Help My Grad Survey Research Methods Students With a Class Survey Project

Would you like to help with some academic research to help graduate students?


The following is a link to an online voluntary and confidential survey being conducted as part of a class research project. We are trying to get as many responses as possible and I am asking your help in getting this done. If you are interested in responding to this survey and you are an employed adult of at least 19 years of age, click on this link and read in the information page regarding the research. I appreciate your time. Next, I would like you to consider reposting information to your social networks about this post. Please repost, retweet, etc. the original tweet without adding any additional text. Thanks so much for your help on this research project!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/UAB-SOC-ICT-USE-STUDY

If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, please contact us by email at uab.tech.work@gmail.com or contact the principal investigator, Shelia R. Cotten, Ph.D. at 205-934-8678.

If you have questions about your rights as a research participant, or concerns or complaints about the research, you may contact Ms. Denise H. Ball. Ms. Ball is the Interim Director of the Office of the Institutional Review Board for Human Use (OIRB) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Ms. Ball may be reached at (205) 934-3789 or 1-800-822-8816. If calling the toll-free number, press the option for “all other calls” or for an operator/attendant and ask for extension 4-3789. Regular hours for the Office of the IRB are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CT, Monday through Friday. You may also call this number in the event the research staff cannot be reached or you wish to talk to someone else. Thank you in advance for your help with this study.

Do You 'Steve Jobs It'?

I am not surprised by the outpouring of concern when it was announced last night that Steve Jobs had passed away. However, I have been surprised by how much the death of Steve Jobs has made me feel sad, and I'm not even one of the Apple devotees. The only Apple product I have is an iPad2, which I love by the way! Regardless of whether I owned his products, he was obviously a brillant man who knew how to create technologies that appealed to the masses.

I saw this posting on twitter this morning and thought it was worth reposting here. I'll be curious to hear what you think and whether you 'Steve Jobs It': Do You 'Steve Jobs It'?

A Decade of Distraction?

I leave for a trip to the UK on Monday. This will be my first trip to the UK. I'm very much looking forward to it!

I'm part of two presentations at the conference at the iCS Oxford Internet Institute, A Decade in Internet Time. One of those is with Rey Junco, a higher education professor at Loch Haven University. We've posted a draft copy of our paper here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1927049. We welcome any thoughts or feedback on it before we submit it for journal publication.

The Public Face of Sociology

I thought others might find this article interesting, as it discusses some of the different ways of doing sociology. I've increasingly moved into the public sociology realm in the past 5 years or so. I wish more sociologists embraced this approach! 

The Public Face of Sociology

Facebook for Centenarians: Senior Citizens Learn Social Media - The Atlantic

A great article on some of my NIA funded work. There are a few errors which they will correct but a great article overall!

Facebook for Centenarians: Senior Citizens Learn Social Media - The Atlantic

The Hits Keep On Coming

Last week the bad news keep coming and coming.

It started when I heard that my sister-in-law was very sick. She has been diagnosed with advanced cancer, that has spread to various parts of her body. She has always been such a strong person. I hope that her strength will guide her as she faces this latest challenge. We will be making a trip to visit her very soon.

On the same day I heard about my sister-in-law's health status, I received a call from one of my graduate students. She told me that she was taking a full-time job. She had just defended her thesis proposal a few weeks ago and I was hoping she would defend her thesis later this semester. While I know that taking a full-time job was not her first choice, unfortunately the graduate student health insurance is not great at UAB. She felt she had to have good health insurance given health issues she has. I couldn't tell her not to do this when I know finances have been a major source of stress for her. Not having a strong financial safety net can be very stressful, as I know from my own life. And, she'll make more in this job than she would starting with a PhD as an Assistant Professor. Even though I know she needs to do this, it is still sad. She works as an RA on one of my projects and the team is very close. We will all miss her working on the project and seeing her around the office. I am hopeful that she will finish her MA and also her PhD. She only has a few more classes for her PhD and then her dissertation. Her thesis is pretty far along, so I think she'll finish this pretty easily.

I told one of my grad students that I wondered what was going to be the 3rd piece of bad news, since they typically come in 3s. Well, a couple of days later, I heard that one of my cousins is in the hospital with a large brain tumor (the size of a baseball). The good news is that it doesn't appear to have spread and they hope they can remove it.

