Research methods in social sciences

One useful resource for learning about research methods in the social sciences is the Research Methods Knowledge Base. It provides a really helpful introduction to many of the basic concepts that are useful in defining research. Particularly useful is the section on the language of research, providing clear explanations for what is meant by phrases such as "unit of analysis". Have a look and see if you find it helpful.

Google Wave

I was invited into Google Wave today by a colleague. It loks neat, with some nice friendly videos to introduce the service (meaning I cannot really see the intros on the train or in the lounge at home, where others are sitting).

I am not sure I am ready for this. I am already maintaining profiles in Google Blog, LinkedIn, Facebook, Academia.edu and the University profile webpage, not to mention the Virtual Learning Environment (Blackboard) where every programme and course that I teach on gives me a space for my personal profile... Most importantly, I want to keep my academic CV up to date in order to respond promptly to requests for information about recent activities.

All of these profiles are completely exclusive and independent of each other. And I am successfully using blogs for research supervision and research collaboration, so I do not feel that there is a problem to which Google Wave offers a solution. I want to wait until there is a bit more cross-platform integration. Is there any sign of some intelligent interfaces between all of these different services so that each can take structured information from the other? Isn't that what meta-tags were supposed to enable?

ARCOM Website

The website for ARCOM (Association of Researchers in Construction Management) needs regular maintenance. This evening, I have whiled away a couple of hours on extending the tree structures for browsing all the journals that are indexed on the site. I am working on enabling this browsing function so that a user can click on a journal's title and see the volume numbers listed, then clicking on a volume number reveals the issues, and clicking on an issue reveals a list of the papers in that issue. The citation of each paper is presented, and clicking a paper reveals its abstract, and a URL to where the paper is available on the web. The programming of all of this has been incredibly complicated, and I have been glad to have had the help of Darren Booy and Weisheng Lu in developing this, and the functionality I wanted is finally there. What I now wonder is whether anyone would want to browse the issues in this way, or if they would just prefer to search the database, which has been possible for some time. After recent additions to the database, I am now adding articles from the following series:

• ARCOM Annual Conferences
• Building Research and Information
• Construction Innovation
• Construction Papers
• Construction Management and Economics
• Construction Innovation: Information, Process, Management
• Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management
• International Journal of Construction Education and Research
• International Journal for Construction Marketing
• Journal of Construction Procurement
• Journal of Construction Research
• Journal of Corporate Real Estate
• Journal of Engineering, Design and Technology
• Journal of Financial Management in Property and Construction
• RICS COBRA Conferences
• RICS Research Papers
• Unpublished PhD Theses

Each new addition to this list requires me to get permission from the publisher to reproduce the text of the abstracts, which is copyright. Until now, the only people to have refused such permission was the American Society for Civil Engineers, who felt that their own website was all the exposure they wanted. This was a shame, because they publish several relevant titles in our area. Perhaps, as this service grows, they might be persuaded to relent.

The idea for building this database grew out of my wish to catalogue everything that had ever appeared in Construction Management and Economics, which I became editor of in 1993. It has gradually evolved over the years and I hope it will continue to grow, and offer a powerful resource to construction management researchers everywhere. With any luck, it will continue to be available to everyone free of charge.