Week 1, Post 1: Introduction

I am actually excited to take this class. It's like Jin said yesterday, we get the opportunity to write our prospectus and start getting that approved so we can start forming our committee, work on our thesis, and as Diana said, graduate =)

I actually have a few ideas rolling around in my head since I have started the program regarding the kind of thesis/project I would like to do. One of them stems from a research project I did a year ago. Just a quick synoposis of what that was.

Every year the university has funding available for new faculty or faculty who are making mid-career changes (such as a new emphasis area or orienting themselves to be more research-based, this is especially visible in the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanitites). The Request For Proposals (RFP) is distributed in October and proposals are due at the end of November. The volume of proposals submitted is fairly high, usually over 70 (+) submissions, and only about 7-8 awardees. It differs each year, but I think there was about $80,000 available and each awardee received about $10,000 each to conduct their research, but the money has to be spent by July. This funding opportunity is known as the University Research Grant and the decisions regarding who receives funding is made by the University Research Grant Committee (URGC); a committee comprised of multidisciplinary participants.

As there is only so much funding available there has to be a system in place to handle the volume of applicants as well as a way for the reviewers to have access to them and review them. A system is in place at the Office of Sponsored Programs; it is known as the Limited Submission Program. Basically a data base and repository in which reviewers can access submitted proposals, read, and score them. So now that you have a general idea of the background, here is a quick description of the study.

The purpose of the study was to examine authors perceptions (in regards to what they thought reviewers were looking for in the way of successful proposals) versus reviewers perceptions (how they actually scored the proposal). In order to accomplish this, Dr. Howard and I conducted a direct-observation, talk-aloud protocol conducted with three URGC reviewers and three proposal authors. We had the three reviewers read through the three authors proposals and discuss the attributes they liked and diskliked as well as how they would score it and why. During the sessions with the authors, we provided the feedback (anonymously) provided by the reviewrs and guaged their reactions. From this research we gathered data that revealed how to write better RFP's, the kind of information that could be used at grant writing workshops, and the importance of making sure that the reviewers all understood the purpose of the funding opportunity.

(If anyone is interested, I do have the presentation available to view, just throwing that out there) =)

Anyway, back to ideas for a thesis, the obvious one would be that I could expand on this study and move from an internal funding opportunity to an external funding opportunity. However, that may not be feasible regarding the confidentiality issues surrounding the entire grant writing process - issues of blind reviews, bias, ect. tend to rear their ugly head. I have the preliminary data, I have the study established, it would just be a matter of finding an external funder that would agree to allow me to have access to the proposals, the reviewers and the authors. That could become quite tedious and time consuming.

I suppose I have enough information from the preliminary data and the literature review to write a thesis, but it seems too generalizable and too focused on Clemson to really be of any importance beyond the confines of Clemson University.

From this study, I did learn that the Office of Sponsored Programs website and the Limited Submissions Program is in dire needs of some revamping. I am also considering conducting a usability study for both the website and the Program in order to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of both.

And finally, I just stumbled across this opportunity the other day. A professor in the Health Sciences Department is trying to create an online research training program for college seniors as a supplement to a three week intensive research training boot camp that is coordinated between Clemson and Voorhees College. For the online training, Karen requires a website, podcasts, training modules and identity branding. This is a project that would be huge in scope, but the nice thing is that a lot of the resources are already organized as I assisted her with the boot camp last year, so its a matter of making them electronic. I wouldn't actually mind collaborating wtih someone on this if anyone was interested. So if you are, let me know ;)