text:
User:Arided/P2PU-handbook

Based on http://wiki.p2pu.org/w/page/27905271/Course-Design-Handbook

=What are the responsibilities of someone involved in a P2PU course?=

Course Designer
A course designer creates a new course from scratch or remixes an old one. As a course designer, you are responsible for:

 * Gathering open resources
 * Structuring a syllabus
 * Choosing best media formats (forum, chat, wiki, blog, etc.)
 * Designing the course for openness & posterity (so it can be passed it on!)

Course Organizer / Facilitator
A course organizer actively facilitates a course. Often people are both, course designers and facilitators for their courses. As a facilitator, you are responsible for:

 * Initiating discussion around introductions, and social contracts/expectations
 * Scheduling & hosting meetings
 * Responding to contributions and keeping participants on task
 * Keeping up morale and mediating conflict

Participant / Peer-Learner
A course participant is anyone involved in learning and social interaction within a course. Course facilitators are also participants. As a course participant, you are responsible for:

 * Setting an agreement with other participants about expectations and norms (a social contract)
 * Participating in course meetings
 * Responding to discussions and assignments in a timely manner
 * Recommending additional resources for the course
 * Reflecting on your participation and recommending improvements when the course ends

=How do I structure a P2PU course?=

P2PU course features

 * a set length
 * clear learning objectives
 * a balanced workload
 * a weekly syllabus
 * a social/collaborative element (projects, meetings, forums)
 * post-course reflection for all participants

LENGTH
Course length is up to you. We recommend running a 6, 9 or 12 week course. Participants are by nature self-motivated, yet busy people. If your topic is intensive spread the work load out. (See workload below.)

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Learning objectives are explored in a P2PU course two ways:

Course organizers identify basic learning objectives
Developing learning objectives are a necessary component of P2PU courses. Learning objectives are a broad generalization of the purpose of the course and include the acquisition, retention, application, and adaptability of knowledge and skills acquired through participation. What skill or sum of knowledge will a participant gain? Where will they be able to apply it?

Participants identify their personal learning goals
You'll find that P2PU participants have differing motives for taking a course. Often participants work on a range of projects within the same course. Therefore, participants should identify their personal learning goals when they sign up for the course and revisit them when course begins. Ask participants to share their personal learning goals with the group to promote discussion and cross-pollination of ideas.

WORKLOAD
Be mindful of the workload for both you and those who will take your course. A heavy workload throughout may extinguish people's enthusiasm in voluntary situations. Past organizers have identified this as one of their major design flaws. Research has shown that short, timely activities work best in online environments. If shedding the workload is not an option, consider spreading out the syllabus to span 12 weeks rather than 6 or 9. (This may be the best option for adapted OCW courses, and intensive courses leading to academic credit.)

SYLLABUS
A syllabus should be created to cover weekly meetings, readings, or assignments. For more structured courses break down your course content into weekly themes with learning goals and group meetings. Project goals and assignments should have clear deadlines. Meeting times can be set once you have selected participants and chosen times that work for the group. For each week, courses usually have a short description of the goals for the week, some required "readings" (text or media) or relevant tasks/activities that you and your participants are expected to complete.

CONTENT DEVELOPMENT
Content development depends greatly on the style of course you are organizing. True peer-to-peer courses don't need much structure. Rather, they need clear expectations stating that every participant in the course is responsible for development of the course syllabus. For more structured and reflective courses (reading, writing, discussing) create assignments for individuals and/or questions for group discussion based on your resources. Make sure to build in some sort of peer review whether it's commenting on each others' writings or group discussion of contributions. For project based courses create distinct goals for each week surrounding tasks from the syllabus. Participants should be encouraged to review each others' projects or work in teams.

POST-COURSE REFLECTION
When the the course ends, organize some sort of feedback forum (video conference, discussion forum, personal blogging, chat) to encourage reflection from participants. They will be able to round up what they learned, what they liked about the course, and what can be improved. This is an important stage in the process, as it captures how much the participants learned.

=What do I need to include on my course home page?=

COURSE SUMMARY
Summarize the course and it's content in an exciting way! Describe the basic learning objectives for the course. [See Course Structure] The peer-to-peer style may be new to many participants. Explain what course members should expect of you the facilitator and also what is expected individually and of each other in terms of work hours, interaction, and peer review. Individuals should be expected to do some work on their own, but a large part of the learning should also surround group interaction. [See Expectation of organizers and participants]

PREREQUISITES
State the requirements to participate your course. Should a participant have previous knowledge, skills? Are there prerequisite courses? If not, state that no previous experience is required.

SIGN-UP TASK
We recommend creating a sign-up task that relates to the course. It's easy to sign up for P2PU courses. Adding a sign-up task may ensure that folks with proportionally more time and motivation will apply.

COURSE PICTURE
Create a graphic or select an openly licensed photo that represents your course theme. The picture will be used within the website and promotional materials to represent your course. If you're having trouble representing an abstract course concept in one image, try searching using terms referring to color, shape or feeling. You can find images licensed for reuse here: http://search.creativecommons.org/ Licensed for resuse? What on Earth does that mean? [See Licensing and Copyright Tutorial]

=Where can I find open resources for my course?= All resources used in P2PU courses must be freely available. It's makes us even happier if they are openly licensed. Although most of us use Google to wade through the web and find free resources, we are still left with the task of finding out if these resources are open or not. Luckily for us, there are search engines and collections specifically for open resources. Here are our recommendations for gathering OER.

WHAT IS OPEN?
The Open Knowledge Project states that “a piece of knowledge is open if you are free to use, reuse, and redistribute it — subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and share-alike.” Openness is one of P2PU's core values. "Open sharing and collaboration enable participation, innovation, and accountability. Our community is open so that everyone can participate. Our content is open so that everyone can use it. Our model and technology are open to enable experimentation and ongoing improvement. And our processes are open so that we are accountable to our community."

Open Search Engine
http://discovered.creativecommons.org/search/ The Creative Commons DiscoverEd Search Engine retrieves all types of educational materials on the web with an open license. This allows you to find educational materials that are open by default. You can also use Google.com to track down resources, but they may not necessarily be open.

Open Access Journals & Self-Archived Papers
http://www.doaj.org/ The Directory of Open Access Journals is a good way to find journals. To find an article about a specific topic, search Google Scholar, and see if you get a link to an open version. (Careful, if you are using a university connection, you might access toll-material without noticing. Try opening the resource on a non-university connection to make sure everyone can access it, or ask us).

Directory of Open Access Repositories
This lists institutional and subject repositories around the world. These do two things. First, they often hold masters and PhD theses, these can be very useful (although often a bit long and unwieldy). Second, they hold articles written by academics. Often, these are articles that have been published in traditional closed journals, and which the author has self-archived here (see below). Sometimes, it's working papers or reports that have not been published traditionally.

SHERPA/RoMEO
About 70% of the journals in the world now allow authors to "self-archive", this means to take usually their final draft (not the PDF generated by the journal), and upload this to a personal homepage, or to a repository. However, many academics don't know about this, or are too busy to do it. Using the link above, you can find out about the copyright policies of most journals (and they are happy to add new ones). If you find an article you really want to use, but which is not open access, check the journal's copyright policy here. If it says that it allows self-archiving, you should contact the original author and encourage them to self-archive their paper, so you can use it. Authors are usually quite amenable to this, because unlike with a book, they make no money from people buying that journal, and in general, they are very happy to see their work used by more people. If you have any questions about this, or feel uneasy about writing to a professor, Stian can help.

Open Summaries of Closed Academic Papers & Reports
http://acawiki.org/ AcaWiki is like a "Wikipedia for academic research" designed to increase the impact of scholars, students, and bloggers by enabling them to share summaries and discuss academic papers online. AcaWiki turns research hidden in academic journals into something more dynamic and accessible. If you have access to a closed article and want to share it with your course members - summarize it for Acawiki!

