632764/v28i0005/52_omawemmd] Knight, ch. 3, subsection on interviews Hammersely, M. (2010). Reproducing or construction: some questions about transcription in social research. Qualitative Research, 10(5), 553-569. [http://go.utlib.ca/cat/7747892]
Week 10 20 Nov	Peer-Review Workshop assigned reading Lovejoy, T.I., et al. (2011). Reviewing manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals: A primer for novice and seasoned reviewers. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 42(1), 1-13. [http://go.utlib.ca/cat/7684927] Fitzpatrick, K. (2009). Chapter 1: Peer review. In Planned Obsolescence: Publishing, Technology, and the Future of the Academy. [Note: for class we won't read the final published version from NYU Press, but rather the open peer-review version at MediaCommons Press: mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/mcpress/plannedobsolescence/ . This version gives us a glimpse of the open peer-review process at work. Feel free to explore the review comments attached to specific paragraphs, as well as the posted reviews from the external reviewer. Note also that the interface can be a bit confusing. In the "Contents" tab, if you click the heading "One: Peer Review" it will only bring up the opening section for that chapter. To read the entire chapter, you'll need to click through each of the subheadings to bring up those sections.] recommended reading (with thanks to Howard Baker!) Suls, J., & Martin, R. (2009). The air we breathe: A critical look at practices and alternatives in the peer-review process. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4(1), 40-50. [http://go.utlib.ca/cat/7989576] Robinson, J.D., & Agne, R.R. (2010). Kindness, gentility, and rejection: An analysis of 99 manuscript reviews. Heath Communication, 25(6-7), 504-11. [http://resolver.scholarsportal.info.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/resolve/10410236/v25i6-7/504_kgaraao9mr]
Week 11 27 Nov	Thinking Through Making: Prototyping, Modelling, Tool-Building, and the Digital Humanities assigned reading Unsworth, J. (2000). Scholarly primitives: what methods do humanities researchers have in common, and how might our tools reflect this? Humanities Computing: Formal Methods, Experimental Practice. King's College, London, 13 May 2000. [http://www3.isrl.illinois.edu/~unsworth/Kings.5-00/primitives.html] Kirschenbaum, M.G. (2004). "So the colors cover the wires": interface, aesthetics, and usability. In A Companion to Digital Humanities. Oxford: Blackwell. [http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/] recommended reading Ramsay, S. (2005). In praise of pattern. TEXT Technology, 14(2), 177-90 [http://texttechnology.mcmaster.ca/archives.html] Galey, A. and Ruecker, S. (2010). How a prototype argues. Literary and Linguistic Computing, 25(4), 405-24. [http://go.utlib.ca/cat/7731513]
Week 12 4 Dec	From Research Designs to Analysis and Sense-Making Full Research Proposal due this week blogs reviewed at the end of this week assigned reading Knight, ch. 5, 8 Luker, ch. 7, 10