TASCHA Research Seminar – analysis of Global Impact Study data
Technology & Social Change Group (TASCHA) research seminars offer students an opportunity to gain practical research experience with one of our many projects investigating the design, use, and impact of information and communication technologies in communities facing social and economic challenges.
The Winter 2012 section (held at the University of Washington Information School) — course number INFX 571 C/D — focuses on analysis of data from the Global Impact Study. The Global Impact Study comprises a variety of research activities, including a comprehensive set of surveys of public access venue owners/operators, users, and non-users at more than a thousand public access venues in Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Ghana, and the Philippines. The result is a rich source of data on demographics, usage needs/behaviors, and services in these countries. The seminar will focus on analysis of the survey data and provide opportunities to participate in different aspects of the project from crunching numbers to reviewing related literature. This is a great opportunity to learn and apply quantitative methods in a real research context with real data. The seminar will be led by George Sciadas (Statistics Canada), Hil Lyons (UW Center for Statistical Consulting), and Araba Sey (TASCHA).
Students may contribute to the research in a variety of ways including: review of literature on public access ICT use in a variety of social settings; data coding and recoding; exploring the data from different topical angles; identifying useful subsets of the data; learning about and applying appropriate statistical methods; and analyzing, summarizing and interpreting results. Students will work individually or in teams to do all of the above, carving out a well-defined project to be completed by the end of the quarter.
For questions or more information on the seminar, including registration, contact Chris Rothschild or Araba Sey.