Open Textbooks
FlatWorldKnowledge produces freely licensed books that can also be printed on demand. The Open Educational Resources (OER) Consortium is one of the best places to locate over 450 college-level open textbooks in many subject areas:

=P2PU Copyright Guide= This guide provides some general information and tips about copyright for P2PU Course Leaders and Students. This should not be substituted or relied on for legal advice. Course Leaders and Designers: If there is a specific copyright query you need to clarify in relation to your course, please email [ insert p2pu community email or the info email] to seek advice and one of our volunteer lawyers will try to assist.

Why is copyright important?
Copyright is important because it gives creators control over their creative works. This means they can decide who uses their work, how it can be used and if they will charge a fee to other people who want to use it. This gives creators the ability to earn a living from their works and/or to control how their works are used or disseminated.

What is copyright?
A simple definition of copyright is that it is a bunch of rights in certain creative works (literary works, artistic works, musical works, computer programs, sound recordings, films and broadcasts) to stop others from copying the creative works without permission. At its most basic it is simply the right to copy.

The rights are granted exclusively to the copyright owner to reproduce (copy, scan) and communicate (email, put on internet) the material, and for some material, the right to perform or show the work to the public. Copyright owners can prevent others from reproducing or communicating their work without their permission. Only the copyright owner can licence or sell these rights to someone else.

How does it work?
Copyright does not protect ideas, concepts, styles or techniques. For example, copyright will not protect an idea for a film or book, but it will protect a script for the film or even a storyboard for the film.

Copyright is a separate right to the property right in an object. For example, this means that the person may own a book or painting but will not also own the copyright in the book or painting unless it has been specifically assigned (sold) to them. In most countries, copyright protection is automatic. For example, there is no need for copyright registration in Australia, nor is there a legal requirement to publish the work or to put a copyright notice on it. A work will be protected as soon as it is put into material form, such as being written down or recorded in some way (filmed or recorded on an audio tape). It is important to note that each country has its own specific copyright legislation and rules which will apply to your use of other people’s copyright material.

Plagiarism
Copyright is different to plagiarism. Plagiarism is about using someone else’s work and pretending it is your own. Copyright is about having to obtain permission to use someone else’s work.

What sorts of things does copyright protect?
Copyright protects lots of different types of works. For example:

Artistic Works
Paintings, photographs, maps, graphics, cartoons, charts, diagrams and illustrations

Literary Works
Novels, textbooks, poems, song lyrics, newspaper articles, computer software, computer games

Musical Works
Melodies, song music, advertising jingles, film scores

Dramatic works
Plays, screenplays and choreography

Films and moving images
Feature films, short films, documentaries, television programs, interactive games, television advertisements, music videos and vodcasts

Sound recordings
MP3 files, CDs, DVDs, vinyl and tape recordings, podcasts.

Broadcasts
Pay and free-to-air television and radio It is important to note that online text, images, broadcasts, videos and music on websites, wikis, blogs and social networking sites are protected by copyright. See Public Domain below.

Who owns copyright?
The person who creates a work will normally own copyright in it. In general:

 * the creator of a visual art work will own the copyright in the artwork
 * the author of a poem will own copyright in the poem
 * the composer of a song will own copyright in the music of a song.
 * the film company and/or producer will own copyright in the film
 * the record company will own the copyright in the recording of music
 * the Broadcaster will own the copyright in the radio or television broadcast.

In most countries, employers will own the copyright in the works created by their employees as part of their job. Independent contractors will in general own the copyright in their creations unless the contract that engages them requires the copyright in the work to reside with the commissioner of the work.

A copyright owner may give someone else permission to copy their work. This is known as a licence. Please see Why is licensing important? below. Sometimes the copyright owner will ask for payment in exchange for giving permission. Sometimes the copyright owner will give permission to use their work for free, subject to certain conditions. See Creative Commons below.

How long does copyright last?
The period for copyright protection will differ in each country. In addition the period of protection will differ depending on the type of creative work. For example in Australia,

By way of comparison, in the United States, copyrighted works are protected until 70 years after the death of the author. If it’s a work of corporate authorship, then protection lasts 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever expires first.
 * Copyright in artistic, literary, musical and dramatic works are protected from the time the work is created until 70 years after the creator has died.
 * Copyright in films, sound recordings and broadcasts lasts for 70 years from the end of the year in which the work is released.

What is the public domain?
A work is in the public domain if it is not restricted by copyright. In most of the world, once the period of copyright protection expires, the work is in the public domain.

In the United States, the public domain extends to works of the United States government, including federal laws, regulations, judicial opinions, government documents and legislative reports. U.S. government works are any works prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties, although projects written by non-government authors with federal funding may be protected by copyright and not in the public domain.

When a work is in the public domain, it means that anyone can copy the work without having first to obtain permission from the copyright owner. It is a common misconception, that once a work is published or available for free from the internet, that it is in the public domain. This is not correct. Material that is made freely and publicly available on the internet such as online newspaper or journal articles or images on Google or Flickr are protected by copyright. A work can also become part of the public domain via use of Creative Commons CC0 (read CC Zero) public domain waiver, which allows a creator to waive all of his or her copyright and neighboring and related rights in a work, to the fullest extent permitted by law. See Creative Commons below for further explanation.

When can you use other people’s work?
If you want to use someone else’s work, you can generally only use it if: the copyright owner has said that it can be used for free, eg under a Creative Commons licence. See the section on Creative Commons. you ask the copyright owner for permission and they give it. This is called a permission or a license. your use is permitted under your country’s copyright legislation. Most countries’ copyright legislation has exceptions or defences to copyright infringement. For example in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand there are a list of exceptions called ‘fair dealing” that allow some copying for research and study, criticism and review, reporting the news and giving legal advice. In the United States, there is a general exception which is referred to as fair use. In Europe, exceptions to copyright infringement are set out in the relevant civil code.

The rules in relation to “fair dealing” and “fair use” are quite complex and the use must be fair. We recommend that you only use quotes or small extracts not whole works and that you always attribute the author and publisher where the source is known.

Why is licensing important?
Only a copyright owner can give you a licence/ permission to reproduce their works. Although in some circumstances, you may be able to rely on fair dealing or fair use to include extracts of a work as part of assignments and group work, you may not necessarily rely on these exemptions to create open education resources using those works without a licence/ permission.

Rather than seeking licences from individual copyright owners to include their work in your course curriculum, we recommend the following Smart Tips when developing your course materials

Linking
Linking is not a copyright activity. This is because you are not actually ‘copying’ or ‘communicating’ any material, you are just providing a path to its location on another website. Providing links to material on external websites will not infringe copyright and you do not need to seek permission from the website owner to include a link to their website.

Embedding
Embedding is another type of linking, except you don’t have to leave your website (e.g. blog or wiki) or intranet to access the content. It is commonly used for displaying online films on websites, e.g. YouTube films.

Embedding involves copying the HTML code of the film, which is often displayed in a box near the film, and pasting it onto your website. The result of this is, rather than displaying the link, it will show a small screen of the film on your website.

The primary advantage to embedding material is that you do not need to copy the material in order to make it available on your website. Some websites, such as YouTube, provide the link for embedding films. This makes embedding an easy and practical alternative to copying.

Material created by you
If you are using material that is your own original work and does not contain any material created by another person, you do not need to rely on the special provisions/ exceptions in your country’s copyright legislation as you are the copyright owner.

Open Educational Resources (OER)
The internet contains a variety of OER material that is licenced under Creative Commons. There are also many websites which are ‘free for education’. This is because their website terms and conditions permit material contained on the website to be copied for ‘educational purposes’.

The following table provides a summary of when the terms and conditions of a website indicate that the material is ‘free for education’.

