Taking a Break

So this is my 186th post since May of 2008. I've posted pretty regularly since that time, but I'm taking a break indefinitely. Part of it has to do with the fact that no one comments on my posts, and I'm feeling sorry for myself. But more than that, I've been so busy this semester, and I need to cut the things that I can to free up some more time. Plus I've got a few new things that I'd like to devote time to, and this may enable that to some degree. I may be back in a while, but I feel like I need a break.

Yesterday was a great day

Yesterday, which is my longest day of the week, I felt like all three of my classes rocked. My first class, I had planned to show a video and then discuss, but at the last minute, I decided the video wasn't going to work. I switched to just discussing stuff, and the discussion was incredible. Really great students. The second class, which has moments where it seems to suck the life out of me, was really good also. The last class, which is my graduate class, had a lively discussion and really went well. Rather than feeling completely drained, I left after that marathon day feeling really charged. It was a great day.

I'm showing a video in at least one of my classes later this week called The Wave. Wow, what a great critical thinking exercise (though ethically questionable). If you haven't heard the story, click here to see the made-for-tv video on YouTube.

Opening Convocation

Today was our opening convocation. I love the ceremony to start the year--I'm a big fan of organizational rituals overall, and this one communicates several key values that are important to the university. This year was, perhaps a slight letdown. I was under the impression that the songs sung by the concert choir were chosen based on tradition, and this year's selection deviated from what I remember (and liked) from the previous three. Also, the university did not host the typically outstanding lunch for visitors, faculty, and staff that they have in the past--probably understandable in light of budget cuts, of course. Perhaps I had just built it up in my mind from last year.

I was talking to colleagues in other departments that began their time here the same year that I did. We talked about how the fourth year is really different from previous years. It's not just that we're not "new" anymore--that's been over for a while now. It's more than we've made it past the first milestone of any importance. It's a neat feeling. We fit in now. A very cool place to be.

Other People Controling My Schedule

I'm still not sure about other people having control of my schedule. It's easier than me having to do it myself, but it's never fun seeing an afternoon of meetings that I didn't schedule. But if I have to have these meetings, I guess this is a pretty efficient way of doing it.

Tomorrow, I'm meeting with graduate students to tell them to get going on their theses if they want to graduate. Kind of a kick in the pants type of thing. The two that I am directing specifically need to get going.

One week until the first deadline for international programs, which means I'll have a little bit of an idea about interest level in my summer program after next Monday. I have plans to do a big advertising push this week--standard stuff like posters at the top/bottom of stairs and in bathroom stalls (anywhere people have to look in a particular direction).

This week is going to be super busy (mostly because of meeting impinging on otherwise free time). Next week will be a catch-up week for all of the things in September that I wanted to get done, but haven't. Then, the big push toward NCA and toward the end of the semester starts.

A student came to my office wanting something but was dipping while talking to me. Granted, I surprised him in the hall and invited him in when I heard about his interest. That same student was cussing to his group during class today (not AT his group, but loud enough to be easily overheard). Impression management issues. What this student wanted is only barely within my control (depends on a committee of which I am only one voice), so the student didn't sink his chances or anything. But still, impression management.

Meeting Prospective Students

Kind of fun. I started meeting prospective students for our graduate program this week. I kind of pictured me selling our program to them, but really they seem to think they need to sell themselves to me. So it's interesting that during each meeting, we're almost competing with each other to impress.

It's a busy time, but I feel good about things. I'm getting into the part of the semester when I'll have to spend time grading, so my time may be even less controllable.

The Public Calendar

Last week started well, but fizzled in terms of productivity. I think Thursday was so intense that I just didn't have any motivation on Friday. Or Saturday. I am trying to readjust my expectations for those days as well as be more disciplined. We'll see how it goes.

Thursday was definitely intense. I definitely felt that one of my classes could have gone better. I like the material, but I have to find a way to convey that passion to students who have different interests. One awesome thing on Thursday--a couple of graduate students came to me for advice. It really made me feel like the graduate director, which was very cool.

This week begins the experiment with letting someone else post to my calendar. I have two meetings set up by this person (meetings with prospective students). I thought the week was mostly open until I saw those and another meeting that I'd committed to. But I'm still hoping that the week goes well in terms of productivity. Last fall, I felt like I had decent expectations and just couldn't get anything done. I'm worried that this past week is foreshadowing a similar semester.

Renewal and Preparation

The weekend was great for renewal. I didn't really even think about work until Tuesday morning, which was probably great for me mentally.

This morning, I had an early morning meeting about my trip overseas next summer. The meeting was basically about how to interview and evaluate applying students. I'm starting to get very excited, but it's also in my nature to be particularly nervous until I have recruited enough students for the trip to make.

Now, I'm about to cook dinner for our graduate students, kind of a graduate director tradition. Class with these students was really neat last night.

Oh, and I'm submitting a new article. Actually, it's one that was rejected in June and then pseudo-rejected last month (the editor said it didn't fit the journal). So here goes again.

Labor Day

No news today. I'm enjoying the day off.

Great Week

It was a great first week of school. Thursdays are a little bit nuts, and I'll have to have low expectations for what I can get done on those days, but I think my students are great. Now, ask me later, and I may have a different story. But I like them so far.

Great students and barking dogs

My dog barked for much of the night, and I'm a little bit delirious today. Not good on the first week with my hardest day of teach to come (tomorrow).

My students are great! I think the graduate class is going to be interesting because of how big the class is, but I have a great feeling about all of my classes.

This semester is probably going to be my busiest yet, but I have a good feeling about it.

First Day Hang Ups, but Great Students

A busy first day, as usual. I didn't have the last minute students begging to be added that I've had in the past. But one class was in a classroom that is much too small (as in not enough chairs--count people) and I have 10 minutes for lunch (lesson learned--I think they asked me if my schedule was acceptable). But the students seem great. One class meets for the first time tomorrow, but I've already met all of those students. Ask me again once the semester gets rolling, but I think I've got great students this semester.

Two other really cool pieces of news. One, I got a revise and resubmit late on Friday. I looked through the review, and most of it will be really easy to fix. Things like "think about this a little more" or "flesh this out in the discussion." And I need to shorten the paper to get under the page limit. But all very fixable. The second cool news was I got a journal today that included an article of mine. The article had been accepted last fall, but it was cool to see it in print today. Woo Hoo!!!

Final Preparation

Well, I'm in the final throes of preparation today. I've printed my copy of my syllabi, and posted the online versions for students. I've set up course management stuff. I'm finalizing and printing lesson plans. Put me on the starting line and turn me loose!

As I mentioned earlier, my university is pilot testing a new course management system, and I'm participating in that. It's called Sakai, and we're trying it out as an alternative to Blackboard. Kind of fun to be on the cutting edge, even though I still hate technology as a general rule.

Speaking of which, I've had to learn even more HTML as I work on a website for a friend. Yuck!

I feel pretty good about the research that I got done this summer. I would always love to get more done, but I feel pretty good.

I've got several projects in mind for the coming year, but I'm hoping to involve graduate students and other faculty in those so it's not just me doing all the work. And listening to other faculty's external grants at our retreat earlier this week made me really want to get one in the next year. Nose to the grind stone.

Today is our orientation for new graduate students. I led part of their discussion earlier this morning, and I've got a pretty big role in this afternoon. Kind of fun.

Lots to do

Busy week, for sure. In addition to research and getting teaching ready and working grad student orientation, I'm working on a friend's web page. I hate html, but I'm trying to tweak a template for the page. Worked till my eyes burned yesterday on it. But it's a nice skill to improve.

More Retreat

So whereas last week was my department's retreat to plan for the coming year, today was my college's retreat to do likewise. Challenges and calls for continued striving from administrators. Tour of a new campus addition. Overall a lot of fun.

Lots to do this week (hence the incomplete sentences). I'm still trying to move forward on some research stuff, but I've got to finalize syllabi, update the online course mgmt system that I'm using, and get some lesson plans together. Plus go to some student orientation things. I'm tired just thinking about it.

Finishing Up, Starting Anew

I'm trying this week and next week to finish up some projects from the summer, and I'm making decent progress. And of course, I'm also working on getting lesson plans together. I've got several weeks of 2 of my 3 classes planned out, and I'm working on the 3rd. One class is a new prep, one is a class I've taught before but with a substantially different class size (so a little work there), and one is a class I've taught before, but I thought it would be cool to completely change the way I teach it (so basically a 50% new prep). Fun, fun, fun.

Retreat was nice

So throughout the first two days of our department retreat, we shared the scholarly activity we've been working on, we shared teaching problems/tips, and we discussed recurring problems in our curriculum/class offerings in an effort to brainstorm solutions. It was a very effective time of meeting together. It's hard to stay in meetings for two straight days, but I felt like it was a great time to get to know my colleagues better and to address common problems.

Not only that, our tech person introduced some new teaching software options, and I raised my hand as interested in implementing the change this year. Me? Embracing technology? What? I feel like I don't even know the person in the mirror anymore.

