Student: Varun Vasudeo
Faculty Sponsor: Dr Kathleen P King, Professor, Higher Education, COE, ACHE Department
Abstract
Title- Higher Education Financial Perspective amidst Crisis: A Historical Analysis of Public Opinion through Social Media
Purpose - To identify, collect and analyze a higher education trend in images by collecting results from different search engines and graphing the trend due to economic recession of 2007 over a desired timeline. Project will include analyzing the results across a timeline as well as identifying patterns or themes in the results and related historical events (political, economic, social, etc) which could influence the results. The data for the theme will be drawn from search engines; the data for the timeline will be drawn from Google timeline function and other tools.
The specific higher education theme for this project is finance in higher education.
Secondary Purpose: This project will also serve as a model/prototype for student research assignments using social media primary source evidence.
IRB Approval- received 3-3-11
Search Engines- Tumblr, Flickr, Photobucket,Google, Taggalaxy, Twitter
Time Frame- January 2005- January 2011, December 2007-June 2009
Yearly: January 2005- January 2011
Screenshots timeline – Weekly/monthly
Procedure
1. Prepare a list of terms (tags) that have to be used in search engines.
2. Identify timeline for the images being searched.
3. Identify search engines, and ways to search images, making them date specific.
4. Storing and classifying images according to tags and dates so the best results can be obtained.
5. Analyzing and identifying a trend among the different data collections but graphing them to different scales.
6. Analyzing the effect of economic recession on the images and deriving desired conclusion.
Data Collection
The main method used to store data is to take periodical screenshots and classifying them according to dates and tags. The main way to store these images would be either an external hard drive or on board hard drive.
Trends
The trends will be identified using Google trends, timeline and making trend lines among the tags.
Paper Writing
The paper will be written based on the results obtained from trends. The paper will discuss consequences of the recent economic recession on higher education discussions by comparing the longitudinal results. The paper can be used as a prototype for faculty design student research assignments using social media primary source evidence in their discipline
A second paper will later be written with the faculty sponsor as the primary author, describing this approach as an instructional strategy couched within the framework of research methods, 21st century learning and instructional technology. This paper will assist professors and teachers in using the wealth of primary data available through social media to build students skills in research, critical thinking, and content related knowledge