One problem with terms and conditions on websites is that sometimes the terms and conditions of use can change and often there may be conflicting terms and conditions on the one website. In some instances, it is not clear what the terms and conditions allow. This is why we recommend where possible to link to or embed websites and to use Creative Commons licensed material. See Creative Commons below

Creative Commons
The most common source of open education material is licensed under Creative Commons. Creative Commons is a set of licences which creators attach to their work. All Creative Commons licences allow the material to be used for educational purposes. As a result, material available under a Creative Commons licence is ‘free for education’. Depending on the type of CC licence used, a teacher and student may also modify and share the material.

=P2PU COMMUNITY WISDOM=

This page quotes reflections from previous organizers and participants in P2PU courses. It includes excerpts of things that worked well (+), general approaches (=), and things that blocked progress and participation (-).

ON ACCEPTING PARTICIPANTS
Once sign-up for your course closes, you'll have to review applications and accept participants. It's up to you whether to allow everyone in or select individuals. It should be noted that many applicants may select themselves out once the course begins, because they overestimated their free time, or lack the flexibility to meet with the group. This is a normal occurence. (=) "The course received 32 sign ups. I admitted 27 of the 32 applicants based upon application completeness. I only rejected applicants that didn't answer all of the questions on the very short application form. Immediately after closing signups I set out to coordinate a weekly time slot for us to have synchronous meetings. The best we could do was 11AM & 1PM Eastern time which would allow for around 20 of the accepted applicants to make the course. For the first week I held two sections, but consolidated to one section at 11AM Eastern for the remaining five weeks." -Organizer, Mashing Up The Open Web

ON COURSE MATERIAL
Almost all previous course organizers felt they had included too much content or time-consuming tasks for the six-week course. As you develop your syllabus, identify the most essential tasks for learning. Take into account how much you would have to spend with the workload if you were new to the material. (-) "The 6 week course had no provision to stop and think and engage with the content and in the end it became a matter of just "getting it done". I felt we needed far more time to engage with the ideas, so perhaps the same amount of content but in a 10 or 12 week period would be better. " -Participant, Copyright For Educators (-) "I think next time around we will have to cover less material and spend more time solidifying things. I think it may have been way to much to try and tackle in 6 weeks, not to mention the first time running." - Organizer, Music Theory (-) "I tried to do too much at once with this class, beginning with the syllabus. I selected a dangerously open-ended task at the outset - identifying and articulating a design challenge for the rest of the class. In my experience, these kinds of conversations and exercises were difficult enough in the real world, even amongst experienced designers sitting in the same room; it really got us too broad too early." - Organizer, Build Ideas Through Design

ON COMMUNICATING
Communicating with your participants well is the key to success in a P2PU course. Participants and organizers both vocalized it's importance. In courses where communication lagged, members were less enganged, produced less work, or dropped out. However, courses with strong communications (especially form the start) kept members engaged and produced more work. (+) "We started the course by using a web based video conferencing tool, Tokbox. Each week at 11AM Eastern, the group would gather in a video conference room to do three things. First each participant would give a project update, followed by a review of the active assignment, and finally a group discussion around the passive assignment. During class, I encouraged participants to ask questions and lead the discussion in whatever direction they wanted it to go. My goal was to facilitate the discussion, not control it. I generally tried to defer answering questions to other participants, unless I was the only one able to answer." - Organizer, Mashing Up The Open Web

(+) "We had a super energetic kick off call - really, everyone was pumped, except one student who had terrible connectivity issues - and we had lots of solid follow-up skype conversations. We had some good, high-level exchanges on the boards, too." -Organizer, Building Ideas Through Design

(-) "Getting everyone on the same call proved to be a challenge, and with writing classes, only text feedback is not desirable as you don't really feel part of a community or group. I don't really see how this could be remedied, as people were from all different timezones and that's what made it interesting." -Organizer, Creative NonFiction (+) We used P2PU's website and the forums as the central hub of communications augmented with a mailing list, UStream, Twitter (#kmdp2puDJ) and an IRC channel that was also accessible via a web interface on the P2PU website. Each week, we had assignments and a real-time seminar. The physical space was the Keio Hiyoshi campus, but I would video conference in via H.323 when I was out of town and we had guest speakers and remote students video in via Skype. We then streamed this and recorded it on UStream, using the IRC channel as the discussion and question area. We would tweet the UStream sessions and would gather an tag-along participants in real-time. The video of the seminars recorded in Tokyo in high definition and were uploaded later (html/rss). - Organizer, Digital Journalism (-) I think that having so many modes of communications made it difficult to keep track of the threads. - Organizer, Digital Journalism (+) "In addition to the weekly hour of class time, I held two office hours. One at 10AM Eastern (before class) and another at 12PM Eastern (after class). I had a much higher participation rate in the office hours after class than before class, but generally always had at least one participant taking advantage of the time. Office hours were especially useful for working with the less experienced participants." -Organizer, Mashing Up The Open Web (+) "I posted discussion questions and responded to each and every student posting and had some really great interaction (and the best thing that could have happened as a teacher happened: I learned from the students!)" - Organizer, Green Action: Creating Sustainable Communities

Building community in P2PU courses starts right at the beginning and is the most important activity to occur. The best way to set strong expectations is to set aside the start of the course for discussions about expectations and setting agreements about how the participants will work together. Think of it as building a "social contract". Without the creation of a "social contract", course participants often struggle with confusion and demotivation from failed expectations. In the first course meeting (whether synchronous or asynchronous): make thorough introductions ask participants to share their learning goals discuss the p2pu values of: openness - all resources must be free, and preferably open. all content made by participants and posted on p2pu.org is automatically licensed cc-by-sa unless otherwise noted peer learning - peers are expected to participate for the entirety of the course, they are expected to collaborate and community - participants are welcome to become involved in all aspects of P2PU and are supported by our enthusiatic community You may feel that some activities in your course require some explanation or agreements ahead of time. Here's some suggestions for additional discussions during community building. Schedule & Syllabus

 * Can participants edit the syllabus?
 * Are project dates static or dynamic?

Social interaction in meetings & forums (netiquette, taking turns speaking, rules of leading conversation/fourm  discussions)

 * How can we support each other as peers in a learning community?
 * What I do if I feel deeply offended by something the tutor or another participant has said in the course?
 * How important is it for the members of this group to get to know about each others lives and interests beyond the course?

Critiquing each other's work
 * What are we looking for in eachother's work?
 * What is the format for critiquing?

Collaborative projects
 * Can other people edit my work without agreement?
 * How should we reuse each others words and ideas within and beyond the course?

Course discussion
 * Are there any topics out-of-bounds?
 * Who is responsible for keeping the conversations on track?

=WHAT PARTICIPATION TOOLS ARE RIGHT FOR YOUR COURSE?=

....This section seems to need editing.... Participatory media refers to media tools that support social interaction, participation and communication. Often also referred to as “social media” or “Web 2.0”, participatory media employs web-based technologies to allow users to contribute content and interact with the content and each other. The use of participatory media tools in education is typically geared towards creating a more learner-centered, adaptive environment where learners can contribute to the course material, formulate and express their own insights and opinions, construct their own understanding of material and learn from one another in collaborative environments. The most common participatory media tools used in online courses today are forums, chat, wiki, blogs and social bookmarking. These tools can be used to meet a wide-range of objectives so rather than choosing a tool first and then developing your content to fit it, consider the learning objectives of your course first. The following list should help you connect your objectives with the best modes of participation. You may choose to use more than one tool to meet your various objectives and this is fine, but keep in mind that using all of these tools without guidance around how to use each one can be overwhelming and lead to duplication of participants efforts in the course. For the participation tools you choose to use, we recommend providing quick tutorials to your course members on how to use them. Not all course members will be as savvy as you! FORUMS support asynchronous, many-to-many discussion amongst participants. Typically someone posts a forum topic and the group responds through comments or replies. Learning objectives include:

For more learning objectives and strategies on how to use forums to accomplish, visit Learning Objectives Alignment. Benefits of forums:
 * Express clear, coherent thoughts and arguments in writing
 * Debate and discuss issues in the field topic
 * Analyze and critique (scholarly) work/discipline
 * Create community
 * Connect course topics with current events, personal experience or concepts across courses