Retreat Today

Today, we began our annual retreat in my department. But as someone pointed out, the word "assessment" is not in the agenda anywhere, which is in stark contrast to previous years when it has been the only topic. It's nice to see the interim chair listening to suggestions. The morning session has been great so far, and I'm really looking forward to the rest (unusual for me).

"Last Day" of summer

Yes, we don't start classes for a couple of weeks, but my department has a "retreat" two weeks before classes every fall, so I kind of think of that as the beginning of the fall semester. So today is officially the last day of summer break. Kind of sad. Yes, I'm really excited about students being back with all of that energy, and I'm pumped to get back in the swing of things. But I really like the way I can control my schedule more over the summer. And I really like that I don't have to do many meetings over the summer. And I really like the fact that I don't have to do much advising over the summer. So here's to you, Summer of 2009. I'll miss you!

Jury Duty all week

I was selected as a juror, so I'm in jury duty all week. I had planned this to be a lighter week, and I'm still able to get a little done during breaks and lunches, so I won't fall too far behind. And it's kind of interesting to compare the real life process with Law and Order.

Jury Duty Today

I'm on jury duty today. Definitely, I have that feeling like many people that there are other things I'd rather do with my time. However, I think that jury trial is such an important right that part of me feels proud to be here to do this.

Meetings start one week from today. Summer is almost done, and I've got quite a bit of stuff to do in the next few days. But overall, a good summer.

I got a pseudo-rejection letter over the weekend. The editor of a journal where I had submitted something a couple of weeks ago emailed me to tell me that this was not the best outlet for that paper. The editor said "don't think of this as a rejection of your work." That's why I say "pseudo" rejection letter.

How the Meeting Wednesday Went

I met with someone Wednesday about analyzing communication in his organization. As I posted on Wednesday, I wanted to mention to him the idea in the New Zealand project about giving recorders to employees. I mentioned surveys, interviews, and observations, and he really liked those ideas. I mentioned the recording, and he just kind of smiled, so I don't know. But he's definitely gung ho about the study. After three years of practically begging people to let me study them, it's nice to have someone want me.

New Project Idea

I blogged last week about my inspiration for a new project. A few years ago, I read an article by Janet Holmes in which she described the New Zealand Language in the Workplace Project. Basically, they gave recorders to people in workplaces and had them record conversations and meetings. Pretty cool, but what organizations are going to be willing to do that, right? Well, I'm meeting with someone today, and I'm going to at least mention the idea. Don't get me wrong. I'm not devaluing the insights that you can get with surveys--I still believe in the power of generalizeability. However, organizational discourse represents a great, complementary approach. And it's very trendy these days, so I think it would look good from that aspect. So we'll see. Fingers crossed.

Another Good Weekend

Saturday, I focused on yardwork. Yesterday, I sold some stuff on ebay. In between, there was a lot of time for relaxation. It was a second recharging weekend, which was great after a summer of go, go, go. This should be a pretty laid back week. I'm working on data that was supposed to be part of my summer project but will now be worked on by students during the year. And I've got some of those engaged interviews. Only 2 weeks left until pre-semester meetings start.

New Project Idea, New Energy

I'm not sure why, but the last few days have been very difficult in terms of motivation. Yesterday was particularly rough, and at the end of the day, I was tired and feeling down. Again, not really sure why. I was explaining the feeling and what I'd been working on all day to someone. As the conversation continued, this person got me really excited about a particular research project that I had hoped to do at some point in the future. But this person was encouraging me not to wait, but to pursue it now and gave me some tips for how to succeed, at least in the initial set up stage. By the end of the conversation, I was pumped about it, and I can feel that energy still today. I've got a little work to do early next week to get ready, and I've got a meeting Wednesday with someone that can really help me. It'll be interesting to blog after my conversation with that person to see what his reaction is.

new printer, updated vita

I got a new printer for home last night. Pretty exciting, lots of bells and whistles. I think it can do everything except make breakfast.

I got the article submitted that I wanted to get done on Monday. After I submitted it, I sent the editor an email about my identity-masking issue, so if there's a problem, I'm sure he'll let me know. It's kind of interesting. I've never submitted to this journal before. Even though it's not as high as some communication journals to which I've submitted in the new impact ratings, I think of it as the most prestigious journal for what I want to publish. I'm not entirely sure that it has a good chance. I think it's an important article and well done on most levels, but I'm not sure. We'll see.

By the way, I thought Tim Levine's post on impact ratings and subsequent re-rating was interesting. And it was nice to see some of the regionals thrown in.

I'm working on a theory piece that I've been doing all summer, and I'm continuing to look at data from this summer, data that I hope we're going to work on during the next semester. Still pretty busy, but has a relaxed feel to it.

Great Weekend, Should be a great week

This weekend was so relaxing. Yes, I got lots of stuff done, but more than anything, I had plenty of time to relax a little and recharge. I think I really needed that in getting ready for the fall. It really felt like a laid-back couple of days.

Last week, I was only able to submit one article, so I'm trying to knock out the second one today. It's ready, but I was having trouble masking my identity in light of the fact that things googled straight to me. My adviser suggested that is just more evidence that blind review is just a myth and that I should point out the problem to the editor, but go ahead and submit it. So that is what I intend to do today.

Other than that, I'm just taking care of some miscellaneous things that need to be done. Should be pretty low stress I hope. Overall, I feel pretty good about the whole week. July should finish well.

This is going to be a good day

I'm still ahead, but I think today is going to be a good day. A few appointments, but overall, a lot of flexible time to write and revise in.

I finished one of the papers that I'm trying to submit this week, but I didn't submit it yet. I'm having trouble figuring out how to completely mask my identity in the paper--thanks Google for making life harder. Although I guess when you balance everything, Google is still pretty handy. I'm hoping to finish the second paper today. No identity problems there, so I'll submit it either today or tomorrow. It's interesting that right now, I have only one citation from the journal that I want to submit it to. I have other articles that are kind of related that I'd like to squeeze in, but I hope that's not a bad omen.

I met yesterday with a representative from the organization that is going to work with my org. comm. analysis class this fall. Pretty good meeting overall. It's a much bigger organization than I've examined in the past, and I'm uncertain about whether my contact there is high enough in the hierarchy to push my research stuff through, but HR and legal are fine with everything, so hopefully.

No Time To Blog

A little bit behind today.

Busy Week

This is going to be a busy week. I have a couple of papers that are really close, and I'm hoping to have those submitted this week. One is a second submission, got rejected at the end of last month. I've tweaked a few things based on reviewers' comments, and I'm sending it to a less prestigious journal, so I'm hopeful. The other is going out for its first submission to a top, national journal. The sampling method is a weakness (though not necessarily a fatal flaw) and I cite myself a lot, but I'm still hopeful that it may go. I've heard the editor say that he doesn't get enough articles like this one, so I'm hoping that works in my favor.

One Month To Go

So meetings start a month from today. Kind of sad. I'm excited to see students again, for sure, but the self-directed pace of the summer, with fewer commitments during the week is nice.

My student is on board for working together in the fall. Another faculty member from the summer's project and that person's student are probably also on board. Looking pretty good for finishing that.

Hope for the summer project in the fall

It's been 3 years since I moved from my PhD program's town to my first job's town. Three years as of today. Kind of cool.

So for the summer project, we made it through coding 20% of the data, partly because of optimism, partly because of poor reliability, partly because of group dynamics. I really want to do the other 80% at some point. That point may come sooner than expected. My university is interested in parlaying its success with summer undergraduate research into undergrad research during the school year. Faculty members get professional development money and the student gets a 1 hour scholarship for working through the semester. I'm going to see if my student will continue through December, and another faculty member (the one that I seem to be working well with) may do the same. If I unitize the data, the four of us might have the data coded by December. Yes, there is hope after all!

Finding Something in Nothing

So today, I'm trying to find a paper in the research from this summer. Some of it will turn into a paper with some more coding (perhaps in the fall?), but I'm not sure that it's a paper yet. However, the student working with me needs to write a final paper. So where are some meaningful results?

At the same time, it's fantastic to be near the end. I'm tired of this project for several reasons.

Working in Teams

As I design my new prep for this Fall, I'm planning a heavy team emphasis. The class is a leadership-type class, so it works for team projects. I remember one of the classes on which I worked the hardest had a team-oriented structure, and I think the concertive control element was one of the reasons I worked as hard as I did. So I'm going to try to do the same, except perhaps without the oppressive peer pressure that's often associated with concertive control. I'm thinking of having teams decide how to weight the various assignments and having them decide attendance policies for members. I'm going to give Readiness Assessment Tests throughout the semester, both individual tests and group tests to keep them accountable for reading. But of course, that puts pressure on me to make sure I'm not just rehashing the material--I'm really going to work to have high impact activities and guest speakers to really help students apply material. This class will be an experiment.

