Spark Connections: December 9, 2021

Happy Holidays!

Spark: a centre for social research innovation wishes you and your family a happy and healthy holiday season. We have a few more events to wrap up this year (see featured below), have a short holiday break, and are excited to kick off the New Year with lots of programming, training and Spark Talks - hopefully more in-person, covid restrictions permitting. Stay tuned for our next issue of the Spark Connections Newsletter in January 2022. 

Happy New Year (in advance)

From,

The Spark Team 

Qualitative Coding in NVivo

Kick off the New Year with the virtual and hands-on training using NVivo for qualitative coding.

January 5th - January 7th 2022
9:00am - 12:30pm EST.  

Led by Noelle Wyman-Roth of Duke University's Social Science Research Institute, this training will provide a foundation in the nature of qualitative research, ethical issues, common qualitative research designs/methodologies and approaches to gathering, analyzing and reporting qualitative data. We will learn skills in NVivo including: how to setup a NVivo project, work with multiple data types, best practices for coding and collaboration as well as using more advanced features to ask complex questions of your data. 

Check out a sneak peak of the upcoming training by Dr. Wyman-Roth here: https://spark.mcmaster.ca/events

Register for Qualitative Coding in NVivo here

Practicing the Social: Entanglements of Art and Social Justice

Registration Deadline: December 17th, 2021 
Hosted by : Re•Vision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice at the University of Guelph and  Bodies in Translation: Activist Art, Technology and Access to Life (BIT)

This FREE online arts-based gathering will showcase artistic and scholarly practices, performances, and works that engage in non- or anti-normative art and cultural production (fat art, aging art); decolonizing and Indigenizing themes/processes; gender and sexuality; difference and identity; Indigenous, Black, queer, trans, and crip pasts, presents and futures; Black feminism and intersectionality; crip and queer culture, access, and activism; and much more.

Visit the Practicing the Social website.

Register for Practicing the Social Here

Join Spark on Fridays at 10:30-11:20am for a weekly "Spark Talk" focused on methods and tools of social research. Spark Talks features an innovative speaker and encourages unexpected and inter-disciplinary connections between researchers, including faculty and graduate students. Learn more about upcoming Spark events at spark.mcmaster.ca/events

December 10th,  10:30- 11:20 am ET
Word Embeddings for Social Science
Dr. Dong Nguyen 
Register here

December 17th 2021 - January 7th 2022
Please note there will be no Spark Talks over the Holiday Break - Happy Holidays!

January 14th 10:30- 11:20 am ET
The Social Autopsy
Stefan Timmermans
Register here

In case you missed it:

Algorithmically Encoded Identities Part 2 - Workshop
Google Ethical AI Team - Alex Hannah, Dylan Baker and Emily Denton
Check it out here:

A Text-as-Data Approach for Using Open-Ended Responses as Manipulation Checks
Dr. Jeff Ziegler
Check it out here:

Looking to pool software licences?

Now you can! Fill out this form and we will reach out if we can match you with others looking to pool licences.

We are also attempting a pilot in fall term allowing for virtual desktop access to several licenses for major Qualitative Data Analysis software, and will be seeking volunteers to test out the viability of this option.  FSS faculty, please email talk.to.spark@mcmaster.ca if you're interested in participating.  

Research Conversations

We provide up to 4 hours of free support each year to all McMaster researchers (students, staff and faculty) on every social research topic imaginable.  If we can't help you, we'll help you find someone who can.   
Request a research consultation at https://forms.gle/7FciqxCtK5fN6AD97
 

Qualtrics Licences

If you are an FSS researcher who would like to request access to Qualtrics survey software, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/Gn2KvYgdebjo8d2W8.

Brighter Spark Applied Research

Spark offers custom research and evaluation, as well as highly skilled assistance in implementing virtually any social research method. Our cost-recovery services include methods and software training, custom research, state-of-the-art facilities, and taking on elements of your project to support its completion.
For a full list of Brighter Spark Applied Research's services, visit: https://spark.mcmaster.ca/brighter-spark

Help us profile your research, publications, job ads, opportunities, and upcoming events by sending them to: talk.to.spark@mcmaster.ca to be showcased in our following newsletter.

Invitation: McMaster Research Data Management Needs Survey

To better support research at McMaster, the Research Data Managment Institutional Strategy Working Group invites you to complete a brief survey which seeks to understand present and future Research Data Management (RDM)  practices, challenges and needs. 

This short survey is approx. 15 Minutes and responses would be appreciated by December 17th 2021.

Should you have any questions about this survey, services offered at McMaster, or the Working Group, please contact rdm@mcmaster.ca for more information.