Built-in to P2PU.org 24/7 availability, meaning that discussions can carry on beyond time-zone constraints or scheduling issues Helps create community by a continuous flow of discussion Facilitates discussion on issues or concepts that can foster deeper connections or understanding Limitations: No assurance of response from participants, facilitator must stay engaged in forum Due to the asynchronous nature, requires continued motivation to participate Some responses can be lengthy and make catching up difficult Forums are built into each course page on p2pu.org. This feature is a familiar, easy to use tool. Most organizers have found forums are the best tools for discussion in courses. We recommend that organizers use a forum in conjunction with any other tools, as it allows the group to interact asynchronously, keeping everyone in the loop and building more robust conversations. Chat is a lightweight synchronous form of communication through short text messages. Learning objectives include: Create community Ask question / get assistance Debate and discuss issues in the field topic ☞ For more learning objectives and strategies on how to use forums to accomplish, visit Learning Objectives Alignment. Benefits of chat: Built-in to P2PU.org Synchronous engagement of participants Easiest form of communication for low-bandwidth participants Lowers the disadvantage level of those participating in a second language Excellent for office hours Limitations: Overlapping, often many conversations going on at once, therefore challenging to facilitate and follow May lead to expectation that the organizer is always available for questions, so guidelines should be set in advance. Chat is another embedded feature in p2pu.org course pages. It is a familiar and easy to use method of synchronous communication. Many organizers have used it for "office hours", although if you choose to do so, we recommend that you set designated time slots and communicate them upfront to avoid an expectation that you will always be available and lead to extra burden on you. Wiki is a collaborative space which can be directly edited by anyone with access to it. For example, you are participating in the orientation, and our participatory platform is this wiki! Learning objectives include: Collaboratively write or build documents Share work / learn by social example Synthesize various perspectives about a topic or concept Create community Take responsibility for learning / teach others ☞ For more learning objectives and strategies on how to use forums to accomplish, visit Learning Objectives Alignment. Benefits of wikis: P2PU has an existing wiki (wiki.p2pu.org) Serve as a knowledge platform where participants can share their knowledge with the group, put up interesting pieces of information, work together, discuss issues, etc. Facilitate collaborative document building, great for group projects Keeps course materials, assignments & happenings all in one central, editable location. Limitations: Requires a certain level of computer skills Requires some curation to ensure pages are linked and easy to find Completely open wikis are vulnerable to inaccuracy, poor revisions, and vandalism because anyone can edit. Attribution and original ownership can get lost amongst a large group of collaborators and editors. Our wiki is not embedded within a course page on p2pu.org. Rather, you must navigate to 'wiki.p2pu.org'. If you choose a wiki as your main participation tool, make sure to have clear links to and from your course page on p2pu.org. We recommend using the forum and chat features on your main course page in addition to the wiki. BLOGS are personal web-logs that support opinions, ideas, and news. Blogs are a platform that give voice to a person's or groups intentions on the web. Learning objectives include: Express clear, coherent thoughts and arguments in writing Connect course topics with current events, personal experience or concepts across courses Synthesize various perspectives about the topic or concept Reflect on learning, metacognition ☞ For more learning objectives and strategies on how to use forums to accomplish, visit Learning Objectives Alignment. Blogs in Plain English Video by Lee LeFever

Benefits of blogs: Helps course members develop their own unique voice, encourage them to formulate opinions and thoughts Gives course members more time to reflect and develop an understanding and think critically about the topic Provides opportunities to express and experience different opinions and perspectives among the group. Provides greater context to course material. Limitations: If the blog is available publicly, this could intimidate some members from participating Requires continued activity and community involvement to write new posts and read/comment on other's posts Necessitates some form of aggregating to pull everyone's posts into one place. P2PU does not have blogs embedded in p2pu.org. If you decide that blogs are the best mode of participation, participants will need to use an external blog and link to it within the course. To do so, we recommend the following process: New bloggers can create their own blog on Wordpress.com. Participants willing to use their existing blogs may do so. All participants link to their blogs (new or existing) on the course forum Discussion can also take place on the course forum and potentially If you're feeling savvy, you can work with the community to set up an RSS feed for your course. SOCIAL BOOKMARKING allows people to share share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources through tags. Learning objectives include: Conduct research, contribute to course content repository Connect course topics with current events, personal experience or concepts across courses ☞ For more learning objectives and strategies on how to use forums to accomplish, visit Learning Objectives Alignment. Social Bookmarking in Plain English Video by Lee LeFever Benefits of social bookmarking: Provides personal management of potentially large collections of resources Fosters discovery of relevant resources and sharing Creates a course resource repository, extending the course content to current events and member interests Limitations: Difficult to assure of quality of bookmarked items Does not free buried resources (restricted access, journals, libraries) P2PU.org does not have an social bookmarking feature on our platform yet. We recommend using an external social bookmarking service such as del.icio.us or Diigo. Provide visible links to the service form your course page on p2pu.org.

=SYNCHRONOUS MEETINGS=

CHAT
Chat is the easiest synchronous form of communication for low-bandwidth participants. Additionally, chat lowers the disadvantage level of those participating in a second language. Chat is built into each P2PU course.

VIDEO/VOICE/TELE CONFERENCING
Video/Voice conferencing is an adventure. First meetings can often go awry regardless of the technological literacy of your participants. If you decide to use an online conference tool, it's crucial to run a "test" meeting with your group before you try to get work done. Trust us on this one. Make sure you have a back-up option (free conference calls or chat) if the group decides that the tool complicates rather than facilitates social events. Tokbox is the favorite video conferencing tool for most organizers. When you are running a course, it's best to have a tool that allows you to gather many folks in one place. Tokbox is easy to use, and all the features you need are free. Tokbox also integrates your chat contacts from popular email providers (Gmail, MSN, etc.). You do not need to download a client. Here's some wisdom about Tokbox: Often, everyone will have to be muted while someone is speaking to avoid echo. Give about 5 minute of "test" time to make sure everyone has functionality (video/mic) and that they know how to mute in and out. SKYPE is another favorite, and many of us are already familiar with it. It's free and allows connections over phone lines, which can be helpful for course members with slow connections. Skype requires downloading a free client for use. Some wisdom about Skype: Make sure you're all connected (user ID's) on Skype before hand. You can keep record everyone's ID's on your course etherpad. Waivering connectivity can kick a larger (4+ group) offline. Run a test meeting with your group first. Big Blue Button allows presentations in addition to video conference and chat/text area. Some wisdom about BBB: Free Conference Calls Sometimes it's just easier to do it all over the phone. Providing a free number allows participants to dial in via phone line or computer. Often folks with low bandwidth have better phone access and this can overcome many communication hurdles. Some wisdom about free conference calls Have everyone mute themselves if not speaking Create a pad.p2pu.org/(your call) to keep track of attendance, take notes and field questions. Etherpad has an IRC chat box, which is extremely useful for fielding & queuing questions

SCHEDULING
For big classes, timezones and other commitments can make scheduling difficult. Keep in mind that as course size increases, compatibility decreases. A common way to handle this is having additional meetings. Naturally, this increases your time commitment, but makes communicating easier for participants in your course. When Is Good is our favorite tool for finding out when everyone is free for your next meeting or event. No sign-up form. No password to choose. No fuss at all. It will tally the number of people who can and cannot make each time slot, handles different timezones, and uses various techniques to let you select different subsets of the group to see what the best fit is for holding course meetings. World Clock Chances are, you'll have a global distribution of participants. What time is it in Cape Town? Delhi? Kansas City? It's the easiest way to find out.

=OFFLINE PEER GROUPS= Adding an offline component to your course can be very exciting, but tricky if not all members are involved. An offline group of peers live near each other - allowing them to meet in person to work on course material. If other peers in the course aren't involved, we recommend that the offline group should always present its activities to the online group in a timely manner. If the group is technically advanced enough to rope distant peers into the live meetings - all the better!