The Rhythm of Writing

One of the blogs I follow made a great point about writing in rhythm. It's very difficult to write just for the sake of writing. But writing with a conference deadline in mind helps a lot because it forces you to get something down on paper that's legible. Even if you don't submit it to the conference, just having a deadline helps you push yourself. Great advice! The ICA deadline is around Nov. 1, and even though I'm not submitting to it this year (can't travel to Singapore), I'm hoping to use that deadline to push me to write. It helps having ICA and NCA deadlines spread out a little bit.

Busy Month, Here I Go!

So this month is a busy one! I've got the summer research project to finish (or at least bring to a stopping point--grrr!). I've got a paper that's close to finished that I need to send off. I have another paper that was rejected in June but that won't take too much work to rewrite and send to a different journal, so I'd like to do that this month also. I have a new prep in the Fall, and I'd like to get the syllabus and a few weeks of lessons done for that. If I'm planning on re-submitting the grant that was rejected last month, I need to make progress on that. And I've got a few data collection things for new projects. Whew! Did I mention it's going to be a busy month.

The summer research project is winding down--just about 3 weeks to go. I'm looking forward to it being done. I think I'll have something publishable. It won't be as strong as what I'd hoped, but hopefully, it'll get published somewhere.

Guetzkow's U

So even though I couldn't do it because my coders couldn't agree, Guetzkow's U seemed like a useful way to measure intercoder reliability for frequency. I googled it and couldn't find the formula online, so today's post remedies that problem. For more information, see Folger et al. (1984) or Guetzkow (1950).

First, a caveat. Guetzkow's U statistic doesn't take chance into account, so treat it cautiously at best. This probably shouldn't be used alone, but only with other agreement statistics to provide an overall picture. Second, U doesn't count the agreement of specific codes but counts the agreement of number of codes. That works perfectly if there's a finite number of codes (the data's already unitized) and the codes are fairly simple. Bottomline, use common sense--this statistic could let you get away with poor coding, but doing so jeopardizes that anyone will take your results seriously.

U = Sum CodesA - Sum CodesB / Sum CodesA + Sum CodesB

Basically, U divides the difference in the number of codes between coders A and B by the total number of codes identified by A and B. If there's perfect agreement in the number, U will be 0. It's a measure of disagreement rather than agreement, so lower is better.

Again, remember, this statistic should never be used alone. In my summer project, I had good levels with one coder (U = .04) and poor levels with all other coders. However, three coders had decent levels with each other (U ~ .07) because they were all equally poor. This statistic can be very deceptive if used alone, but it focuses on freqency more than kappa or any other statistic.

I'm using a different version of kappa by Brennan and Prediger (1981) that considers marginals in a more forgiving way than does Cohen. I'm also using Krippendorf's alpha, and the SPSS macro for that is at Andrew Hayes' webpage at Ohio State University.
References:

Brennan, R. L. &; D. J. Prediger (1981). Coefficient kappa: Some uses, misuses, and alternatives. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 41, 687-699.

Folger, J.P., Hewes, D.E., & Poole, M.S. (1984). Coding social interaction. In B. Dervin & M. J. Voigt (Eds.), Progress in communication sciences (Vol. 4, pp. 115-161). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Guetzkow, H. (1950). Unitizing and categorizing problems in coding quantitative data. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 6, 47-58.

And the Hits Just Keep on Coming

I'm normally a pretty optimistic guy, but June has been tough. Starting and ending with journal rejection letters, tremendous difficulty with reliability on a project about which I was excited and which will end at the end of July (perhaps unfinished), and last now, I received word that a major grant I had submitted in January was not funded. It's been a rough month. To celebrate July, I'm taking most of today off and spending some time with my wife (who has a holiday today). Hopefully, July will improve.

Bookends, but not the Right Kind

So June started and ended with rejection letters from journals. Not exactly the way I wanted the summer to go. As of May, I had three articles under review, and I've heard back from two. I guess I'd gotten used to the revise and resubmits of the last year, and I wasn't ready for back to back rejection letters. The first, I can see where they're coming from. The second, I really disagree--I think my piece made a substantial contribution, and one of the reviewers' comments was just completely wrong. For this second one, I feel like I can strengthen the rationale and tweak a couple of places and send it off again. I've already got a place in mind. For the first, I'm going to look back at it and plan with the feedback in mind. I may wait until the fall and collect a bit more data (small sample size was a definitely weakness). Either way it's a bummer. I have one under review still, and I have one that's just about ready for review. Someone told be that they'd look at it and give feedback but hasn't gotten back to me yet. I'll probably wait until late this week or early next week and then send it off. My goal is to always have something under review, and I don't want to delay.

Continued Problems with Intercoder Reliability

We still don't have publishable intercoder reliability. Once something is identified as important, there is decent agreement on the characteristics of what was said. The problem is in identifying what's important, in unitizing the data. With 20% done, I have to say that it doesn't look like this method is going to work. Grrr. So, Plans B and C.

All along, we've been planning to move from the Primetime "breadth" project to one or two shows in "depth." We planned to get DVDs or online versions of at least a season of one or two shows and look at our topics in the context of interactions rather than isolated from the rest of the season. With the show that we picked, I think that what I am studying will be more straight forward, so I'm hopeful that I can get useable data from this part.

Meanwhile, I am planning to go through all of the Primetime data and unitize it myself. I will record the show, disk, and time of each datum. Then, if there's time in the summer, I'll have everyone code the characteristics of that conversation. If there's not time, I'll save it for a directed studies project down the road. Frustrating, but it's such a cool project that I can't scrap it.

A brief break

Taking a short break. I'll be back on Wednesday, June 24.

Intercoder Reliability Woes

We spent a week coding 21 hours of video and the intercoder reliability on my part of the project was atrocious. The highest kappa among coders was .23, and several were negative, which means that they agreed less than could have been expected by chance. I don't know how that's even possible. Just guess and you could do better. I'm going to email the other person calculating reliability over the weekend and suggest a little more intercoder training next week. Perhaps asking people to look at each video twice. Grrrr. Not sure what to do if this part flops. I was kind of counting on it to work.

I officially finished the paperwork yesterday on a grant. Felt good to get it off my plate. My goal for the year was 3 grants, and I did it before the end of June. I've submitted 469K worth of grants this year. That's so tantalizingly close to half a million that I may submit one more before the end of the year.

Made good progress on a paper that's just about ready to send off. I asked my advisor if she could look over it, and I haven't heard from her. Her feedback is worth waiting for, so I'll probably wait until the end of the month or so. I really want this to go on this first try.

Back from The Teaching Professor

I went to the Teaching Professor conference this past weekend, and I learned a lot. A few sessions were people preaching to the choir about not over-relying on lecturing--if you care enough to go to that conference, you probably already know that. But I also got some really practical ideas that I'm using this fall including ideas for class discussions, for helping students engage reading, and for using writing to help students reflect on what they're learning. It was tough to travel a third weekend in a row, but it was a great conference.

Now I've got an extended stretch at home. This week is a "normal" week. Next week, my parents come into town. I love it when my parents visit, but obviously, a less productive week. Then a couple of weeks and more family comes to visit. I hope that this doesn't spell doom for my productive summer plans.

The training for my research group project is going slow. Obviously, we need to finish the training and move on to the main coding, but at this point, it's definitely a little behind. We finish the first intercoder reliablity round tomorrow. It would be fantastic for reliability measures to be good so that we can just move on to the main data, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm guessing at least one more round. But, we'll see. The nice thing is that I can see definite improvement in the coders that I've seen so far from the last time. That's good. In the meantime, I'm making sure that I know how to do the intercoder reliability stuff correctly. Anyone know how to calculate Guetzkow's U statistic? I find references to it everywhere, but I can't find a calculator online, nor can I find a citation that explains how to do it online.

Ok, I have to go finish the program review for my department. I probably would have had this onerous task done by now (kind of like a band-aid--not pleasant, so do it quickly), but I'm working with someone who has a different pace and different standards. But the deadline is Monday, so it has to be done soon.

End of the work week?

As I said Monday, I'm leaving tomorrow (VERY early) for a conference, so no post on Friday. I was worried about the week (my third abbreviated week), but just about everything got done that needed to be done. I tell people that I have had three 3-day work weeks, and they get excited. They don't understand that I'm trying to still do the same amount of work in a shorter time.

I'm working on a grant right now. It's based on the NSF grant that I submitted earlier this year. Basically, I worked so hard on the NSF that I want to use that work for other things. But this application takes a part of the NSF that was not the most interesting to me and focuses exclusively on that. And there are tons of hoops to jump through on the application. We'll see, but I wonder if it's worth it. Part of the push is that one of my yearly goals for 2009 was 3 grant applications and this helps me accomplish that goal early, but I wonder about trying to find something easier and more relevant to what I want to pursue.

I got a rejection letter today from a journal. Big bummer. I'm 0-5 on submissions at this journal, but it's considered one of the top outlets for my type of work. Very frustrating. The reviewers had great points, and if I were the editor with these reviews, I probably would have rejected it also. Still, it's disappointing. Part of me wants to fix problems and send it out quickly. But one problem was a (relatively) small sample, so I wonder about waiting until the fall, collecting more data, and then sending it out. Ugh. What do I have to do to get into this journal??!!

