Schedule changed

Ginny suggested that later parts of the course will be a lot easier to grasp if we can do statistical analyses using the measures that will be introduced. So I moved hypothesis testing from the end of the course to this week.

Blue 2.0 — this is pretty useful

Good morning,

As promised, TASC’s Blue 2.0 has re-launched on its original site as a resource for groups or individuals who want to work through Web 2.0 tutorials. You are welcome to use these and share them.

http://connectedcampus.wordpress.com/

These tutorials may also be used as the basis for workshop requests from TASC (contact me about that at pcarr3@uky.edu).

I still have to add social networking back in as its own separate module, and I expect to add more modules in an ongoing manner, so the site will not languish with just a few tutorials forever.

New topics for this launch include web conferencing and, under Assorted Web 2.0, information about how to get OCS (Office Communicator) and GoToMeeting. I’ve also added Jing under Assorted Web 2.0. Please let me know if you run across anything that needs changing or updating, or if you’d like to see something in particular added.

Best regards,

Patsy Carruthers
TASC
(859) 257-8272 ext. 223/mobile (859) 327-2759

Research Assistant Position Announcement

Jen Havens, who sat in on our class last year, sends this RA position announcement:

Study Title: Social networks and HIV risk among rural drug users

Duties: The Research Assistant will assist Dr. Jennifer Havens in all aspects of conducting an NIH-funded R01, including entering and analyzing quantitative data, conducting literature reviews, writing manuscripts for submission to peer-reviewed journals, and presentations at national and international conferences. There is ample opportunity to co-author manuscripts as well as utilize data for thesis/dissertation (baseline data collection will be complete by early 2010).  Applicant should possess strong analytical, organizational, communication, methodological, and writing skills.  Knowledge of multilevel modeling and/or social network analysis particularly desirable.

Dates: May 2009 to May 2010 (Start Date Negotiable)

Pay: Summer salary for 2009, TA stipend for the 09-10 year, tuition

Study Overview: The overall goal of this NIH-funded R01 (NIDA) is to examine the prevalence, incidence, and risk factors for HIV and other blood borne infections (BBIs) such as hepatitis C (HCV) and herpes simplex-2 virus (HSV-2) among rural Appalachian drug users using social network analysis and multilevel modeling. HIV continues to be a major public health problem in the United States, especially among drug users. However, little is known about HIV in rural areas in which there are marked health disparities. Therefore, given that studies among urban drug users have found that social network indicators are robust predictors of HIV risk, both social network and individual characteristics will be measured for their association with HIV risk among rural drug users. The specific aims are: 1) To determine the prevalence and incidence of HIV, HCV and HSV-2 among rural injection and non-injection drug users; 2) To examine HIV and other BBI risk among rural injection and non-injection drug users; and 3) To examine longitudinal changes in rural HIV, HCV and HSV-2 risk at 6-months, 12-months and 18-months post-baseline. To meet these aims, a sample 500 rural injection and non-injection drug users will be recruited using respondent driven sampling (RDS). In addition to biologic testing for HIV, HCV and HSV-2, rural participants will be given an interviewer-administered questionnaire pertaining to their social networks (drug, sexual and support networks), sociodemographics, drug use, HIV risk behaviors, psychiatric diagnoses, intravention and norms. Since individuals will be nested within networks, data will be analyzed using multilevel random effects regression that allows for the simultaneous examination of social network and individual-level risk.

To Apply: Please submit a cover letter and CV to Jennifer Havens at jhave2@uky.edu by March 6, 2009. 

NSF methods-training workshops

Workshop	Intended For	Application Deadline
NSF’s 2009, one-week summer courses on research methods in cultural anthropology	Faculty	Feb 15
NSF’s field training program in Bolivia	Graduate students	Feb 15
NSF’s  three-week summer training program in research design	Graduate students	Apr 1

More details available here: http://www.qualquant.net/training/

Obstfeld presentation

David Obstfeld will be presenting his research on Friday, Feb 20th from 10-11:30am in the dean’s conference room (Business & Economics building, room 253).  Here’s his title and abstract:

Creative projects:
A less-routine approach toward getting new things done

 This paper presents a framework for action that accounts for both how organizations get routine things done and pursue markedly new things through “creative projects.”  Based on this framework, organizational routines and creative projects are viewed as trajectories occurring along a continuum of interdependent action differing in degree of repetitiveness, not in kind; functionally different, but sharing the same representational space.  An ethnographic case study of an automotive prototype purchasing process and two initiatives to redesign that process is used to compare an organizational routine with creative projects occurring within the same organizational setting, and to further explicate the framework.  Case analysis reveals how projection and planning (the ostensive aspect), as well as combinatorial action, knowledge articulation, and contingency management (the performative aspect), unfold differentially in organizational routines and creative projects.  This paper contributes to our understanding of different forms of organizational change and provides a framework to examine the role of non-routine organizing at several levels of organizational analysis.

Presentation by David Obstfeld

David Obstfeld will be giving a talk on Friday, Feb 20th from 10-11:30am in the Dean’s Conference Room (room 252 I believe) in the Business & Economics building. I strongly recommend attending as he is a fabulous presenter. Always very dynamic and thought-provoking. Also, he is one of the few people in network analysis that makes heavy use of ethnographic research methods. 

You can read about him here. Also, you may find this online discussion of a presentation he gave at Sunbelt interesting. The presentation comes out of a paper that he and I are working on about distinguishing between process and structure in brokerage.

Change in class time

From now on (starting with Feb 13 class), class will run from 2 to 5. 

Previous post:

Just letting you know that class on Feb 6 will be at 1pm, as always. After that, we will switch to 2-5 pm on a permanent basis. (The vote was 77% for change permanently and 23% for change only when necessary.)

MGT 780 –> MGT 795 001

Just a reminder that this course was renamed MGT 795 Section 001.

Peace through networks

Rob Cross, network guru

Ok, I make fun, but Rob really is a network guru and he does great work.

Vote on course time change

We need to make some adjustments to the course time. Later this semester (actually, coming up soon), we will have to start at 2pm sometimes because of interference with visiting job candidates. So we need to decide how to handle this. Please take this poll and tell me your thoughts!