Observation. With Secondary Triangulation Methods
It's been an incredible 4 months. This seminar, in combination with Ellen's seminar in which we examined methods of studying Information Behavior, has dropped me nicely at the point of my own method selection for my dissertation study. As I want to look roundly at the information-seeking behaviors of physicians in a way that has not been highly reported, I have come to see that a triangulation of observation along with discussion/interview and physician self-assessment measures is the route I'm moving toward. I have to admit that I was very green coming into this semester, even as I approached this stage of my work, but now I realize that it is the essence of these seminars that brings us where we need to be. Hopefully.

In this last week of the Spring semester, as I write the final papers for both of these seminars, I see how much I did *not* grasp completely just 4 months ago. I am now able to write the Methods section of my dissertation - so that is certainly progress. It was good to see the many sides of data collection and the countless methodologies in order to get a feel for what fits for this study. Before, I was trying to adopt a method without having tasted anything. It was like declaring vanilla my favorite flavor without having experienced chocolate, raspberry, mocha, banana, or triple chocolate-mocha-chip (the ultimate of triangulations). It's like saying I looove Shakespeare without having heard Mamet or Ibsen or O'Neill or . . . OK, I'll stop.

Ah, the comparisons are endless, but I will stop at this and spare you my lackluster sense of humor. Although, I must say, I do see light at the end of the tunnel. Or, maybe it's just another train coming from the other direction . . .

Stop! Go read someone else's blog.

Visual Data
Emmison states that he has reservations about an image-based visual sociology, citing that photographs have been misunderstood as prompting unique forms of data for each interpreter. While photographs are, indeed a means of preserving data, each photograph does have its own value and story as determined by the viewer. Does this invalidate the quality of data contained within a photograph or increase its value because of its cross-sectional defining power? Is it conslusive or interpretive? A picture Is worth a thousand words.

Naturally Occurring Talk
Last week I was interested in Jonathan Potter's notations on how even short sequences of interaction can be a rich and also be a starting point for different types of studies. More specifically, the brief section of the interview with Princess Diana and Martin Bashir show us two segments of conversation where the Princess uses the phrase, "I dunno." He points out that these could be "trivial details of interaction," which probably do not draw much attention. They seem, "Throwaway." However, seeing them written in transcript, I view the short phrase as the Princess' comfort and ease with the interviewer. While she was seemingly a natural public speaker, when I see the I dunno's, I see her real-ness. We might have overlooked the brief uncertainty during a filmed interview, but how noticeable are these utterances when viewing the script.

How important is this? Well, I think it does give insight to the emphasis of both the recorded voice (both sound AND sight and sound together) as well as re-reading the interview via a written transcript. In other words, it basically gave me something further to think about when using various mediums for recording.

Survey Results
After going through the results to the survey I recently sent out, I have learned a valuable lesson on the aspects of including both a quantitative and qualitative component to a project. While the numbers returned by the respondents were not indicative of the trend I had expected, the majority of the narrative comments provided great supporting evidence that independent work has been brewing on this topic at individual institutions. It shows that there may be a need for a collective effort on the part of libraries and their IT departments to make a smarter algorithm for web filters as a whole. I look forward to putting this paper together now and presenting the findings. I submitted the final abstract to the Medical Library Association today.

Atlas.ti and coding
While the survey I routed has a yes/no portion to it, I am receiving a significant number of comments in the four separate question and answer sections of the survey.

I began to place the comments in .txt files for each individual respondent. I have decided to enter approximately 20 responses for the seminar project. As the survey asked four open-ended questions, I simply entered the data in four paragraphs for each person who responded.

So far, I have identified 6 codes that I'm using to pick up the highlights of the responses. I saw a theme emerging in the responses, so I think that if the coding works like I think it will, I should have a nice database of results.

Sharing Data

I just noticed this blurb in a recent issue of Science. I recalled our discussion of sharing data and researchers willingness to do so. This world seems very competetive, though:

Science 27 January 2006:Vol. 311. no. 5760, p. 448DOI: 10.1126/science.311.5760.448b
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News of the Week
PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE:Scientists Keep Some Data to ThemselvesConstance Holden
Scientists frequently refuse to give colleagues details of their research, according to two new surveys, of life scientists and of scientists-in-training.
In the February issue of Academic Medicine, David Blumenthal and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital's Institute for Health Policy (IHP) in Boston report from a survey of 1849 life scientists that 44% of geneticists and 32% of other life scientists have engaged in some form of "withholding behavior." The behavior includes failing to mention pertinent information in a paper or a presentation. Geneticists and males are more likely to withhold information.
A related study suggests that such behaviors may stifle the growth of young scientists. A group led by IHP physician Eric Campbell surveyed 1077 graduate students and postdocs in the life sciences, computer science, and chemical engineering. About one-quarter reported that they had been denied information at some point, particularly those in "high competition" research groups or with links to industry. About half the affected respondents said the rebuff delayed their research.
"We need to inform scientists, professional associations, and universities about the impact that data withholding can have on the next generation of scientists," says Campbell. "Sometimes it's necessary. The question is whether it's being done more [often] than it should be."
Drummond Rennie, a deputy editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, notes that some data requests can be "extremely costly and very time-consuming" to fulfill. And scientists who present findings at meetings are sometimes rightfully paranoid, says sociologist Brian Martinson of Health Partners Research Foundation in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Competitors from other labs have been known to come with cameras to shoot their posters, he says.

Major ah-ha moment yesterday during seminar. So, last night, I developed my entire survey instrument.


The PDF form to which I refer in this new blog is now complete along with a Word copy of the survey.

I am asking you all to take a look at this new BLOG - (my new test for data collection) and provide any comments, criticisms, etc. I do wonder about the need for IRB approval -- be it through the university of through my place of employment (we are a research institution other than UPMC). any thoughts on this?

Instead of spelling it all out here in this blog posting, please visit the actual blog at http://webnonsense.blogspot.com/

Self-Musings
This doesn't have much, if anything, to do with our formal readings, but is nonetheless relevant to me. I felt a huge "click" in seminar this week. It may have been the small group work, it may have been the tongue-in-cheek banter of blog-hem-and-haw, I don't know. But, something felt good about the relationship I saw with our group - both large and small. Maybe I am a true nerd, maybe I'm a budding scholar, I don't know, but I felt true excitement about my project stir inside of me and, though tired, I could not wait to get home and work some more on developing the questions for my survey and interviews. I hope I am not the only one who felt something. It is encouraging to think that there will be some true collaboration (at least of ideas) begin here.