This course examines the causes and consequences of American foreign policy since 1898. Course readings cover both substantive and methods topics. Four substantive topics are covered:

major theories of American foreign policy;
major episodes in the history of American foreign policy and historical/interpretive controversies about them;
the evaluation of major past American foreign policies--were their results good or bad? and
current policy controversies, including means of evaluating proposed policies.

Three methods topics are covered:

basic social scientific inference--what are theories? what are good theories? how should theories be framed and tested?
historical investigative methodology, including archival research, and, most importantly,
case study methodology.

Historical episodes covered in the course are used as raw material for case studies, asking "if these episodes were the subject of case studies, how should those studies be performed, and what could be learned from them?"

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"In ecology research, population density is an important metric for community analysis studies. Yet even though microbiomes are small ecosystems, microbiome studies rarely report the bacterial density. To evaluate the significance of bacterial density in gut microbiome research, a recent retrospective study examined rectal swabs from hospitalized patients. The authors found that bacterial density had important methodologic significance, as it predicted vulnerability to sequencing contamination. Specifically, low-bacterial-density specimens had higher levels of sequencing contamination. Clinical factors like age, exposure to antibiotics, and comorbidities also varied with bacterial density. Older patients and those with multiple co-morbidities had high bacterial density, while antibiotic exposure correlated with low density. Lastly, bacterial density showed potential as a prognostic indicator, as the density at time of admission correlated with subsequent infection..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Next-generation sequencing (NGS) studies have led to dramatic improvements in our understanding of human microbiomes. However, this method is based on the presence of DNA and cannot distinguish between living and dead microbes on its own. Environments like our skin are hostile and have high microbe turnover, which leads to significant amounts of DNA from dead microbes, which can lead to inaccurate community estimations in NGS studies. To overcome this, researchers tested the feasibility of pre-treatment with Benzonase to digest unprotected DNA. They used both mock bacterial communities and skin microbiome samples with inactivated bacteria or bacteria-free DNA spiked-in. Benzonase (BDA) pre-treatment reduced the levels of DNA from dead bacteria in both mock and natural communities. It also reduced the amount of host DNA in samples with high human-to-microbial DNA ratios without obvious impact on the microbial profile..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Capsula de contenido que describe el proceso de la gestión de la tecnologia de información. 

This is an online course in experimentation as a method of the empirical social sciences, directed at science newcomers and undergrads. We cover topics such as:
- How do we know what’s true?
- How can one recognize false conclusions?
- What is an experiment?
- What are experiments good for, and what can we learn from them?
- What makes a good experiment and how can I make a good experiment?

The aim of the course is to illustrate the principles of experimental insight. We also discuss why experiments are the gold standard in empirical social sciences and how a basic understanding of experimentation can also help us deal with questions in everyday life.

But it is not only exciting research questions and clever experimental set-ups that are needed for experiments to really work well. Experiments and the knowledge gained from them should be as freely accessible and transparent as possible, regardless of the context. Only then can other thinkers and experimenters check whether the results can be reproduced. And only then can other thinkers and experimenters build their own experiments on reliable original work. This is why the online course Open for Insight also discusses how experiments and the findings derived can be developed and communicated openly and transparently.

This course covers approaches to research and evaluation in the planning field, for those preparing to write 1st-year doctoral and other research papers. Topics include narrowing down research interests, using quantitative and qualitative techniques complementarily, and interviewing and other fieldwork challenges. The course uses a seminar-type format in which readings, class discussions, and assignments are built around (1) generic themes that run across the research interests and paper topics of students in the class, and (2) lessons about methodology to be learned from the case comparison studies assigned.

This class is one of the core requirements for the Environmental Masters of Engineering program. It is designed to teach about environmental engineering through the use of case studies, computer software tools, and seminars from industrial experts. Case studies provide the basis for group projects as well as individual theses. Past case studies have included the MMR Superfund site on Cape Cod; restoration of the Florida Everglades; dredging of Boston Harbor; local watershed trading programs; appropriate wastewater treatment technology for Brazil; point-of-use water treatment for Nepal, Brownfields Development in Providence, RI, and water resource planning for the island of Cyprus. This class spans the entire academic year: students must register for the Fall term, IAP, and the Spring term.

This class is one of the core requirements for the Environmental Masters of Engineering program, in conjunction with 1.133 Masters of Engineering Concepts of Engineering Practice. It is designed to teach about environmental engineering through the use of case studies, computer software tools, and seminars from industrial experts. Case studies provide the basis for group projects as well as individual theses. Recent 1.782 projects include the MMR Superfund site on Cape Cod, appropriate wastewater treatment technology for Brazil and Honduras, point-of-use water treatment and safe storage procedures for Nepal and Ghana, Brownfields Development in Providence, RI, and water resource planning for the island of Cyprus and refugee settlements in Thailand. This class spans the entire academic year; students must register for the Fall and Spring terms.

The purpose of the course is to cultivate the sensibilities necessary for effective planning practice. This objective rests on one key assumption: that a set of key sensibilities creates the right mindset for practice.