In addition to these things, some of you may have heard of Hurricane Irene which pounded the east coast of the US over the past few days. It came ashore near Cape Lookout, which is close to Atlantic Beach, NC. We're still waiting to hear about damage in Atlantic Beach (where we have a condo). Power was restored Sunday night and they began to let people back onto the beach. We hope that the damage was not severe to the community and to our condo. We feel for all the people up and down the east coast who have experienced the impacts of Irene!

I am hopeful that this week will not bring more 'hits' but rather some good news of some sort. As we look around us, we feel very lucky to have our health and our family.

UAB is hiring 3 new sociology faculty

We’ve had several retirements in the past couple of years, plus one of our colleagues passed away from cancer last fall. We’re hiring!


Please pass along this info to others who may be interested: - 1 Junior Position, 1 Open Rank Position, and 1 Teaching Assistant Professor. See descriptions below. We’re interviewing at ASA.

I’d love to have applications from people that do health and technology research (just my own opinion of course)!

1. University of Alabama at Birmingham. The Department of Sociology invites applications for a tenure-track/tenured position to begin August 1, 2012 for an Assistant Professor. Teaching and research should fit with the Department’s emphasis on medical sociology. Courses taught may include gender, statistics and medical sociology, with preference given to candidates with research interests in one or more of the following areas: genetics, obesity, nutrition, outcomes research, technology or health disparities. The successful candidate must hold a Ph.D. in Sociology at the time of appointment and have a record that demonstrates a strong independent research agenda. UAB is a Carnegie designated RU/VH: Research University institution with a population of approximately 17,500 undergraduate and graduate students. The Department has established research links with faculty in UAB’s Medical School, which is ranked in the top 25 in the U.S., and to various clinical programs and research centers on campus. The Department offers Bachelor’s degrees in Sociology and Social Psychology, the MA in Sociology, and the Ph.D. in Medical Sociology. Metropolitan Birmingham is home to over 1 million people and is at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, with plentiful cultural and recreational opportunities. Applicants should send current curriculum vitae, a list of at least three references, and a cover letter summarizing interests and experiences to: Dr. William Cockerham, Chair, HHB 460, 1401 University Blvd., University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-1152. The deadline for applications is October 1 or until the position is filled. We welcome applications from under-represented minorities and women. The University of Alabama at Birmingham is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action institution.

2. University of Alabama at Birmingham. The Department of Sociology invites applications for a tenure-track/tenured position to begin August 1, 2011. Rank is open, with preference given to candidates with a strong history of external funding and publication. Teaching and research should fit with the Department’s emphasis on medical sociology. The successful candidate must hold a Ph.D. in Sociology at the time of appointment. UAB is a Carnegie designated RU/VH: Research University institution with a population of approximately 17,500 undergraduate and graduate students. The Department has research links to faculty in the School of Medicine, which is ranked in the top 25 in the U.S. and to several clinical programs and research centers on campus. The Department offers Bachelor’s degrees in Sociology and Social Psychology, the MA in Sociology, and the Ph.D. in Medical Sociology. Metropolitan Birmingham is home to over 1 million people and is at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, with plentiful cultural and recreational opportunities. Applicants should send current curriculum vitae, a list of at least three references, and a cover letter summarizing interests and experiences to: Dr. William Cockerham, Chair, HHB 460, 1401 University Blvd., University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-1152. The deadline for applications is October 1 or until the position is filled. We welcome applications from under-represented minorities and women. The University of Alabama at Birmingham is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action institution.

3. University of Alabama at Birmingham. The Department of Sociology invites applications for a non-tenure track position to begin January 1, 2012 or later for a Teaching Assistant Professor. Courses taught may include Intro, Social Problems, and Social Change. Other courses should fit with the Department’s emphasis on medical sociology. The successful candidate must hold a Ph.D. in Sociology at the time of appointment. UAB is a Carnegie designated RU/VH: Research University institution with a population of approximately 17,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The Department of Sociology and houses the Center for Social Medicine and is affiliated with the Lister Hill Center for Health Policy, the Center for Aging, and others. The Department offers Bachelor’s degrees in Sociology and Social Psychology, the MA in Sociology, and the Ph.D. in Medical Sociology. Metropolitan Birmingham is home to over 1 million people and is at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, with plentiful cultural and recreational opportunities. Applicants should send current curriculum vitae, a list of at least three references, and a cover letter summarizing interests and experiences to: Dr. William Cockerham, Chair, HHB 460, 1401 University Blvd., University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-1152. The deadline for applications is October 15 or until the position is filled. We welcome applications from under-represented minorities and women. The University of Alabama at Birmingham is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action institution.

Shelia