[Air-L] Learn Something New in the Desert this January

[Earl, Jennifer Suzanne - (jenniferearl)]

I think one of the truly great things about being academic is that we are always learning. But, one thing that has surprised me about this is how inefficient learning new areas and tools can be once you are out of graduate school. With the exception of a few well-known, but often pricey, statistical workshops, and an occasional ASA preconference workshops, there are not a lot of structured courses for faculty to take to efficiently learn new areas or tools.

Arizona Sociology has been working to change that. We have hosted the Arizona Methods Workshop for the past three years, and will hold the Fourth Annual Arizona Methods Workshop from Jan 9-11, 2014. We hold it in January before most folks are back in classes to make it convenient and also to make Tucson an attractive refuge for folks from colder climates. I took two of the seminars last year (one on R and one on theoretical simulations) and both were excellent and really efficient ways to learn new material.

I am writing to invite you to consider registering and attending this year. There are four seminars to choose from (and discounts for taking more than one seminar, as well as discounts for students), covering Atlas.ti, QCA, an introduction to R, and (my course) Managing Projects.

You can find more details about the workshops at: http://sociology.arizona.edu/methods

The workshop I am leading, "Managing Research Projects and Teams," was offered last year and was quite successful. It is designed for faculty who are about to scale up the size of project(s) they are working on and need some really practical ways to manage their research teams, and covers topics such as scalable training platforms (e.g., video-based training and computerized training modules) and communication and coordination platforms (e.g., project wikis, servers, and efficient collaborative tools in Google and other private providers). The seminar should also be helpful for younger investigators will benefit from a thorough introduction to key features of project management such as hiring, training, evaluation, time management, and coordination.

The workshops are priced so that each additional workshop you take is less expensive than the prior one, and are scheduled to also encourage people to take multiple workshops. This can help folks get more "bang for their travel buck."

You can also contact me with questions, or the lead organizer, Erin Leahey (methods at email.arizona.edu) with questions.

I hope to see some of you there!

Best,

Jennifer Earl

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Jennifer Earl
Professor of Sociology
Social Sciences 421
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721-0027

Phone: (520) 621-3296
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