SOCRMx 2nd Welcome Email

We’d like to welcome all new participants who may have signed up in the last couple of weeks, and direct you towards the initial welcome email, which you can find here.

You can tweet about the course with the SOCRMx hashtag, and recommend that you keep an eye on this throughout the course. It’s a great space for introductions, announcing your blog posts, and sharing interesting links and articles. We also encourage you to create new spaces, networks and groups around the course. If you do, share any public locations on Twitter, and in the course when it begins.

This email gives some details about the course, and suggests some ways that you can make sure you are ready to begin. The Introduction to Social Research Methods edX site will open at midnight GMT on Sunday the 1^st of October.  It’s an eight-week course, and it will officially end on Sunday the 26^th of November.

Introduction to Social Research Methods is divided into two sections, and involves two formal assessment activities. In the first part of the course we will explore various research methods and approaches, and you will have to opportunity to choose two methods to study in detail. In the second part of SOCRMx we will turn our attention to data analysis, and examine some of the key issues, challenges and dilemmas that underpin this aspect of research.

Throughout the course, you’ll have the opportunity to discuss key issues with your peers, and this will be one of the most important parts of our learning in SOCRMx. You’ll be encouraged to blog your thoughts and reflections on the course material too, so be prepared to get writing and to share your ideas with the group, and the wider public web. (See the previous email for blog platform ideas)

You will undertake two formal assessments in SOCRMx. The first will involve reading some published research literature, and answering a quiz that will test your understanding of how particular methods have been applied. The second assessed activity will task you with some reflective writing on the topic of data analysis, which you will submit to your peers for assessment – this means you will also be tasked with grading and providing some feedback on the work of others. We hope that these assessments will be challenging for you, but also a fun and productive way to work together as a learning community.

We are looking forward to seeing you online next week!