=Applications= Once your course is open for applications, you will be designated an admin for your course. You'll see an admin link appear, and clicking it will reveal the applicants for your course. You do not need to wait until course sign-ups are closed to begin reviewing or even accepting applicants. However, it may be in your best interest to wait, especially if you have a limited number of slots and want to compare all applicants before choosing. Although you were asked to put a target number of participants in your course description, you are not required to stick to that limit if you think your class can handle more. Selecting applicants should rely on the the strength of their application. All fields should be completed and their sign-up task should be fulfilled to a satisfactory degree. Applicants who submit incomplete applications are unlikely to be good peer-to-peer learning candidates. If you think an applicant would be a good participant, but they have submitted an incomplete application, follow up with them before accepting them into the course.

Closing course applications
You can close your applications at any time. Course organizers can do this themselves, and at some point after the agreed upon deadline all remaining applications are usually closed en masse.

Course Materials
new course materials WILL generate a notification email editing existing materials will NOT generate a notification email course materials CAN be commented on and will also generate notification emails

Broadcast
A one-way message that will be emailed to all course participants. This is not meant for discussion (use the forum for that). It's meant as an announcement. Notification emails WILL be sent. Formatting in the emails is NOT preserved, but links are included as footnotes. There may be a delay as all the emails are deployed, depending on the size of your class. There is no way for participants to reply to these messages. They are not archived or available for reference on your course site.

Forum
Notification emails WILL be sent for new forum topics. Participants CANNOT reply to the forum notification via email. They must respond within the forum on the course page. Participants CAN start a new forum.

Reducing Notification Volume
You can set the frequency that the p2pu site sends you notification of changes made to the courses you are a member of. You can also decide what events (for example, the submission of an assignment) should trigger an email notification This will help you control the amount of email coming to you. Make sure to share this information with your course members. Read more.. http://www.p2pu.org/node/809/document/3033

=Issuing Certificates= P2PU is not an accredited university and we are not planning to become one. However, we encourage course organizers and participants to experiment with the idea of issuing certificates, and we are working with third parties like the Mozilla Foundation and the University of California Irvine to create opportunities for certification of P2PU learning. In the meantime, we really like the idea of community signed certificates. In your course, why not ask all users who completed the course, to sign each others certificates. One way of doing that is for all participants to take photos of their signatures and send them to the course organizer, who creates one certificate that contains all signatures. A more romantic idea would be to send a pack of printed certificates to each person in the course, who signs, and then forwards it on to the next person. The last person mails one fully signed certificate to each participant. In addition, Frauke Stegman, a friend of P2PU has designed a certificate for us. It's more like an artwork, and some recipients thought their PDF reader was broken. They do not look like traditional certificates. If you'd like to make P2PU certificates available to your participants, we can send you the electronic version and you can fill in the names and expert as PDF files.

=Check list=

Course Page

 * Basic learning objectives are clearly stated on the course page.
 * Information about the course organizer (you) is included.
 * Instructions for when and where course meetings occur are clear.

Syllabus

 * If participants are encouraged to change and edit the syllabus, information that they can do this is clearly provided.
 * All links are active and working.

Meeting Tools

 * If you are using an online conference tool, you have practiced using it before the course.

title: User:Arided/P2PU-handbook


text: File:BMT Clinical Applications 1 PCano.pdf

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Transplantation/Haematopoietic Stem Cell

The biology of haematopoietic-stem-cell transplantation

 * Stem cells have two main properties. First, they must be able to perpetuate themselves, that is, they must be able to duplicate without modification. This process is called 'self-renewal'. In addition, under the right conditions, they must be able to differentiate into a number of different mature cell types.
 * Haematopoietic stem cells are capable of producing the various types of blood cells, including erythrocytes (red cell), platelets, lymphocytes, monocytes, granulocytes, and natural killer cells.
 * Haematopoietic-stem-cell transplantation is based on the principle that the diseased haematopoietic system of a patient can be eliminated by chemotherapy or radiation, and replaced with the haematopoietic system of another human being. In order for this procedure to be effective, the transplanted stem cells cannot be rejected by the recipient, they must engraft and behave as stem cells in the new host, that means being capable of self-renewal and differentiation. In addition, if the donor cells themselves elicit an immune response against the recipient, what is called 'graft-versus-host disease', this reaction cannot be so severe that creates an insurmountable clinical problem.
 * Haematopoietic-stem-cells reside in the bone marrow.
 * The success of haematopoietic-stem-cell transplantation therefore depends on our ability to control the immune reactions taken place between donor and recipient. These immune reactions are a function of whether cells recognise each other as self or as foreign. Although all proteins can play a role in this recognition, the role they play is minor, and they are referred to as 'minor histocompatibility antigens'—minor compared to the role played by HLA molecules. HLA molecules are the central molecules in the immune system, they are called the 'major histocompatibility comples' (MHC). MHC is the generic name for the genetic system responsible for these molecules in all vertebrates, whereas HLA is how this * system is called in humans. For this reason HLA matching between patients and donors is critical in transplantation.

The history of haematopoietic-stem-cell transplantation

 * The first clinical haematopoietic-stem-cell transplants were performed in 1968. Children with congenital immune deficiencies received bone-marrow from siblings that had identical HLA phenotypes.
 * At the beginning the diseases mostly being treated were not leukaemia, but immune deficiencies and aplastic anaemias.
 * In the early 1970s ED Thomas proved that refractory leukaemia could be effectively treated with bone-marrow transplantation. See PubMed and PubMed
 * In the 1980s most of the procedures were for the treatment of leukaemia, AML, ALL and CML. At this time most donors were related donors.
 * In the 1990s autologous haematopoietic-stem-cell transplants were proven to be a superior treatment for multiple myeloma. See PubMed
 * At the present time about 60,000 transplants are performed every year throughout the world.

1.	Improvement of the representation of genetic diversity in bone marrow donor registries
The success for a patient of finding a match depends on his ethnicity. Ethnic minorities are in a disadvantaged position. Registries must make an effort in the recruitment of donors to increase the representation of minorities.

2.	Improvement of the quality of HLA typing in bone marrow donor registries
Three reasons can be mentioned to account for the poor quality of HLA typing in donor registries. First, in so far as these registries have been built during an extended period of time, and the typing methods have been improving over time, older registry entries are of poorer quality than newer one. Second, limited resources for donor recruitment often leads to suboptimal methods in HLA typing and poor quality results. And third, registry officials must make strategic decisions under financial constraints sometimes leading to poor outcomes (e.g. failing to type for HLA-C).

3.	Formalisation of the process of matching patients to donors
The principles of histocompatibility have been applied to the selection of donors for bone marrow transplantation with remarkable imprecision. The distinction between the graft-versus-host direction on one hand, and the host-versus-graft direction on the other hand, is often ignored. Not all the HLA loci known to be relevant in histocompatibility are always taken into account. The most inexact terminology has dominated the practice of matching patients and donors. Expressions such as ‘antigen match’ or ‘allele match’ hide our lack of method. The concept of ‘high resolution typing’ leaves everybody in the dark. Endless talk about typing ambiguities is the inevitable result of deeply seated conceptual confusion. Matching is carried out on account of the given names HLA alleles have received (often without system) lacking any insight into what may be behind a name, sometimes calling a mismatch between pairs of alleles that, although have different names, for all practical purposes code exactly the same protein.

One of the puzzles of bone marrow transplantation is the different criteria used to match cord blood units and adult products, the justification for which is questionable. Outcome studies depend on clear and precise matching criteria. Obfuscation in this area is one of the reason why it has been so difficult to establish the role of HLA matching in bone marrow transplantation.

The role of KIR typing and KIR ligands, as well as that of anti-HLA antibodies is just beginning to be evaluated.

There is a need to formalise HLA matching and clarify the conceptual confusion in histocompatibility.