I did get a new battery for my laptop. That makes the trip considerably more happy. I'm using it now and it seems to have a pretty good charge on it.

busy times

So I had a great time at ICA. I went site-seeing more than I ever do at conferences, which was fun. And I got to see some good friends, which was also great.

I had a special event in another town this past weekend, so that was busy.

I'm going to a teaching conference this coming weekend. Whew! Living out of a suitcase is exhausting, and the 3-day work weeks are definitely wearing on me in terms of productivity.

My laptop battery is nearly dead, and my seats for this conference trip don't have plugs (I didn't get to pick the seats), so I'm trying very hard to get a new battery by Wednesday.

I'm taking a brief hiatus from my other blog. I still want to continue it, but I need to think a bit about the form in which it will continue. I heard on the radio that GM is going to reinvent itself as the new GM, and I think that blog needs to do likewise. I'm not sure whether that will mean more posts like it is, whether I will move it over to blogger, whether I will repost old posts after I move it over to blogger, or what. I also started another blog, and I'd like to spend some time thinking about it. So anyway, my other blog is in stasis for a week or two.

The cross disciplinary research project that I'm working on is emphasizing to me that we all have different working styles. I think it gives me greater appreciation for students working in groups.

I found out today that we have 18 graduate students coming in this fall. 18! How am I supposed to teach a graduate seminar with 18 students?

Conferencing

I'm at ICA this weekend. I'll post again on Wednesday of next week. As you're enjoying the weekend, be sure to remember those who fought and gave their lives for the freedoms that we often take for granted.

Blogging isn't as fun as it used to be

I'm getting less motivated to keep up with blogging. So I've done it for almost a year now, but I find that more and more, it's a chore rather than something I'm excited about. This past Sunday was one year on this blog. Not very many people read it, and virtually no one comments. Part of the problem is that I don't read very many other blogs, but who has time? So I don't know if it's worth it to keep posting here for my own piece of mind.

My other blog has a decent readership, but I'm finding that it's getting harder to come up with good material. And I can't really capitalize fully on the readership. I started out with a Word file full of great posts for the other blog, so I wouldn't have to write regularly, but I could write posts as they came to me and still publish on a regular schedule. The problem is that now I am at a point where I've said many of the things that I want to say, and I don't have time to develop the ideas to say more. I'm often just going through the motions. Plus, the other blog is on WordPress.com, which won't let me post ads. So this blog, which has a very small readership has ads that no one clicks on while the other blog that has a great readership can't have ads. I've thought about moving it over to Blogger, but I'm not sure how much traffic it gets from WordPress.com tags. I may do a mirror blog to see how it goes.

In the meantime, I'm contemplating a hiatus.

Busy week, but exciting nonetheless

So it's a crazy busy week. With the meetings of my summer research team on Mondays and Wednesdays, I basically get little done other than that project. A few little things in the morning, perhaps, but most of the day is taken up with that project. Tuesday should be a good workday, but there's a lot to get done in that time period. Thursday, I leave for ICA. I always plan to get a lot done on the plane, but I'm never as productive as I hope to be. My favorite part of trying to be productive on these trips is when the jerk in front of me leans his/her chair back as far as possible, which prevents me from having my laptop open far enough to see the entire screen. I then spend the rest of the flight kneeing the chair and alternating pressure on it, hoping to significantly disturb his/her sleep. I long for the day someone says something about it to me. I've practiced my retort for many years now.

However, despite that, I am truly pumped about ICA. I'm really looking forward to the break.

Getting Better

Today, I am feeling much better. And the last two days have been much more productive. It's great to have so much more flexibility in terms of my schedule, but I remember last year feeling like the summer flew by before I knew what happened. I want to make sure to get several things accomplished.

I'm continuing on my work on the theory piece that I'm (sort of) starting. It was rejected last year, and this piece will have a similar starting point as that one although it will go much further. I'm not sure if that means it's new or not, but I'm starting mostly from scratch at any rate.

I think I've talked about the fact that I'm working on an interdisciplinary research team this summer. It's going fairly well. One member is on vacation this week--would have been much better later in the summer, after we were already well underway. I have high expectations for this project.

After having a grant application rejected by the same organization twice, I am considering sending it elsewhere to seek funding. I may try one more time at this organization, but it's pretty frustrating to fix all of the things they asked me to fix and still get rejected.

Still Sick, But Able to Get Work Done

I'm still able to get work done, but I cough every 30 seconds. But at least I can get work done.

Lots of work to do.

sick today, big day for summer research

I got sick over the weekend, but it's a bad day to be sick. I'm pretty frustrated at my doctor's office and I'm thinking about changing doctors, but that's a longer story than is worth getting into.

The bummer is that it's a terrible day to be sick. Day is the "opening ceremonies" so to speak for summer research at my university. There is a reception for all faculty and students that are doing official summer projects. Then, I've got meetings for the rest of the day with my research team. We are doing intense coding training today (and probably the rest of the week). I don't want to miss the reception (the on-campus catering place makes fantastic cookies), and I really can't missing the training. I'm taking a pocket full of cough drops and will wash my hands till the skin falls off, but I have to be there.

The Next Steps Forward

So now that I have polished off loose ends, I am starting on some new projects. One of them is a collaborative project that is the main focus of the semester. I've never worked with a research team this large before, and it's interesting balancing the dynamics. Meetings tend to be much less efficient than I prefer, in part because another member doesn't seem as "on task" as I'd like to be. However, the time that this other group member spends thinking about research directions could lead to future projects or to this project being less superficial. I try to focus on the fact that our differences are what makes collaborative projects good.

I'm also starting to work on a theory piece. I had a theory piece reject last year--two reviewers liked it and one didn't, and the editor went with the one that didn't. However, the reviews gave me some interesting ideas about different directions to take with the paper. One direction was using the conceptual development in the earlier paper as the literature review of an empiricial paper. I've done that. A few people are looking at it for me, and then one or two rewrites and it's off (mid-June?). The other direction was to take the conceptual development to another level, to really consider the ontology of what I'm talking about. Although I was/am frustrated that the original piece was not at least given a revise and resubmit, I have to say that I'm excited about this new direction. A little intimidated because of the twists and turns I see ahead for this paper, but still very excited. I'm hoping to have a draft done in the next few weeks and maybe submit it in late July or August.

In my "free" time, I've been running more and more. I just finished a long training run. Later this summer, I'm running my first marathon. It's nice to have something to talk about other than teaching and research.

Two Submissions, One Day

Yes, that's right. I submitted two articles today. That's got to be a record. It is for me at least. It's tough to say how much of a chance each of them has, but it's nice to get them off my plate for a while. One of them was "shooting for the stars" as a colleague said, sending it to a journal that may be a little high for the quality of the study. The other was a great study, but part of it was a little out of my area, so I don't know what I don't know in terms of the literature. We'll see how they go.

In the meantime, I've still got an article under initial review (2 months, so might be soon), so that's three things under review at once. Nice.

Graduation

I like graduation. Yes, it's a long time to sit in an uncomfortable seat while wearing a hot robe, but I really like seeing the excitement on the faces of graduates. And their parents. It's neat to see that enthusiasm, and in some ways, it reminds me of why I like teaching.

Grades are in, and I've even finished the course assessment stuff that my department requires of me. I still don't like that stuff because it symbolizes that responsibility for whether students learn or not falls entirely on me. I feel like students choose to learn or not to learn regardless of my teaching methods. And the best evidence of that is a student's grade. However, I finished a report that will work for the purposes that my school requires.

Yes, Summer begins!

Grades turned in!

I got my grades turned in. I had to wait until the last minute for a couple of students, and even then, I had to give one of them an I until she turns in paperwork. But it's all done. A few loose ends to tie up today and next week. Let the summer begin!!

finals week part 2

Still fairly well caught up on grading. Easily able to get it done by Friday, which is when grades are due. Technically, only grades for seniors are due Friday with the rest due on Monday. But I have mostly seniors, and it's just easier to take care of all the grades at once rather than try to sort out students.

I'm kind of dreading the begging and negotiating of the next few days as students try to improve their grades, but hopefully students that are graduating will have more perspective than that. Maybe it'll be better in the spring?

finals week

At first, I thought I was a little behind on grading this week, but a student took much longer on my final this morning that all of her classmates, so now I am caught up, maybe even a little ahead.

I have quite a bit of grading to do this week. I was hoping to get a little done over the weekend, but it didn't happen. However, I still feel pretty relaxed about the week.

I voted this morning for outstanding student in my division and outstanding organizational communication. There were a couple in my class that I thought were worthy, and it was a tough choice between the two.

I am reviewing candidates for visiting lecturer positions later today. I am biased, considering that I wrote one of the letters of recommendation, but other people on the committee know that, so it shouldn't be a problem. It will be an interesting process.

