All jazzed up and ready to go

I have never been so excited to begin a class project before and write a twenty page paper. I think I have really gone crazy and have no life. As long as my second idea works for the project scope I will be on solid ground. There is a lot of work to do before I am anywhere near completeling it and I keep reminding myself that there is this stuff called learning about the process along the way that I need to be doing as well but this whole process just seems like so much fun and I have gotten really wrapped up in it. Hopefully that means I have found the right topic.

Bringing it into focus
Since there are still alot of things up in the air and I really want to move forward and complete the IRB process so that I could publish the paper or at least present it at a conference once I finish I thought I should get moving. I sat down with the site last night and started cataloging all of the 354 members on the site. I have captured their names, hometowns, class year and intended purpose for using the site (mentor, prospective information, etc.). I figured I could use this information to determine a couple of things; participation, who attened or walked away, general demographics and what kind of questions they asked. I am only part way through this step that seems very daunting but I think it will prove fruitful in the end to have for reference material. I have also used this time to generate some questions that I may or may not use for a survey of a random sampling of participants.

IRB
The IRB is were I can tell I am going to have to spend a lot of time figuring out. Luckily one of the girls who works across the hall from me works in the Department of Research at Clarkson and was able to help me out with a few questions in regards to the process. From what we have determined thus far I will more than likely be extempt but there are a few finer points I have to figure out which may say the decision. As I said above I am thinking about doing a survey of a random sampling of participants and my access to these students through my position at Clarkson might skew the publicly available information that I am using through facebook. The second item is that some of the students posting on the site are what we call "schoolies" these are Clarkson School students basically seniors in highschool that skip their senior year and head off to college a year early. Many of them are still minors and part of the protected class in the IRB process. Their information may need to be eliminated for the exempt status to work. Since my college is new to the process of an administration member needing an IRB to conduct research on their students for another college they are recommending that I contact TTU and beginning the process there. I believe I will finish cataloging the members of the site and try to wrap up my survey question formulation process since that will be needed for the IRB anyway and then zip Angela Eaton an email with a series of questions.

Off to finish this weeks readings
Well I am off to finish the readings for this week, so far the pieces I have read have been very helpful and my margins are full of comments and highlights that could find their way into my final paper. If anyone has any thoughts or questions about my process or direction please feel free to submit a post.