4.	Optimisation of the administrative efficiency of registries to reduce the time it takes to make donor products available.
The fact that lekaemia patients must first go into remission to receive a successful bone marrow transplant is often presented as an argument in favour of the view that there is plenty of time to go and look for a donor, and delay in the availability of bone marrow for transplantation is not an issue. But how many patients go back into relapse, or simply die, waiting for a transplant?

Financial clearance from insurance companies, tedious retyping of numerous donors with potential matches and imprecise original typing, failure to localize a matched donor, all delay the availability of bone marrow or peripheral haematopoietic stem cells for transplantation.

One of the benefits of cord blood units is claimed to be their ready availability.

5.	Application of knowledge about the biology of haematopoietic stem cells to optimize conditioning protocols and infusion practices.
Studies in mice show that the bone marrow has a limited capacity to host haematopoietic stem cells. Transplantation implies replacing host stem cells with donor stem cells. Radiation, for example, removes stem cells from their niche, as researchers in this area call it. There may be a competitive process in occupying these niches, if so, how donor cells are infused may affect their chances of engraftment. It has been observed that infusion in a single bolus is less effective that infusion of multiple smaller boluses over time. At this point, conditioning protocols do not take advantage of this basic biological knowledge.

6.	Extension of the use of bone marrow transplantation to leukaemia patients for whom it is not considered now indicated.
Extreme conditioning protocols have prevented older patients in the past from receiving bone marrow transplantation. New non-ablative protocols have extended the age of patients that can benefit from transplantation.

The morbidity associated with graft-versus-host disease has inhibited the more extended clinical application of bone marrow transplantation. As HLA matching becomes more efficient and the treatment of graft-versus-host disease becomes more effective, clinicians will be less reticent to the more wide use of bone marrow transplantation. Transplantation is more effective in patients with better prognosis, but paradoxically they are less likely to be transplanted out of fear of the complications of transplantation.

7.	Expansion of the use of bone marrow transplantation to other clinical conditions besides haematopoietic malignancies.
A provisional list of clinical conditions where bone marrow transplantation may play an important role in their therapy include the following conditions:
 * Non-haematopoietic malignant diseases
 * Breast cancer
 * Germ-cell tumours
 * Renal cell tumours
 * Neuroblastoma
 * Non-malignant acquired diseases
 * Aplastic anaemia
 * Paroxysmal nocturnal haemoglobinuria
 * Autoimmune diseases
 * HIV infection
 * Inherited diseases
 * Thalassaemia
 * Sickle cell disease
 * Immunodeficiency syndromes
 * Osteopetrosis
 * Storage diseases
 * Macrophage and granulocyte disorders
 * Fanconi’s anaemia

8.	Evaluation of how tolerable individual mismatches are.
Unfortunately there is a lack of systematic research in the evaluation of immune tolerance in individual mismatches. Such research is essential in the selection of donors when there is not a perfect match.

It has been only recently that knowledge of the structure of the HLA molecule has been used to ignore in clinical practice differences between alleles in areas of the molecule that are not likely to elicit an immune response. The concept of ‘antigen recognition site’ is now widely used to indicate which area of the molecule deserves our attention. Sound and solid research in the evaluation of immune tolerance in transplantation is the key to learn how to mismatch donors and recipients, to learn how to tell that one mismatch is more tolerable than another.

9.	Creation of protocols to allow the use of mismatched donors.
The limits of HLA matching must be set clearly. Some individuals have unique HLA phenotypes not shared by anybody else. Other individuals have such rare phenotypes that only by typing the entire world human population could one expect to find a match. Rather than asking ourselves what the necessary donor registry size to match an arbitrary percentage of patients with a disease curable with bone marrow transplantation is, we should be asking ourselves what size of registry is feasible to have, and then what percentage of the patient population would be covered. This would be considered the limits of HLA matching. Patients with extremely rare phenotypes cannot expect to have a fully matched bone marrow other than from an identical sibling.

Protocols must be developed to treat these patients that cannot be expected to find a match. Such protocols are currently being developed for the so-called haplo-identical transplants. It is true, as the advocates of these procedures point out, that almost everybody has a haplo-identical donor in his family, but it also true that a partially matched registry donor may be preferable than a haplo-identical sibling.

10.	Multiple transplants for multiple purposes
The biological effect of the transplantation of haematopoietic stem cell is multiple: haematopoietic reconstitution, immunologic reconstitution, graft rejection, graft-versus-host disease, graft-versus-leukaemia effect, etc. Some of these effects are beneficial and others are detrimental. Some beneficial effects go together with some detrimental effects like graft-versus-leukaemia effect and graft-versus-host disease. In so far as these effects are a function of the degree of HLA matching as well as KIR matching and HLA-antigen-antibody matching, it is possible to manipulate the effect of transplantation by enhancing the degree of matching or mismatching that induces the effect. And as long as different desirable effects require different levels of matching, it is possible to develop a strategy of performing multiple transplants on a patient to produce multiple beneficial effects in sequence.

Books

 * Applebaum FR, Forman SJ, Negrin RS, Blume KG. Thomas's Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation. 4th Ed. (John Willey & Sons 2007) amazon.com
 * Parham P. The Immune System. 3rd Ed. (Garland Science 2009) amazon.com

Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation

 * Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation: the state of the art. ExpertRevHematol_2010_3_285

Cord-blood transplantation

 * Outcomes after transplantation of cord blood or bone marrow from unrelated donors in adults with leukemia. NewEngJMed_2004_351_2265


text:
User:Larrysherk

I am apparently retired, as a teacher of miscellaneous things. My youthful education was in physical science and math. Interests have broadened to all the arts, social sciences, philosophy, and history. Especially interested in history of Eastern Europe, Russia, Northern Asia.

But my overriding love is that people learn to love learning. Thus I have become staunchly anti-schooling. If we cannot help our children and young adults recognize their connections to society -- past, present, and future --, their needs for community and community's need for them, their sacred uniqueness, with some details about what makes them special and what they love to think about, then our efforts are simply a violation of children's civil rights with concommitant destruction of our community's future. Life is simply an intense spiritual adventure and is wasted to the degree it is seen as less.

As a teacher, my students must always be shown I am learning from them just as much as we hope they are learning from me. Learning should be an enterprise among peers.

To me, the most seminal of educators are Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy and Paulo Freire.Larrysherk 00:44, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

title: User:Larrysherk


text:
Marsupials

Marsupials are an infraclass of mammals, characterized by a distinctive pouch (called the marsupium), in which females carry their young through early infancy. Most living species occur in Australia, New Guinea, and nearby islands, but there are also many species in the Americas.

COLOUR VISION

Like humans, many marsupials have trichromatic colour vision. (That is, they perceive colour using three distinct colour-sensitive pigments: blue sensitive, yellow sensitive, and red sensitive.)  Among humans the gene for the third red sensitive pigment is X-linked and polymorphic. As a result a large minority of human males perceive red and green slightly differently from the majority. Although many marsupials have three colour sensitive pigments, there is no genetic evidence that the red sensitive X-linked pigment is present in marsupials. Instead, the red sensitive pigment is replaced with a pigment that is antigenically distinct from the human homolog. In addition, the third colour sensitive pigment appears to be missing altogether in tammar wallabys. Unlike humans who perceive three primary colours (blue, yellow, and red) wallabys may perceive only two (blue and yellow). As a result, wallabys may not be able to distinguish between the colour red and the colour green.

title: Marsupials


text:
User talk:Larrysherk

 Hello Larrysherk, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

To get started, you may

 * Take a guided tour and learn to edit.
 * Visit a (kind of) random project.
 * Browse Wikiversity, or visit a portal corresponding to your educational level: pre-school, primary, secondary, tertiary, non-formal education.
 * Find out about research activities on Wikiversity.