Classes are done!

It's great to be free. Two finals next week. I'm mostly caught up with grades, so it should be smooth sailing as far as that goes. I volunteered to judge writing samples again this semester, a way to make a little extra money, so that will keep me pretty busy between now and the time grades are due. I'm really looking forward to the summer although I wonder a little bit about this project I'm working on.

Good News

I got my letter today saying that I had successfully passed pre-tenure review! I was good to very good on teaching and service and very good to outstanding on research. It's nice to get that feedback. And I've already started working on the things that the committee recommended to improve teaching and service, so that's kind of nice.

I figured out the problem with the machines that I vented about on Monday. It wasn't really user error in the sense that I claim no responsibility, but it was sort of user error. It basically boils down to using technology that is so old no one really understands all of its "nuances" any more. So the data collection from Saturday and Sunday still has to be made up, but it won't be a problem any more.

I'm on a thesis committee with the student defending today. In my opinion, the thesis is not ready. No fatal flaws that will keep the student from finishing, but it needs serious rewriting. Probably multiple drafts to go.

Frustrating Data Collection...Stupid Machines

I'm having trouble collecting data for this summer's research project. Three of the five machines that are supposed to be collecting data aren't working. We also have two machines that are converting the data into a usable format and one of those isn't working and one just now started working after not working all last week (so we're behind on that point also). It's days like today that turn me toward being a technophobe. Yes, I know that it's almost certainly user error, but that doesn't change the fact that it's the machines fault. To make matters worse, the tech person for my division doesn't really know these machines that well, so he isn't particularly helpful on this project (although he is normally amazingly helpful). So the other professor and I are basically on our own. Aggghhh.

The end is in sight!

A Vision of the Next Two Weeks

I think it's starting to hit me how busy I'm about to get over the next two and a half weeks. I have a meeting Monday during my only free time of the day to hammer out details on the summer research project that I'm working on. Three faculty, three students. My preference was that we figure all of the details out among us faculty and then let the students know, but one of the other faculty members told the students to be at the meeting, so we'll see how that goes. Part of me thinks it may be better that way, so I'm hopeful it will go well. I just remembered a commitment Tuesday evening. Wednesday, I may have a little bit of time in the morning, but it will be spent getting ready for a thesis defense in the afternoon. The thesis covers a topic that I'm not familiar with at all, so I'm not sure why I'm even a committee member. The thesis itself should be stellar, but that's not really the point. Thursday, I've got teaching and then packing for a brief trip that I leave for on Friday. No need for details, but suffice it to say that I won't get any work done over the weekend. So far, busy but not too bad, right? I've got students turning in papers Monday and other students turning in two assignments over the weekend. None of that will take lots of time to grade (all short), but they will take some time. I give a final on Monday and Wednesday of the week after next, so grading to do there. Those will take a little bit of time to grade because I made one of them less about multiple choice questions and more about listing and short answer. All of that is still busy, but manageable. But then I also volunteered to rate writing portfolios for my university's writing center (which I've done almost every semester that I've been here). It's a great way to earn a little extra money, but it's pretty time consuming. And I don't think it hit me that I've only got two and a half weeks to do it. That task may put me over the top. It's going to be a bumpy ride.

Meetings, Meetings, Meetings

Plan for today:

8:15, last mentor breakfast. I'm not sure how good of a mentor I've been, but hopefully he'll do OK.
11:00, grad committee meeting
12:15, assessment meeting
2:00, summer research meeting
2:05, faint because of too many meetings.

Progress on Papers

I met with a coauthor over the weekend and made great progress on a paper, one that's been holding over for quite a while. I'm hoping to crank out a little more on it this week and have it submitted late this week or early next. I've got another paper that I want to read through once more, ask a colleague for some feedback, and then hopefully submit late next week. I have a third paper that I made substantial progress on last week as well. I'm going to tweak it some this week and then send it to several people for feedback. I'm submitting it to a major journal and really want it to go well, so I'm trying to solicit a lot of feedback. It's a very productive time right now.

Article Published!

I got an email yesterday that an article I had under review has been accepted. This is cool for a number of reasons. First, it's always cool to have something accepted. Second, this is the first article that I've had as first/solo author that has been accepted at the first place I submitted it. I almost always get rejected and then submit to another journal before something hits, but this was accepted at the first journal. It's happened one other time, but I was a third author, so I'm not sure that counts. The third reason this acceptance is cool is because I have defined myself by a mainline of research and two sidelines of related research. This article gets one of the sidelines rolling. It also doesn't hurt that it was coauthored by a student, kind of a gold star next to my name.

On a sad note, one of the blogs that I follow semi-regularly has been removed from the web. It wasn't a top-notch blog, but it had good ideas from time to time, and I occasionally linked to it from my other blog (www.myofficebuzz.com). The blog typically consisted of a variety of posts from a number of different authors, and I can't help but wonder if the blogger was plagiarizing and was removed. The bummer is that several links from my blog don't work now.

videoconferencing and honor society

Monday, I had a guest speaker by videoconference. She said exactly what I was hoping she would say and it was a great experience. I think the students were really impressed with it, and I think it was probably great for them to get a feel for the technology. Very cool.

Today, I am in charge of the induction of people into my department's honor society. Being the sponsor is not a task that I particularly enjoy, but it takes little time because my department has low expectations and the students tend to want little more than a resume stamp. It'll be fun to see the students and their families get excited, but I'll be happy when it's over.

Busy Week--Why?

As I was looking at my day planner this week, it looks like a very busy week. But I'm not sure why. This should be an easy week. No pressing deadlines, very little grading. And yet, the list of things to do grows longer.

Chair Update, Students for Research, Great Week of Teaching

The chair "interviews" went well Wednesday. It was really cool to see the three candidates describe their vision for our department. I'm convinced that we are in good shape no matter who gets the job, and I'm grateful to not have to make that decision.

So for the summer grant that I have, I have to recruit an undergraduate student. I've spoken to a research methods class and have one student already interested. I just spoke to an organizational communication class. I'd rather have an org. comm. major, but it's probably better to just go with the best student.

This has been a great week of teaching. Sometimes I focus a lot of my evaluation of a particular week on the research that I get done (or don't get done), but I've done well in terms of teaching this week. On my way to work Monday, I had Steve Martin's SNL "Not Gonna Phone it in Tonight" in my head, and I think that kind of pushed me through the week. I redid my class notes for the week and really did well.

Interviewing Potential Chairs

So today our department is interviewing candidates (all internal) to be the next department head. One seems to be maybe a little bit of a front runner, but all are well-qualified. It will be interesting. I hope it's not awkward afterward. I have opinions about who would be best, but I am planning on thinking with an open mind.

I'm reviewing a submission to a journal. The submission needs a little work, but it's easy to recommend an R & R. Not exactly in my area of expertise, but the argument is good, and it seems like a well-done study.

I found out last week that my summer project was approved and funded with an internal grant. I'm working with 2 other professors and 3 students. The three of us (professors) are working on logistics of data collection that really need to be nailed down this week or next. We're also working on recruiting students, which also really needs to be done this week or early next. This project will likely keep me pretty busy from now through September, but I think it's going to be an awesome project, and we're planning three papers to come from it (and spreading out authorship order).

Page Proofs

I corrected page proofs over the weekend. That's an exciting stage, but I consider it a high-pressure situation. I hate the idea of missing something. I read an article by a top scholar is a top journal last week, and there was a misspelling in the abstract. It just confirmed the pressure of looking at page proofs.

I'm considering taking a break from my two blogs for a while. Very few people look at this blog, so it wouldn't be missed. My other blog gets a lot of traffic, but it's getting harder to have good material. I can tell I've rushed through writing the last several weeks. That blog gets a decent number of hits, but I don't know how many of those are people that follow the blog and how many see tags and click to the blog (mostly the second type I think). I just need a break. We'll see how the rest of the week goes.

Interesting Presentation

Yesterday, I had a student presenting on presentation delivery. She wanted to demonstrate the differences between impromptu, extemporaneous, and manuscript delivery. So she found three volunteers. She told the first to do a 90 second speech on Oreos, and he did predictably. She gave the second volunteer a notecard with a brief outline and told him to do a 90 sec. speech on Oreos following the outline. He did better, but hadn't practiced so it wasn't very polished (we discussed how typically extemporaneous means that you've practiced and know your material ahead of time). She gave the third volunteer a scripted speech about how to eat Oreos. I could be completely wrong, but I don't think the student in charge knew why everyone laughed at this third speech. When someone told her after class, she turned completely red and seemed genuinely surprised. Word choice is key. When you describe the details about how to eat an Oreo, a few words can make the speech sound very sexualized. The class was crying and falling out of their chairs they were laughing so hard. Like I said, maybe I'm gullible, but I don't think it was on purpose. Either way, it was an interesting speech.

Meetings today

Today is a busy day of meetings, but I should have some time to get things done.

