More piloting...

...although the dissertation has taken a back seat to my new job, I am back in the comfy chair and fiddling around with previous studies' coding schemes to try to make the perfect research instrument.

It's surprisingly hard work, as all the categories and sub-categories seem to blend into each other after a while and I find myself second- and third-guessing my decisions. I guess I am experiencing the famous "coder fatigue".

Still, the 2nd or 3rd (depending on how you define it) pilot study is going well.

The Pilot! Pt. 2

And... we have pilot study. I have my basic results and a newly-formed coding scheme. After all these weeks! It's definitely been a question of building up my confidence and ability to just "go for it", realising that research is meant to be a step into the unknown and it's OK to change things around.

Oh, well, off home now before they close the library. I'm quite enjoying this dissertation lark now.

Library 2 You - the slides are now up!

Here are the presentations from the recent mini-conference on "library 2.0" that I attended:

Library 2 You presentations.

And here's the mini-report I wrote last week:

Library 2 You mini-report.

Enjoy!

The pilot!

It's gone well this morning, crunching through a randomised sample of blogs and altering the draft coding scheme as I go.

I got through 5 this morning and discovered one of the principle risks of blog research in the academic sector: lots of out-links to meandering blogs which link to funny e-comics!

Pre-pilot

I did a very rough-and-ready pilot with a new coding scheme including some oh-so-scary qualitiative categories... ouch.

I take back everything I've been secretly thinking about content analysis being an easy option.

I randomised my list and ended up picking a highly specialised blog which was not easy to categorise!

The categories for "objective" measures are pretty easy to allocate, but I seriously wonder whether even a suitably qualified coder would pick the same headings as me for the more warm and fuzzy categories.

Oh, well, more piloting tomorrow, it's my free day for university work. Ah, the bliss of a 9-5 routine with a bit of space for disserting.

Back in business!

Hurrah, it's been a good day!

My first day of my new part-time (30 hours per week is part-time?) job in a real live university library, and I've also put together a workable coding framework for the first pilot of my content analysis.

Now I'm off to choir practice for a nice change-is-as-good-as-a-break.