 * Read an introduction for teachers and find out how to write an educational resource for Wikiversity.
 * Give feedback about your initial observations
 * Discuss Wikiversity issues or ask questions at the colloquium.
 * Chat with other Wikiversitans on #wikiversity-en.

And don't forget to explore Wikiversity with the links to your left. Be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage, and see you around Wikiversity! If you're a twitter user, please follow http://twitter.com/Wikiversity. --Ottava Rima (talk) 02:35, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Math, Science, and the Love of Learning
Hi Larry,

Welcome to Wikiversity. I'd be interested in comparing notes with you on science, math, and the love of learning.

Moulton (talk) 02:46, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

title: User talk:Larrysherk


text:
Sport research/Data analysis

To find out whether there is a difference in the data you have collected we tend to employ the area of science referred to as statistics. Statistics can actually do much more then just tell you whether or not a difference takes place, it can also assist in the planning of your study. And if you think statistics is boring, perhaps check out this enthusiastic video, The Joy of Statistics.

If you are quite new to statistics, then a great place to start is on Will Hopkins' website (an excellent resource created to assist researchers and students in the exercise and sport sciences better understand statistics), specifically, start with the basics here and click on the 'next' button to progress through it. Wikipedia also has a good introduction to statistics worth reading through.

Hopkin's tends to present alternatives to many traditional statistical methods. Hopkin's explain's the traditional statistical approach as well as his view on it's limitations. A recent article in the conversation also points out why hypothesis and significance tests ask the wrong questions. Worth thinking about as part of your research design.

If you are more comfortable with the basics then you will probably just want to get down to answering the questions you need to. The data analysis you undertake will depend on the type of research, the  research design, and they type of data you are working with. Go back and revisit the research design section if you are not sure about the power of your study, subject numbers or randomisation. If you have all your data then you will need to:
 * 1) Clean your data
 * 2) Analyse for differences/probability/associations
 * 3) Represent the data (visualisation).

If you are looking for the answers to specific questions, a number of resources are available online.
 * Hopkins' site
 * Wikiversity: statistics
 * Statistics wikibook

Cleaning your data
From Data Cleaning in Statistics wikibook:
 * 'Cleaning' refers to the process of removing invalid data points from a dataset.

 * Many statistical analyses try to find a pattern in a data series, based on a hypothesis or assumption about the nature of the data. 'Cleaning' is the process of removing those data points which are either (a) Obviously disconnected with the effect or assumption which we are trying to isolate, due to some other factor which applies only to those particular data points. (b) Obviously erroneous, i.e. some external error is reflected in that particular data point, either due to a mistake during data collection, reporting etc.

 * In the process we ignore these particular data points, and conduct our analysis on the remaining data.

For the rest, see the data cleaning wikibook entry.

You should always be able to justify any data cleaning you do, and often, you may be able to avoid it by using alternate analysis. As part of the reporting process remember that the methods section should offer sufficient information so that your study can be replicated, this includes any statistical analysis.

Data Analysis
The types of things you will likely want to do with your data is provide:
 * 1) Descriptive summaries
 * 2) Investigate if differences exist, or better, describe (the likelihood of) differences/changes
 * 3) Investigate the strength of associations between measures you have taken

Descriptive statistics
Methods used to summarize or describe a collection of data are referred to as descriptive statistics. In descriptive statistics we generally focus on the centrality of the data (average) and the variation in the data. When describing a group, we want to know what most of the data points focus around. We can calculate various types of averages, most commonly the mean, but also the mode or median as well as other types of averages. The average or mean tells us something about the data, but sometimes the variation in the data tells us much more about the behavious of our results. Variation is most commonly reported in terms of the standard deviation (SD) of the data, but may also be commonly reported as a standard error (SE) or even the range. There are other ways to describe the variation as well which we won't go into here. Hopkin's has a view on whether or not you should report Mean and SD or Mean and SE? too.

As with all data that you present, it is important to remember that you don't just report all the numbers you get, you have to consider how many significant figures to report. How many digits should you report?

Inferential statistics
When we want to draw a conclusion about differences/changes/relationships between data we have collected we employ inferential|statistics. They type of conlusion we want to make depends upon the research design. The type of conclusion we want to make depends upon the research design. Yes, that is written twice, for a reason.

We generally either want to detect a significant difference between groups/time points etc or describe the likelihood of differences or we want to find out the relationship between variables.

If we want to know how one variable varies in relation to another we generally use a corelation statistic. Note that this is not evidence of a causal relationship, that one variable causes the other to vary in a certain way. You need to show this through appropriate research design.

If we want to know if groups are different, or change, then the type of statistics we employ is very dependent on the research design. Hopkin's offers solutions, and helps you make the decision of what to use through his website. It's important to get this right, and to justify what you do. Importantly, there is not necessarily one correct statistical method to use on your data, you just need to be able to justify what you have done. Make sure you talk to colleagues, supervisors and other researchers about these decisions. Below are just some of the links to spreadsheets that Hopkin's has created to help you analyse your data.
 * Spreadsheets for Analysis of Controlled Trials, with Adjustment for a Subject Characteristic
 * A Spreadsheet for Analysis of Straightforward Controlled Trials
 * Making Meaningful Inferences About Magnitudes
 * Progressive Statistics
 * Linear Models and Effect Magnitudes for Research, Clinical and Practical Applications

Qualitative Analysis
Most of the above deals with quantitative research, and much of it also applies to qualitative work as well once the data has been coded. There are a few things to bear in mind though because the data tends to be categorical (the response is in a group or not) instead of a continuous data set. James Neill offers an excellent overview of qualitative statistics with links to other worthwhile resources. Content analysis is a methodology in the social sciences for studying the content of communication. Earl Babbie defines it as "the study of recorded human communications, such as books, websites, paintings and laws."

If you are doing qualitative research, it is worth checking out the links from the Qualitative analysis wikiversity page for much more information on conducting and analysing the research (although most is designed for psychology students the tutorials and lectures are useful for many fields).

Visualisation
The most appropriate format to present your results will change depending on the circumstances and there may be many alternatives available. An obvious 3 ways in most research is listed below.
 * 1) In text
 * 2) In a table
 * 3) In a figure. This may be a type of graph or another type of illustration

In text

I'm an advocate that you should tell the reader as much as you can about the data, present the numbers, effect sizes, means and standard deviations... whatever you have. Whilst you will interpret it in your discussion, you should have enough information so the reader can make up their own mind about the results. If you have something to hide... you should think about not publishing... or openly acknowledging limitations that exist.

In 2011 the Journal of Physiology printed a perspective entitled: Show the data, don't conceal them with some advice on presenting figures and tables etc. Altman and Bland (two quite famous statisticians) also offer advice on presenting numerical data. Things like presenting the actual p value. See the British Medical Journal article: Statistics Notes: Presentation of numerical data. The last real in text comment I'll make about the presentation of data, and a pet hate of mine, refers specifically to the issue of how many decimal places to use (as well as some other tips) in Troublesome decimals; a hidden problem in the sports medicine literature.

A single statistic only tells a small part of the story. Variances of differences between groups tell you a little more, but a well designed statistical graphic helps us explore, and perhaps understand, these relationships much more.

 * Tips on using graphs from Statistics Canada
 * Using Graphs and Tables on Presentation Slides by Dave Paradi
 * Charts and Graphs: Choosing the right format by Mindtools
 * Decision tree for decidiing on which graph to use by Labright, North Carolina State University

Many of the examples above do not contain the detail of what a scientific figure should contain, but are useful in terms of some of the types of graphs available and their use. In scientific presentation, the parts of the graph are important too. Parts of grpahs worth considering for scientific publication include:
 * title
 * indicators of significant differences
 * axis labels
 * the scale and continuous (or not) nature of the axis
 * legend
 * error bars

MIT provide a very good summary of the importance of graphics as well as what to, and what not to include on your graphic(s).

Traditional graphical forms of representing data are presented here, and are generally most appropriate for traditional scietnific publications, but to really get the most out of your data, especially when it is online on on video, it's almost worth employing a graphic design consultant. The area of emerging oportunities for data visualisation are incredible and worth exploring.