Division meeting this morning. Rather than wait to be "nominated" for an unpleasant committee, I found one that would be better and volunteered for it. And it works with my research (somewhat) so that's nice too.

Meeting with one of the guest speakers coming to my class later today. Should be good. So far, I think my guest speakers have had mixed reviews. Two more, and I really want them to be good.

Finally, I'm meeting with the research team that I'm on for the summer, even though we haven't gotten final approval for the funding that will support us. We need to get going if we're going to be ready for the beginning of the summer.

Whew!

I made a commitment last night that I'm really going to try to not work in the evenings and limit my weekend work time. I gave up evening working for Lent, but it seems like a good idea to reserve that time for family.

Congestion

I helped someone move dusty furniture this weekend, and I picked up some sinus congestion as a reward. It's nice that I have student presentations in one class and a guest speaker in the other--I don't have to do much prep work. But I guess I could have called in sick if not for those commitments.

Conferences and Classes

So I looked at the reviews for the paper that got rejected from NCA. One reviewer hated it, one reviewer loved it, and one reviewer was in the middle. I'm still not sure how it got rejected.

Booked flight and hotel for ICA yesterday. It's kind of annoying that I couldn't get in the conference hotel, but the overflow is close. Maybe it'll be nice to be out of the traffic.

One of the classes that I will teach in the fall only had 4 students register for it last week. However, it's a required class, so it has to be offered. I'll probably pick up another student or two before the fall, but it'll still have the feel of a directed studies. Which is great for the fall--I was already planning on having the class help me study dissent and feedback in an organization. This will make it easier to manage. What may be more problematic is the spring class that the same students typically take. That class doesn't work as well for a directed studies format. It will take creative planning.

I found out last week that I'll have a grad assistant in the fall. I'm pumped about that.

The Calm After the Storm

After a crazy end of the fall semester and an even busier February, I think I'm in a little bit of a lull right now. My classes are going well and pretty much on auto-pilot until finals. I'm working on a couple of writing projects that are close to finished. I'm sure I'll be busy again toward the end of April finishing things up, but it's nice to not feel overwhelmed right now.

I have two papers that are close to being ready to submit to journals. I think. Both of them have been rejected from a conference, one from ICA and one from NCA. The ICA-reject was only partly done at the ICA deadline, so I can kind of understand that one (although I thought it was still good enough to be accepted). The NCA one was almost finished, so I'm a bit confused as to why it didn't get accepted. I'm hoping they will release the reviews soon so I can get any feedback that's useful before sending it to a journal.

Not a lot to say today

Not a lot to say today. I'm plugging away on a couple of papers that I'd like to submit late this month or early next month, before the end of semester blitz. It was a relaxing weekend, and I'm ready to hit it this week.

Blogging Woes

I was just on my other blog (the one that gets 10 times more traffic than this one). I've been using Firefox since I was hit with virus a couple of months ago. Many of my posts have formatting issues or html leaking through. The other blog is done on WordPress (grrrr), so apparently Word Press has trouble with Firefox. Not a good start to the day.

Student Research Banquet

Last night, my university had its annual student research banquet, where undergraduates who did research with faculty over the summer present what they did. It's a scary time for me, a control freak, as I watch students give their own perspective on what they did with me. Both during and after the presentation, I found myself wanting to jump in and clarify. During Q & A after, I sat on my hands as audience members asked questions which, to me, had easy answers. Don't get me wrong. The students did a fine job overall. It's just hard to give up that control. Having read Freire, I understand why problem-posing education is so much more challenging for teachers. I've got to get better at it.

Fall registration was this week. One of my classes is an elective, not required by any degree plan. I was a little nervous about whether this class would get the required number of enrolled students, but it easily passed that number. Big relief--it's a class I'm really excited about teaching, in spite of the fact that it's a new prep.

Paulo Freire and my teaching

I recently read Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and it really made me think about how I teach. Freire argues that there are two classes of people, oppressors and oppressed. Because the Oppressors are typically the ones in charge of education, teaching tends to keep the Oppressed in a subordinate state. Some benevolent Oppressors may try to educate Oppressed in such as way as to liberate them, but those efforts are doomed to fail because the Oppressors only know what Freire calls "banking education." In this system, teachers make deposits into students and expect the ability to make withdrawals at exam time. Freire contrasts this with what he labels "problem-posing education" where teacher-students pose a problem to student-teachers (recognizing the co-existence of knowing and learning in everyone), and then the student-teachers use the knowledge that they already have to develop solutions to the problem.

So as I teach students the importance of dissent, am I depositing a value in them, expecting them to be able to do it? Or am I posing a problem (oppressive silence in organizations) and letting them work through the solution? As I think about the Fall semester and my teaching then, it's definitely something upon which I will reflect.

By the way, if you are familiar with Freire's work, I apologize for the oversimplification of his ideas. Although not an easy read, I highly recommend Pedagogy of the Oppressed to anyone teaching.

Students are registering for classes this week, beginning today. Normally, I'm always curious who will take my courses. But this fall, I'm scheduled to teach an elective, so I'm particularly watching to see if the class makes. I've advertised as needed, but I haven't heard from people. This year, I only taught seniors, so they are little help. I need 8 students. Come on. Don't make me get re-assigned to left over classes!

Back at it again

I'm finishing Defensive Driving to take care of a ticket. I've done the comedy courses before, but this is an online course that isn't a comedy. This is much more of a deterrent to speeding--I never want to take this class again.

It's nice to be back with students. Spring Break was a much needed break. February was so intense. I was busy last week, but it was mostly stuff around the house and hobbies. It was nice to not have to push so hard on school stuff.

However, I did get some stuff done. I resubmitted an article that had a revise and resubmit, I got caught up on grading, and I submitted an article for initial review. Not bad for a week off.

Spring Break!

I'm taking Spring Break off from blogging. Be back on Monday.

Made it!!

Everything is turned in, all the i's dotted and t's crossed. February was a busy month--just listing everything for someone yesterday made me tired. Last night when I got home, I was a mixture of deliriously happy and weepy all at the same time because I was so tired. But it felt great to finish this month of yucky busy-ness. Spring Break is next week, so I won't be blogging until March 9. It's going to be nice to have a break. What does the rest of the world do without Spring Break.

Fixing Problem Reliabilities

I typically blog about goings-on in my life as an assistant professor, but one of my favorite blogs does that and also occasionally posts invaluable statistics help. Today, I want to talk about an article and stats technique that I recently found very helpful.

The citation is: Bernardi, R. A. (1994). Validating research results when Cronbach's alpha is below .70: A methodological procedure. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 54, 766-775.

Bernardi addresses the age-old problem about what to do with bad reliability scores. If you are like me, you often throw out the variable altogether or use it cautiously and hope reviewers and editors will be happy with your cautious language. However, Bernardi presents a solution. Let's say you have a 3-item scale measuring job satisfaction and a sample size of 200. The reliability is .40, completely unacceptible. First, compute the variable based on the scores that you have and calculate the mean, s.d., confidence intervals around the mean (plus or minus 2 standard errors), and correlations with other variables. Is the variable related to a dependent variable of interest in the study? If so, then there needs to be steps taken to make the variable useable. Calculate the distance between scale items for each respondent. For two items, you would do that by calculating the absolute difference between items. For three or more, it's a little more complicated, but the principle is the same. When you have the absolute difference, sort your data based on that difference. The goal now is to select out cases that have the largest differences between scale items, thus increasing the consistency between scores (which is what alpha measures). How many to leave out depends on how far about scores are. So let's say our original sample size of 200 is selected down to 164.

But wait! What good social scientist would intentionally tamper with data in order to get better results?! Bernardi isn't finished yet. Compute a new variable based on the new data and calculate the mean, s.d., confidence intervals around the mean, and correlations with other variables. Now compare the new variable to the first variable. Are the means signficantly different (nonoverlapping confidence intervals)? Does the new variable correlation in comparable ways to over variables in the study? If so, Bernardi would argue that the low alpha score is a product, not of poor reliability, but of a highly homogenous sample. The trick then is to write all of this to honestly describe how you handled poor reliabilities in such as way as to persuade reviewers that you know what you are doing.

No time

No time to blog. 4 days till Spring Break!

Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines

So the NCA deadline has passed. Today is the deadline for internal grants at my university, and I'm almost finished with that stuff. I'm reviewing for NCA, which is due Tuesday. I have a grant deadline on Wednesday. After that, I think I'm just about done with deadlines. I'll still have self-imposed deadlines for teaching and research, but next Wednesday will end the other-imposed deadlines. And I can't wait! It's been a long month (even though it's the shortest month of the year).

I submitted an interdisciplinary grant yesterday with 2 colleagues, and I'm pretty excited about the work that we want to do. And the stipend incentives for faculty are pretty nice for that.

Yesterday, I gave a test, and a student didn't show up. She emailed me about 3 hours after the test to tell me that she was in an interview for an MBA program and the interviewer wouldn't let her leave. Hmm. She says that the reason the interview was at that time on that day was that her mother scheduled it for her. Hmm. Don't you wish your mother made your schedule?

