Research METHODOLOGIESA ONE CREDIT MODULE WITHIN D.MIN 905 A (LEARNING THROUGH MINISTRY PRACTICE)
prepared by William Badke (REVISED October 2012)
SYLLABUS
ASSOCIATED CANADIAN THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLS
of TRINITY WESTERN UNIVERSITY
DMN 905 A Research Methodologies Module One Credit
William B. Badke
I. Module Description
A study of the basic strategies required for the effective researching of a wide
variety of topics. Areas covered include topic viability, location of materials in several
formats, computer database searching (including the Internet),
information evaluation, reading strategies, note
organization, and the outlining and writing processes.
II. Course Objectives
The student will:
A. demonstrate the ability to formulate a strategy for research;
B. demonstrate the ability to make a topic viable and organize its sub points;
C. demonstrate an appreciation for planned research from topic to completed paper.
III. Textbook
The textbook for the module is:
Research Strategies: Finding Your Way through the Information Fog, 4th ed. (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse.com, 2011), ISBN: 9781462010172 ($20.95US). It has also been released in full version as an Adobe e-book, ISBN: 9781462010189 ($9.95 US).Other formats are linked at http://acts.twu.ca/library/textbook.htm.
IV. Module outline
Module Outline
First Afternoon (Library Orientation Room)
A. Topic Development – Working Knowledge, Research Questions, Preliminary Outline.
B. Internet
C. Library Catalog
D. RefWorks
E. Searching Skills – Controlled Vocabularies and Boolean LogicSecond Afternoon (Library Orientation Room)
A. Journals; ERIC
B. Google Scholar and Academic Search Engines
C. Research Reading
D. Note Organization, Final Outline and Tips on Writing
IV. Introduction to Module Assignments
V. Assignments
NOTE: All assignments are in this website. No use will be made of the e-courses or MyCourses websites. Follow the links. All assignments must be completed in order for you to pass the module.
LINK TO THE ASSIGNMENTS FOR THIS COURSE
VI. Grading Scale
VII. Due Dates
Assignment #1 - November 9, 2012
Assignment #2 - November 19, 2012
Assignment #3 - November 30, 2012
Assignment #4 - December 10, 2012
Assignment #5 - December 21, 2012
Supplement: Important Academic Notes from ACTS
Web Support – Student Portal https://students.twu.ca
All students at TWU have a TWUPass username and password. This is determined at the time of an online application or can be managed through the computing services help desk or the link on the student portal. Your student email account is also available through this student portal and is vital for communication about grades, account statements, lost passwords, sign-up instructions, etc. If you do not know your account or password, there is a link at the login area called “I forgot my password.” When you click on that link, you will be walked through the process of retrieving your account information.
Campus Closure
In the event of deteriorating weather conditions or other emergency situations, every effort will be made to communicate information regarding the cancellation of classes to the following radio stations CKNW (980 AM), CKWX (1130 AM), STAR FM (107.1 FM), PRAISE (106.5 FM) and KARI (550 AM). As well, an announcement will be placed on the University’s campus closure notification message box (604.513.2147) and on the front page of the University’s website (http://www.twu.ca – also see http://www.twu.ca/conditions for more details).
An initial announcement regarding the status of the campus and cancellation of classes is made at 6:00 AM and covers all classes beginning before 1:00PM. A second announcement is made at 11:00AM that covers all classes which begin between 1:00PM and 5:00PM. A third announcement is made at 3:00PM and covers those classes which begin after 5:00PM.
Paper Formatting
Students need to adhere to Turabian Notes (Bibliography) format except for in counselling and CanIL courses, for which APA format is used.
Students are strongly encouraged to use RefWorks (available through the library home page www.twu.ca/library) as their bibliographical manager and as a tool for formatting bibliographies. They will need to be aware of the need to “clean up” most bibliographies generated by this program. Students are encouraged to view the documents on the following websites for format samples: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/turabian/turabian_citationguide.html or www.dianahacker.com/resdoc/. Note that in RefWorks the available formatting styles are those of Turabian (Notes), 7th edition, and APA – American Psychological Association, 6th edition. For Turabian, note that there are two formats – Notes (or Bibliography Style) and Reference List (a short format citation style). ACTS uses the Notes (Bibliography) format, not Reference List.
Counselling students are expected to purchase the APA Publication Manual. More information found at the following website. http://www.apastyle.org/pubmanual.html.
For free online programs that will enable you to create properly formatted bibliography citations, go to http://www.calvin.edu/library/knightcite/ ("Chicago stands for "Turabian") or http://www.sourceaid.com/citationbuilder/
CANIL students can locate this on the CANIL intranet, under the “student” side. A hard copy is given to incoming students in the fall.
Please check with your professor to see which one he/she recommends you use!!
Course Evaluations
Course evaluations are an important aspect of improving teaching outcomes and for students and faculty professional development. Therefore, completion of course evaluations are considered a course expectation. Professors will schedule time to fill out the online course evaluation (20-30 minutes) during their last scheduled class of the semester, for students to complete on their personal laptop or a collegium computer. Students who are absent or otherwise unable to complete the online course evaluation in the last class, will be expected to make every effort to do so by the last day of exams. Information about how to access online evaluation forms will be provided to the faculty and students prior to the last week of classes by the ACTS Administration.
Research Ethics
Please note that all research projects involving human participants undertaken by members of the TWU university community (including projects done by ACTS students to satisfy course or degree requirements) MUST be approved by the Trinity Western University Research Ethics Board. Information and forms may be found at http://www.twu.ca/research/research/research-ethics/default.html.
Those needing additional clarification may contact the ACTS Academic Dean's office. Please allow at least three (3) weeks from the date of submission for a review of the application.
Academic Integrity and Avoiding Plagiarism at TWU
As Christian scholars pursuing higher education, academic integrity is a core value of the entire TWU community. Students are invited into this scholarly culture and required to abide by the principles of sound academic scholarship at TWU. This includes, but is not limited to, avoiding all forms of plagiarism and cheating in scholarly work. TWU has a strict policy on plagiarism (see academic calendar 2008-09, pp. 37-38). Further details on this subject are contained in the ACTS Student Handbook in section 4.12. The handbook is available online on the ACTS webpage (www.acts.twu.ca) at the following link: http://acts.twu.ca/community/student-handbook-2011-12.pdf.
Learning what constitutes plagiarism and avoiding it is the student's responsibility. An excellent resource describing plagiarism and how to avoid it has been prepared by TWU Librarian William Badke and is freely available for download (PPT file) or used as flash (self-running) tutorials of varying lengths from:
http://acts.twu.ca/library/plagiarism.ppt
http://acts.twu.ca/library/Plagiarism.swf (14 minute flash tutorial)
http://acts.twu.ca/library/Plagiarism_Short.swf (8 minute flash tutorial)
Equity of Access
It is the responsibility of a student with a learning disability to inform the ACTS Director of Student Life of that fact before the beginning of a course so that necessary arrangements may be made to facilitate the student’s learning experience. We are unable to accommodate any student who informs the Director of Student Life of a disability after the beginning of class.
Revised July 9, 2012