Clinical Social Work Research

Hi Everyone-
As you begin to think about your research project, remember that it is important to keep in mind the following:

(1) If you are in a certificate program, you must do a project related to your certificate
(2) If you plan to do something related to your field placement that involves the use of facilities, clients, staff or data from your field placement, check with your field supervisor about any necessary permissions and/or IRB issues that you need to address for your field placement
(3) Think about feasibility - can you do the project in the amount of time that you have?
(4) As yourself, "So what!" When you are done with the project, "So what!" If you say "ho hum," you probably need to rethink your project idea.

Remember, this is the time for you to start your CITI Exam and Literature/Web Search Week. So

(5) Begin your CITI exam - CITI Exam Link (don't forget to use the "Getting Started With The CITI Exam" pdf file in the Lecture 1 folder on your CD, if you need help.
(6) Use the Course Web Links Page to help you explore the websites of organizations related to your area of interest
(7) Use the various web search engines we discussed in Lecture 1 to help you find literature related to your area of interest (don't forget to use the "Getting Started With Web Searching" handout in the Lecture 1 folder on your course CD, if you need help.
(8) Begin to familiarize yourself with the the Article Review Guidelines (which you can download from the course website or find in your course syllabus). Use this handout to help you guide your thinking about what you read and how you will begin to set up your project.

Take advantage of the time off. Well, not really time off. But you all know what I mean. :-}

Posted by tmwitten at 07:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi Everyone-

We have fixed the browser problem. We have added a scroll bar to all of the pop-up windows. You should now see a scroll bar in the pop-up window if your screen is too small for the full window to display. Hopefully this will finally fix the problem for everyone.

Please go ahead and make sure that you have submitted the following items for Week 1 by this coming Sunday:

(1) Demography Questionnaire
(2) Math Anxiety Questionnaire
(3) Week 1 Dilemma
(4) Week 1 Lecture Evaluation

Please send me email if you are still having problems.

Posted by tmwitten at 06:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Hi Everyone-

Update 2: We have added scroll bars to all of the popup menus. This should solve the problem of not being able to see the bottom of the popup menus. We are pretty sure that this is an IE browser problem coupled with low resolution on the screens being used. Wait until tonight and try to submit your Week 1 Lecture Evaluations again. If it doesn't work, let me know what browser you are using.

Update: It appears the problem is around the IE browser. Are we suprised, it's a Microsoft product. We are working out the details. It may be a day or so, so don't panic.
Tarynn

As we work out the kinks in the system, don't panic. A couple of people have said that they cannot submit the Week 1 evaluation because the submit button doesn't appear. It seems that this is a problem with the IE browser on some machines. I am running IE v6.0 on my machine and I do get the submit button. We are not sure if it is the browser or if it is the size of the window on the computer being used at the time. There are two possible fixes for this problem while we work out the details at this end.

(1) Wait until you are on campus or another location where you can use a larger window monitor and submit your evaluation then or

(2) Use a different browser. VCU now uses Firefox as its standard browser and Thunderbird (except if you are forced to use Lotus Notes) as its mail reader

(3) Firefox and Thunderbird are available as a free download for both the Mac and the PC. Both are available at VCU Firefox and Thunderbird Download

(4) For those of you using a Mac, the Safari browser also works fine.

Any of these should work until we can debug the problem.

Posted by tmwitten at 06:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hi Everyone -
Well, I hope today was not as painful as you might have thought it would be. Today's take home message set is as follows:

(1) Research, while difficult and timeconsuming, need not be painful
(2) Math anxiety can be dealt with (see Tarynn when you're freak'in out)
(3) Understand that this is a year-long course and that we need to hit the marks so that we can complete our projects
(4) If you stick with the syllabus, you will be fine
(5) Immediate priority is to focus on our research questions
(6) We learned that there are a large number of web-based tools available for us to find literature and websites related to our potential research projects

For next class, remember to complete the Week 1-2 assignments. Use the Links page on the course website to help you research your problem. Also use the Lecture 1-2 Lecture Notes to help you with the browser-based research. Don't forget your Lecture 1-2 Evaluations. Focus on learning the web tools, doing your CITI examination, and thinking about your research questions. If you have any questions, use the e-list, use the blog, and send me email. Make sure you go over the course website Lecture 1 and 2 details and complete the preparing for Week 3 material before coming back to class. Have a great Labor Day break. See you all soon.

Posted by tmwitten at 08:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Some of you have indicated that you are having problems submitting the Weekly Dilemma. The problem appears to be that the window does not contain a scroll bar or allow you to scroll down to depress the submit button at the bottom of the page. We have tested this window out on IE and Firefox browsers. Please let me know what browser and version you are using so that we can fix the problem. Thank you for letting me know about the problem. In the meantime, if you continue to have this problem, please submit your response via email with the header "Week 1 Dilemma" and that way I will know it is your response to the Week 1 Dilemma question.

Posted by tmwitten at 09:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SPSS may be obtained in three ways.

(1) You may purchase a copy of the media from the Online@VCU computer store ($15.00). Please call 828-7295 for more info.

(2) You may download the media from the VCU website at no charge. For information about obtaining installation media, please visit:

http://www.at.vcu.edu/faq/stats/spss.html#Obtain

(requires a CD burner and CD burning software on your PC)

(3) You may borrow the installation media from a VCU colleague. If you do, please register a license for each installation you perform with the borrowed media by visiting the following website

https://aurora.vcu.edu/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/atucs/licenses/download.cgi

and following the directions provided. When the list of software is displayed, select SPSS13Download and specify the number of licenses (installations) you wish to register. Also specify the type of usage (Academic/Research or Admin). Then click the RegisterSoftware button. (Ignore the subsequent page that displays about downloading the SPSS software.)

Be sure to check the Lecture 4 folder on your course CD for information on how to do the download. You will find a pdf file with step-by-step instructions in the file. Once you have downloaded or copied your software, you must register it at the registration site listed in item (2) above. In addition, there are hotfixes for SPSS and updates that you will need to download. For instructions on how to do this, go to the following address

http://www.at.vcu.edu/faq/stats/spss.html

and read the details given to you there. If you are a Mac user, the rules apply similarly, just a different download path. If you have problems with downloading SPSS or getting it to install on your machine, contact me.

SPSS has also offered additional software to perform Missing Value Analysis. Once you have SPSS 13.0 installed on your machine, , you can activate access to the new module by laughing the SPSS License Authorization Wizard from the Windows Start menu and, when prompted, enter the authorization code d856141a6529368be6f4 . Close SPSS and re-launch it. You should then see Missing Value Analysis available under the Analyze menu. But manic not, we will talk more about all of this in the first few weeks of class.

Posted by tmwitten at 06:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)