So my thesis student and two other students in the same boat have set their defenses next week. I will lead a thesis defense on Tuesday and participate in ones on Wednesday and Thursday. Fun week. Oh, and did I mention the deadlines on Tuesday and Wednesday?

Dinner last night with my mentee

Last night, I had dinner with the new faculty member I am mentoring and his wife and child. It's an experience that I'm really enjoying. Now, I haven't put as much time into it as I probably should have, but I am enjoying it.

I went to a presentation about international programs at my university this morning. I had never really been interested, but I have to say that I am now intrigued a little.

Got to go. Busy, busy, busy.

Updates on Old Items, New Items for the Coming Weeks

Two internal reviewers came to my classes last week. The first went ok. The second went fantastically! The reviewer said he would need to leave about 30 minutes before class was over, but he wound up staying the whole time. Afterward, I asked him, and he said that he "didn't want to leave." That's success in my book.

My thesis student is still desperately trying to pull things together to defend and walk across the stage. Never mind the fact that he will still be done and still not owe any money--he wants to walk across the stage. I completely understand. As I think about it, I took short cuts and made decisions based more on timing than on quality. I'm doing the best that I can with turnaround time. It's tough because I have a pretty full plate this week and next week. But I don't want to be the reason it doesn't work out.

My university's deadline for internal grants is Friday, so that's a big thing this week. I'm applying for a small grant for a project for next year and I'm also applying to work as part of a cross-disciplinary team with faculty and undergraduate students. This program seems like one of the university's favorite ways to get undergrads involved in research, so I'm kind of excited about it.

I'm also applying for an external grant, and that application is due in the Office for Sponsored Programs by Wednesday of next week. It shouldn't be too bad. I applied for the same grant last year, and I got good feedback even though I was rejected. I need to tweak my methodology a bit and the review committee said I needed to include a discussion of popular, non-academic literature as well as academic stuff. They like to bridge the divide between the two, and my proposal was too academic.

Oh, and I've got some grading to do. A lot of grading to do. Did I say that my plate was pretty full this week and next?

100 posts

This is my 101st post on this blog. It's kind of cool passing the century mark, although I know that's nothing compared to some blogs. It's interesting. This blog gets so much less traffic that my workplace communication blog (probably because of topics), but I can do so much more with it because the other blog is in word press. I'm considering creating a duplicate blog of the other in blogger so that I can see which gets more traffic and compare. Maybe it's something to consider over spring break.

It's great to have NCA submissions behind me for another year. Because ICA is in Singapore in 2010 and because of budget cutbacks, I'm probably not submitting anything this November, so this submission push was it for me for a year.

I also got a revise and resubmit on an article on the same day as NCA submissions, so it was quite the day. When I looked at the reviews yesterday, one was focused on "add a caveat here, clarify there." The other asked me to take the 30 pages and say the same thing in 20 pages. But neither was anything that will be super-challenging. Nice.

Done!

Everything is submitted to NCA that I needed to submit! It's a great feeling to be done. And I must say that All Academic was remarkably smooth and running much more efficiently than I had anticipated.

The Home Stretch

Here we go, the home stretch, the last 65 hours or so until the NCA submission deadline. I had a decent weekend as far as getting stuff done. There were a few things for my classes that I needed to finish off (lesson plans for today, for example), but I also made progress on most of the NCA things. The panel that I'm putting together is just about done--I need a statement from the chair saying that he'll attend the conference, but other than that, the panel's done. One of the papers is one rewrite away from being done. It just needs a little bit of polishing and a double-checking of the reference list. Today is packed with classes and meetings, so I'm hoping to knock that out Tuesday morning and get that paper and the panel submitted then. I didn't get quite as much done on the other paper as I would have liked. I need to finish the discussion section, substantially clean up and bolster the lit. review, and probably tweak the analyses a bit. And then rewrite and polish it. I've got most of the day Tuesday and a big chunk of the day Wednesday available. We'll see.

My thesis student (along with 2 others that I'm a committee member for) has realized that if he doesn't get everything together in a matter of days, he won't be able to defend in time to walk across the stage at Spring graduation. I'm not sure, but he may be working close to 24 hours a day. I doubt he will make it, but the problem is that I don't want to be the hang up. So I'm going to try to find a little bit of time Tuesday to read his results chapter and maybe some time Wednesday to go through his discussion chapter. Given his topic and results, I think the results chapter should be pretty easy, but I'm almost dreading the discussion chapter.

Two of the people in my department who are my internal reviewers for pre-tenure review are coming to my classes this week. One is coming today and one is coming Thursday. I spent some extra time on my lesson plans for today, but this is among my least favorite and consequently my least polished lesson of the semester. Please be nice.

NCA progress and Microfilm

One of the NCA papers is coming together. I just found some literature that needs to be added, and the discussion section needs bolstering. Then, I'll probably have to shorten it by a few pages, but still, it's going to get there. The other paper has further to go. I need to write the discussion section, and the literature review is going to need a fair amount of polishing. One of the variables that I wanted to include had poor reliability, which at first, I thought had doomed that variable. But I just found an article that discusses how to "fix" low reliabilities and still use the variable. I haven't read it yet, but I'm hopeful that will help the paper. For the panel that I'm submitting, I'm still lacking a couple of abstracts (nudging those authors is on my list of stuff to do today) and I need to put together a polished abstract that defines the whole panel (also on my list), but it should all be ready by Sunday or Monday--far ahead of the All Academic chaos that I'm sure will ensue on Wednesday.

The article on reliability that I mentioned was a bit difficult to get. I found the citation on Google Scholar. My university's library did not have it electronically and did not list the print version, so I asked for it through InterLibrary Loan. This was about a week ago, so plenty of time to get it. No big deal, right? The ILL person emailed me back saying that they had it in microfilm and I could come to the library to print it. I hinted around that I really didn't want it in that form, could it not be found electronically or could someone not scan it and send it to me, but I was politely told to come print it. Immediately a number of objections to that system arose in my mind. First, it seems in 2009 that we are beyond the requirement that things be printed. Perhaps this is complete laziness/spoiledness on my part, but I think that if it exists and if it's been printed in the last 20 years, it should exist electronically and that's the version I want. I want it on my computer so that I can take it wherever I wanted to. Not to mention the "green-ness" of electronic copies versus printing something from microfilm. And along that, when I was getting my PhD, they had microfilm machines from which you could print, but the printouts cost 10 cents per page. As a faculty member, I felt like I was above paying such fees (especially since I know that it only costs them slightly over 6 cents per copy). I needed the article, so I went to the library. And the printout was free beyond the time it took me to relearn the machine. I'm not sure if I'm a spoiled brat or a green, convenience revolutionary, but this should have been available electronically.

Glad to be Teaching

I was listening to a radio interview with a researcher who, rather than working at a university, worked at a research institute. It reminded me of a friend who described one of his colleagues leaving academia to work at a research company. I would definitely say that my favorite part of my job is research. (That is in contrast to a statistic that I just read that said that 70% of faculty across the country prefer teaching to research.) However, I don't think I would ever want to leave a university setting for a research institute. There is something energizing about being around students, and I think the act of sharing what I do with students makes me better at research. I'm glad to be where I am.

NCA submissions are progressing. Today is an important day for getting things together for the panel that I'm proposing. I was working on one of the papers that I'm proposing, and it's occurring to me that the literature review is not right. I'm planning to submit it to the organizational communication division, but there is really only one org. comm. citation in the whole lit. review. Part of that is that it's a new direction, bringing in ideas from a different subfield. I'm going to work today and tomorrow to strengthen the rationale and the organizational part of the paper to make it more relevant.

IT heroes

My computer got a virus over the weekend. No, it was not from downloading attachments or anything that IT people tend to warn professors not to do (those of you who went to grad school with me know who and what I'm talking about). But it started opening up lots of internet explorer windows and setting of anti-virus alarms. I cleaned the virus and deleted temporary files, but that didn't fix the problem. The IT person for my department spent the better part of the day on my computer today and described this as a particularly nasty trojan. Apparently, it was designed to corrupt any anti-virus files that could be downloaded to fix it. Just like antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, it was resistant to all but the most forceful efforts to remove it. I was worried when the IT person said he was trying "Plan C" but, in the end, he was able to remove the problems without any damage to my files. Whew! With the NCA deadline looming, I was chewing my fingernails to the bone, but no problems. Hurray for IT people!!!

I got a little bit behind on NCA papers Friday, but I was able to catch up over the weekend (despite the virus). I have a lot of work to do, but I'm on my way.