How to do science: a guide to researching human physiology has been written for students of the life sciences who are actively engaged in the scientific process. A lot of support is available for students learning scientific facts, but we found that it was harder to find resources to support students to become scientists.

This ebook introduces you to what it means to be a scientist. You will learn about the scientific method and how to do many tasks of a scientist, your roles and responsibilities as a scientist as well as possible career paths, and how to use your skills as a science graduate to get a leg up in the job market.

This text is published by the La Trobe eBureau.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Recent advances in DNA sequencing technology have made it possible to investigate community-wide changes in microbes that live on and within the human body. Unfortunately, different studies can have different results, often due to systemic biases introduced at various stages of sequence-based microbiome studies. Sample collection can introduce biases depending on the source site and method of collection. Consistent collection methods are essential, and care must be taken when choosing storage methods, times, and reagents. Increasing the usage of benchmark samples and technical replicates may also help to mitigate batch effects during sample collection and processing. Additional bias can arise during DNA extraction due to differing extraction efficiencies, contamination, and the introduction of DNA from non-living organisms. Introducing steps to this process to reduce contamination and measure inter-plate and inter-assay variability will help to reduce these effects..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This course provides the student with an understanding of the theories, methods, and approaches to the study of human social and group interactions. It emphasizes the development of sociological thought and the influences of social institutions and cultural factors on human behavior. Among subjects covered are: culture, groups, socialization, methodology, deviance and social inequalities.

The main aim of this lesson is to show students that distances may be determined without a meter stick—a concept fundamental to such measurements in astronomy. It introduces students to the main concepts behind the first rung of what astronomers call the distance ladder. The four main learning objectives are the following: 1) Explore, in practice, a means of measuring distances without what we most often consider the “direct” means: a meter stick; 2) Understand the limits of a method through the exploration of uncertainties; 3) Understand in the particular method used, the relationship between baseline and the accuracy of the measurement; and 4) Understand the astronomical applications and implications of the method and its limits. Students should be able to use trigonometry and know the relation between trigonometric functions and the triangle. A knowledge of derivatives is also needed to obtain the expression for the uncertainty on the distance measured. Students will need cardboard cut into disks. The number of disks is essentially equal to half the students in the class. Two straight drink straws and one pin per disk. Students will also need a protractor. The lesson should not take more than 50 minutes to complete if the students have the mathematical ability mentioned above. This lesson is complimentary to the BLOSSOMS lesson, "The Parallax Activity." The two lessons could be used sequentially - this one being more advanced - or they could be used separately.

This course examines the philosophical and theoretical foundations of constructionism as a paradigm for formulating and evaluating new theories for learning and approaches to education. One of the goals of this course is to help new learning researchers situate their work within the constructionist framework through readings and projects that will focus on the rich interplay between the process of knowledge construction and the development and co-evolution of ideas, learners, tools, and contexts.

Online training programme for activities and specialized educators on how to use the methodology and tools developed under the project : It targets youth activists and specialized educators who want to involve youth people in civic participation projects, with the goal of training more youth activists and educators.  

Interpreting the first results from the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology requires a highly nuanced approach. Reproducibility is a cornerstone of science, and the development of new drugs and medical treatments relies on the results of preclinical research being reproducible. In recent years, however, the validity of published findings in a number of areas of scientific research, including cancer research, have been called into question (Begley and Ellis, 2012; Baker, 2016). One response to these concerns has been the launch of a project to repeat selected experiments from a number of high-profile papers in cancer biology (Morrison, 2014; Errington et al., 2014). The aim of the Reproducibility Project: Cancer Biology, which is a collaboration between the Center for Open Science and Science Exchange, is two-fold: to provide evidence about reproducibility in preclinical cancer research, and to identify the factors that influence reproducibility more generally.

This textbook is an adaptation of the Research Methods in Psychology that is available on this site in US and Canadian editions. This New Zealand edition is an adaptation to the New Zealand context. The main changes are in Chapters 1 and 3 and the spelling, grammar, and terminology are changed throughout. This textbook is adopted at the University of Waikato in our 200-level research methods in psychology class.

Social psychologists are interested in the ways that other people affect thought, emotion, and behavior. To explore these concepts requires special research methods. Following a brief overview of traditional research designs, this module introduces how complex experimental designs, field experiments, naturalistic observation, experience sampling techniques, survey research, subtle and nonconscious techniques such as priming, and archival research and the use of big data may each be adapted to address social psychological questions. This module also discusses the importance of obtaining a representative sample along with some ethical considerations that social psychologists face.

This list of resources consists of resources for researchers, editors, and reviewers interested in practicing open science principles, particularly in education research. This list is not exhaustive but meant as a starting point for individuals wanting to learn more about doing open science work specifically for qualitative research.This list was compiled by the following contributors: Rachel Renbarger, Sondra Stegenga, Thomas, Sebastian Karcher, and Crystal Steltenpohl. This resource list grew out of a hackathon at the Virtual Unconference on Open Scholarship Practices in Education Research.