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Submit your assignments to Courseworks: https://courseworks2.columbia.edu/courses/178378/assignments

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Discussions

Discussion Notes (aka Collective Peer Review)

Each week will feature several research papers or projects. Students are asked to contribute reflections, comments, questions, and thoughts on a common copy of the readings using Perusall; a collective peer review. This should be done before the session, and with enough time for the lead to also review the collective wisdom of the class. Everyone is welcome to start a discussion thread about a topic or a reading. These readings will be noted in the syllabus, and are available in Perusall.  (Note: Other readings will not be uploaded into Perusall.)

Note: Don’t forget to sign up for Perusall! The course code can be found on Courseworks.

Discussion Lead (lead assignments)

For each session, one student will be asked to be a discussion lead. Their task is two-fold:

• Firstly, the lead should prepare a short “eli5” presentation of the methodologies discussed. This is to precede a formal conversation, led by the instructor, on the methods employed but allows a newcomer to these topics to get a primer on these topics. This may be a narrative, slides, skit, or whatever means you wish. (This has the pedagogical advantage of learning how to communicate difficult topics for lay audiences, and bringing levity to the class.)
• Secondly, the lead should prepare questions, observations, and/or commentary to frame a debate or discussion about the research papers. You should be familiar with the readings and ready to critique the readings on your own terms. It is also helpful if you look for connections (or dissonance) among the different readings, but pay particular attention to the research framing, design, and implementation of their research. The lead may create their own outline or use the collective notes from Perusall for their discussion.

Semester Assignment

The major assignment for the course is the development of an empirical research design. The semester paper will be the mechanism by which we build our skills in conceptualizing, scoping, and designing a research project. The assignment will take you from ideation and background research through just before analysis. (Of course, you are welcome to take this paper forward for publication, which should always be on your mind as a scholar!)

A few notes before we get into the mechanics of this assignment. Firstly, the second half of the course will discuss emerging methods, including the creation of digital datasets and computationally-enabled methodologies. You are welcome to think about and “use” such methods for this assignment, even though they may be unfamiliar at the start of the term. Secondly, I have been putting together a list of datasets I have thought to be interesting, which may inspire you to use these for your paper within a planning context.

Lastly, the page requirements are guides; if you can comprehensively discuss the material in fewer pages, you are encouraged to do so. However, for grading purposes, you may not be evaluated on material over the page limited provided.

Abstract
< 600 words, with a bibliography

In an attempt for you to “shortcut” your thinking, and to enculturate you into conference submissions, you are asked to put together a naive abstract for your semester paper. At this point, the abstract is propositional but may serve as a first draft for your thinking this term. This submission should briefly introduce the question you are considering, its relevance to planning, and the analytical methods you may employ. Your study, however, should be quantitative (as broadly scoped in this class).

The submission should follow ACSP format, no more than 600 words with a brief bibliography of relevant and significant citations.

Research Statement 
~4 pages, double spaced

As you’ve received some feedback on your initial idea, you are now asked to refine your thinking. This assignment expands on your abstract and consists of writing the introduction to the study you will advance throughout this semester. The introduction should clearly articulate the problem statement and research question(s). It should also frame the relevance of this study within the context of policy and/or planning. Describe the contextual considerations and assumptions necessary to accept your problem framing.

In addition, and in greater detail than you would usually find in an introduction, articulate your research approach. In other words, describe the skeleton of your research design, including the sites and populations you are considering, methods for data collection or what datasets you may use, and through what analytical method you will employ to interpret the data. Describe why this approach is well suited for your study, and what limitations may arise from this course.

Background Research
~8 pages, double spaced

Assuming that in the previous assignment you sufficiently identified the purpose of the study or research problem, clearly articulated the central phenomenon under examination and your research approach, and described theoretical underpinnings or assumptions motivating your research, the purpose of this assignment is to use secondary sources, visual tools and other qualitative data to develop the background for your research. Undoubtedly, this will look very different for each of you. For some, it makes sense to use this to describe a site, for others it probably makes sense to provide historical context for a policy, program or planning process.

Research Plan
~8 pages, double spaced

Build on the previous assignments and develop a research plan including all sections of a typical methods section of a research paper. You should include details about the statement of research problem/question and conceptual/theoretical framework of research, in addition to the technical descriptions related to data collection method(s), sampling protocol, ethical considerations, data analysis and sense-making approaches, and validity and reliability issues, to name a few. You will further expand on some facets of this assignment in the next assignment, as well.

You also will discuss this research plan in class and be prepared to comment on others’ work as well.

Descriptive Statistics and Interpretation or Instrument Prototype (slides link via Canvas)

To further detail your research plan, you are asked to complete one of two assignments:

• Creating Data: If you are creating data from surveys, computational methods, etc., you are asked to prototype or describe that instrument in detail. This may look like your survey instrument, or a design of technologies used, or a set of protocols.
• Leveraging Existing Data: If the dataset you are analyzing already exists from another source, you are asked to perform generate descriptive statistics that give an overall picture of your data. This may include a map, plots, and descriptions of central tendencies, distribution, and variance. In addition to tables, charts, and graphs, you should provide brief narrative descriptions of your findings and mention any interpretations you may have.

Formal Presentations

There are two presentations in class.

The first, occurring midway in the semester, is to cover the research statement and background on your work, as well as initial thoughts on methods. The intent is to gather collective feedback from the class, and it should be no longer than a lightning talk (5 minutes). You can keep this informal, but slides should be prepared to frame your discussion. Upload them to the group slide Google slide deck, whose link is found on Courseworks assignment link.

The second is a formal presentation, which you should frame as a conference talk. In addition to summarizing your work, you should also briefly discuss the next steps if this project were to continue (as you will not have likely performed actual analysis beyond a cursory look). The presentation should not be longer than 10 minutes.

Peer Review

For each written assignment denoted with an asterisk (*), you are asked to provide written feedback using Canvas. This feedback aims to give concrete feedback on how the work does or does not address their research aims (or, the clarity by which they frame their thinking). It is also meant to inculcate you into the world of academic writing and reviewing.

This written feedback is due one week after the submission deadline (i.e.: an assignment due in on 12 September should have its peer review completed by 19 September.)

The pairings for this assignment are automatically assigned in Courseworks.

CITI Training

All students in this section are required to complete the  Human Subjects Protection training (aka “CITI Training”) via RASCAL. Upload your completion certificate to Courseworks.