Special Presentation, Conferences, and Mentoring

I recently got to hear Martha Nussbaum speak. She is mentioned in the textbook for one of my classes, although she really didn't talk about that subject. Instead, she gave a "defense of liberal education." She argued that human development is giving way to get-rich-fields of applied science, technology, and engineering. She lamented the demise of humanities and the arts. It was pretty inspiring to hear her talk about the need for critical thinking and dissent as well as her description of the failures of democracy in countries where educational systems neglect the disciplines that can best teach critical thinking skills. She was sometimes hard to follow because she spoke in much the same style that she writes in--great for books, but sometimes to dense to follow easily. However, I am anything but sorry that I went. It was a very inspiring speech. There are times when I need that kind of recharge. I go to conferences and get fired up about teaching and research, but NCA and ICA are 6 months apart, so it's nice to have something in between.

Speaking of NCA, things are still going well although I'm starting to feel a little bit of the push. I'm proposing a panel, and I've got everyone on board. If I can get abstracts next week from people (including myself), that will be going very smoothly. As for the two papers I'm submitting, today is key. I need to get the analysis done for one of the papers, and I'm having trouble with some of the data. The reliabilities are not working out. I'm getting numbers that are not even mathmatically possible. Not sure what's going on, but that's a big deal today. I also need to work on adding quotes to the qualitative paper I'm submitting. The analysis is done, and I wrote a skeleton of the results section, but I need to have it mostly filled in with data today. If I can get those things done today, I'll be in pretty good shape with week and a half to go.

I had a paper rejected from ICA. Pretty disappointing. Now I will say that the paper is better now that it was in November when I submitted it. Still, I can count on one hand the number of papers that have been rejected by conferences, so it stings a little. I'm hoping to submit it to a journal in the not too distant future, so I'll be interested in seeing the reviews from ICA before I send it off.

Last semester, I feel like I did a pretty good job meeting with the new faculty member I'm mentoring, but my schedule has changed this semester. We were in the habit of getting together for lunch, but I teach during that time now. I've need to find a time that works for him. I really don't want to screw this up. When I moved here, that first year was tough, and I want to help him as much as I can.

Grading Rubrics

I went to a faculty breakfast this morning at which we discussed grading rubrics in our classes. I use grading rubrics, primarily because my department expects them, and my students demand them. I don't like them. They have lowered my grades (someone else said the same thing this morning), which is probably a good thing. But the thing I don't like is that they make me nit-picky. I can tell the difference between an A- and a B+ paper. But I can't tell the difference between a 91 and a 92. With a rubric, you may lose points for every little thing and get "dinged" down to a 91, when it was really an A- paper, and I normally would have given you a 92. It would take me less time to give an A- and write some comments as to why. Ok, maybe it just feels like it would take less time.

Despite my complaints, it's probably the way of the future, so I should probably just live with it.

Big Week Ahead

So this week, I'm hoping to finish up a draft of the first NCA paper, finish up the methods and analyses of the second NCA paper, and finalize the participants for the panel that I'm proposing. If I can get those things done, I feel like I'll be far ahead of where I've been in previous years. The paper that I'm still working on the analysis for involves moderator variables and interaction effects. I tried to write a similar paper with slightly different data a couple of years ago, but I couldn't get the analysis right. This time, I think I've got it. I'll know for sure in a few days.

I'm also looking for some places to submit parts of my grant proposal to. The grants person at my university says (rightly so) that I should spend that much work on one proposal. She is encouraging me to spin off parts of it to smaller opportunities. We'll see how that goes.

Slightly ahead...

This is something I remember feeling but haven't for a while. I'm actually ahead in terms of some of the things that I need to get done in the near future. There are several deadlines that are looming (NCA foremost), but I feel pretty good right now in terms of my progress toward that deadline. It's kind of nice to not be behind the 8 ball.

That's not to say that I'm not busy. I'm trying to get three things submitted to NCA, so I've got a lot going on. But nothing is really out of control yet. Nice feeling.

I'm having trouble working on my other blog using Internet Explorer. I know the whole world seems to think Mozilla is better, but I still like IE. Disappointing that it's not working right.

Holidays and More Grants

The holiday Monday was great. It's strange teaching a Monday class. My university started the semester on a Wednesday, which meant we didn't have class on that first Monday. Then, we got MLK day off, another Monday off. It's tempting to get used to long weekends. (How many weeks till Spring Break?)

The person at my university that is in charge of grants is pushing me to use the work that I just did on that grant that I turned in last week to write additional, but smaller grants. There is one that she thinks has a Feb. 1 deadline (though it's not listed on their website) that she is pushing me to submit. The problems--first I'm about to get overwhelmed with the NCA push. I'm starting to look at my dayplanner and see the time to get those papers finished dwindling away, particularly since the NCA deadline is Feb. 11, which seems really early. The second problem is that this organization is really picky with what they fund--long lists with lots of warnings if you try to submit the wrong things--and one thing they won't fund is a grad student, which is a big priority for me. Obviously, I want the grant to fund research, but I'd also like it to help my department, and one key way it could do that is through funding a grad student. Not to mention how helpful it would be for conducting the research. I'm hoping to find an alternative agency with a nearby deadline for the topic (a popular one) so we'll see.

We have a department meeting later today to discuss the financial situation. Apparently, our interim chair has gotten more information to share with us.

Thoughts on a new blog

I'm thinking about a new blog. I giving advice to a student about workplace communication, and I realized that there are some pieces of advice I can give regardless of value commitments, but there are other times when values play an important role in giving advice. Let me explain that. There are sometimes when we face a choice in the workplace (also happens in other contexts as well). We can stand for our values or we can be ambitious and advance our careers. We try to do both and most of the time that works well. But my student was at the point where he had to choose. I started telling him how he could "play the Game," a practice I condemn in my ethics class, and I was planning to post such advice on my organizational communication blog. Then I realized how at odds my advice was with my values and faith-beliefs. I don't want my other blog to have any appearance of pushing my faith on anyone else, but it got me thinking about how faith and work interrelate. So I'm thinking of starting a blog to explore those ideas. I doubt it will be something I post to as regularly as the two that I have going now, but it'll be a great place to keep those ideas together.

Busy Week

I skipped Wednesday's post. The grant that I've been describing was due Thursday (which was after the grants person at my university let me have an extra day), and it was a little overwhelming. Officially, the grant isn't due until Sunday, but people at the university have to sign off on it, and they need several work days to get that done. So I finished everything yesterday and ran it all over campus getting the signature I needed and getting to the grants office who would get the rest of the signatures. It's a pretty big grant, so it got a lot of good attention. I was held up by a number of details, including getting a letter of support from the organization that I'm working with. Lots of bureaucracy and sending stuff to the wrong email address. But they came through in the end!



I've got a few things to do in the coming weeks, but the next big push will be for the NCA submission deadline in Februrary. However, I'm trying to work on those things now so that I don't get snowed under at the last minute. My university always has internal grant applications due at or about the same time as the NCA deadline, so it's always a hectic time. I would say the first couple of weeks of February are the most predictably heavy times of the year for me, probably even more so that the end of semesters. So anyway, I'm trying to get ahead.



I'm also needing to spend some time this weekend catching up on blogs. I have several blogs that I try to follow, but I haven't checked my reader in more than a month. I shudder to think how many posts behind I am.

The first real week

So last week, with school starting on Wednesday, kind of felt like a warm-up. Like today is the first "real" day of school.

It's started off kind of busy. I feel like I'm coming down with something, and I'm hoping that it holds off for a while. 2 months would be nice.

I've got to finish off the details of that grant that I'm working on. Everything's supposed to be done by Wednesday or Thursday.

Off to a running start.

Met my students yesterday

I'm working from home today, and my internet keeps turning off. Grrrr!

I met my classes yesterday, and call me optimistic, but I'm excited about this semester. First, because of a short-lived change to a 3-2 teaching load (succumbed to the economic downturn--back to 3-3 next year), I'm only teaching 2 classes this semester. I can already feel the relief. But more than that, I really like my classes. Despite teaching mostly last semester seniors, I think that they are excited to be there and maybe even a little inspired by my first day talk about how much they need this class (I know, I'm probably delusional). I think it's going to go really well.

I also finished my pre-tenure portfolio yesterday. Yay!!

And I cleaned my office. Badly needed. Could still use a little bit of work, but it'll do.

Starting Fresh

I started classes today with an 8:15 meeting, the perfect way to start a semester. The host at that meeting said something that I had thought of before, but it never hurts to be reminded. She said that we as professors are really blessed to be able to end one semester and start fresh with a new one. No matter how badly one semester went, we get to start with a blank slate. No matter how well a semester goes, we cannot rest on previous success. It's nice to have the ability to start fresh.

Today, I nearly finished my pre-tenure portfolio. It has taken much more time than I expected. I thought it would just be a matter of printing stuff out and shoving it in a notebook, but it's been a lot of work. I've got a couple of things still to add, but they are some things that I've got to finish this week anyway. It's nice to know that it'll be done this by the end of the week.

I've got a week to go on the grant that I've been working on for more than six months. It needs to be finished off by Thursday so that I can get the right signatures. I've got a little more to do on it, but it should be done on time. After a frustratingly busy end of last semester, it's great to have a fresh start!