Activity
Activities are mini-tasks that will give you some practice with the concepts of each section. Activities should appear here soon, if not, feel free to add some open access ones yourself.

Task
Before data collection
 * 1) Decide how you think you will analyse your data.
 * 2) Try to predict any issues you might have with your data

After data collection
 * 1) Conduct any data cleaning and record what you did and why
 * 2) Carry out the analysis. Record everything you did
 * 3) Write out all the methods for your data analysis
 * 4) Present the data in a suitable format for your audience (it may be a specific scientific journal, or on a blog)

Resources
Will Hopkin's A new view of statistics is a resource you will keep going back to time and time again.

Data Analysis
McGraw-Hill Companies (2007). Educational Research and statistics: Valuable web sites available at http://fms.wsd.wednet.edu/TechLab/educationallinks.htm

Quick R - a website on R for experienced users of statistical packages such as SAS, SPSS, Stata, and Systat.

Research Methods in the Social and Natural Sciences offers a basic tutorial-style program that covers experimental, correlation, naturalistic observation, survey and case study methods. 'The Lab' also has revision tests.

School of Library Archival and Information Studies The University of British Columbia (2004). General survey research. Research Methods resources on the WWW is an extensive site covering a wide range of research methods.

Simple R - a website created by John Verzani and which are notes that were turned into the book Using R for Introductory Statistics, published Fall 2004 by Chapman Hall/CRC Press. Available at http://www.math.csi.cuny.edu/Statistics/R/simpleR/index.html

Tools
Data analysis generally relies on the tools used to undertake it. The range of tools is immense, from statisitical software packages to spreadsheets to pen and paper and specific graphics packages. A selection of common tools are listed below.

SPSS Information on SPSS can be found from its website http://www.spss.com/au/index.htm

R R is an open source statistical package. It can be downloaded for free from http://www.r-project.org Advantages of R:
 * Multi-platform
 * Extremely powerful
 * Lots of free documentation is available

A summary of Survey Analysis Software is available from http://www.hcp.med.harvard.edu/statistics/survey-soft/ There is an R-Users group in the ACT. Their website http://www.meetup.com/Canberra-R-Users-Group/

Visualisation
Some tips on preparing graphics for publication from Will Hopkins.

Link to a number of visualization web resources courtesy gsiemens

Tools
Many of the data analysis tools also produce graphical representations of data. Some are more useful than others. Some more specific tools are listed below, some of which have statistical capabilities (often limited) themselves.

Graphpad Prism, commercial software.

Microsoft Excel and alternatives.

title: Sport research/Data analysis


text:
Sport research/Writing

You may have some really good research, but if you can't articulate it well it's not going to go very far, and you want to do it justice.

As I see it there are more or less four parts to writing.
 * structure,
 * flow,
 * accuracy, and
 * the argument.

The structure of the writing will depend largely on it's purpose. A common practice is to build up the writing from a skeleton of the points you want to make. Start with headings, then put in sub-headings. Think about what you need to say in each section and add the key points that fit. Then start to build the arguments in. Structure provides discipline and this can help to ensure you include the salient points and leave out unimportant information. The structure can also assist in letting your writing flow.

When someone else reads your work it should feel like it flows. Flow is not just about sentence structure but about how your work tells a coherent story. Flow is about a progressive argument without too many tangents. Support the statements you are making, but be succinct. Reading out aloud and having others read your work will assist with this. And be prepared to re-write, and re-write your work. Writing is a skill, that like many sports, takes deliberate practice to get better at.

Importantly your writing must be accurate. Eliminate all the technical errors you can (punctuation and spelling) but also ensure you cite references accurately. Always take care that what you claim your reference supports is actually the true. It also helps to write clear and concise sentences, it makes it easier for the reader. There are lots of tips on how to do this - here is a good resource from The Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

There is almost always a purpose to writing and in scientific writing you are often testing an idea or finding an answer to to a question. It's important that everything you write is going towards supporting that question or answer. I recommend students (well everyone) make a statement about what the question they are asking is. Then keep checking back to that question. Ask yourself; "Is what I am writing now, related to that question?" If you have strayed too far, it may time to delete the sentence and get back on track. This research question you have, along with the structured skeleton at the start should keep you on track. Discipline may be required to ensure this is so. The arguments you make should be supported by evidence, generally peer reviewed articles when writing in the scientific domain, but there are lots of courses of evidence too. Alternative explanations you offer should also be supported with evidence. So two points to remember here; make sure everything is directed towards the question/answer (don't distract yourself), and support everything you say.

Importantly I think you should write in a way that is true to yourself. That doesn't mean you don't need to develop and improve your writing, but if it feels incredibly awkward or not like you when you read your work aloud... it's probably not your style and it will be at higher risk of errors and reading poorly in parts. Indeed others have suggested we should stop writing like it has been in the past, it should be easy to read - here are some suggestions on how to do just that.

Paragraph Structure
One particular approach that many find useful is the TEXAS approach to paragraph construction. The TEXAS acronym for body paragraph structure:
 * Topic
 * Explain
 * eXample
 * Analysis
 * Summary

As a rough guide, each sentence of the paragraph would serve the purpose stated by the acronym. Of course you need to make it flow and tell an appropriate story, in context of the larger piece of writing, but some may find it a useful starting point.

The Literature Review
The literature review is perhaps a misnomer because, in most cases, the literature review exists in order to identify what's unknown in a given area and thus justify a subsequent research question and study. Occasionally it acts as a stand-alone piece to inform readers of the current understanding within an area and provide practical recommendations. To do either of those, it must provide the reader with an understanding of the current literature, as well as its limitations. Identifying limitations, or critiquing the literature requires synthesis of findings and ideas, appraisals of research methodology, and perhaps insights from other fields - this is where the skill of the literature review exists. Literature reviews can be narrative, in which the writer generally offers broad ideas in a research field that is not typically well developed, typically strung together through logical argument, or systematic. Systematic reviews require a methodology, akin to other research, in which the information that informs the review is typically found through set search criteria (see below). If there is sufficient literature in an area, then a meta-analytical approach may be taken in which data from literature that meets the search criteria is combined and re-analysed statistically. There are a number of different meta-analytical approaches, beyond the scope of what is presented here. Different literature review types serve different purposes, with pros and cons of all approaches, but generally, narrative reviews offer the least authoritative level of evidence, and meta-analytical approaches the highest. As with most scientific writing, it is useful to state a purpose/research question early in the literature review, and keep the review focused on that purpose.

For more detailed information about writing papers from Hopkins, see How to Write a Literature Review. Canada's University of Toronto covers the whole area well (not just literature reviews) with their website: Writing in the Health Sciences: a comprehensive guide. The University of Southern Maine has an online tutorial on writing literature reviews worth a look too.

Creating an appropriate search criteria is important for any systematic review. Read more on University of Michigan's Systematic Review research guide.

Manuscript introductions
When writing introductory sections to manuscripts, and approach that is often utilised is to create a different purpose for the 3-5 paragraphs that may constitiute the Introduction. For instance:
 * 1st paragraph: What do we know about a topic
 * 2nd paragraph:: What don't we know about a topic
 * 3rd paragraph:Why is it important to know more about a topic
 * 4th paragraph: What this particular paper (research article) aim to do in terms of filling a gap in knowledge about a topic

Manuscript methods sections
Don't think there is a wrong or right way to write methods, there isn't. Different journals will require different things, and different studies will require different methods. So whatever you do, think about the context of what you are writing, and if it doesn't make sense, change it so that it does. Having said that, here are some suggestions that are commonly adopted within methods sections in typical exercise science papers.

Participants
 * Participant numbers
 * Demographic info
 * Recruitment method
 * Inclusion/exclusion criteria
 * Ethics

Design
 * Global design statements
 * Overview of what took place and why
 * Participant pre-test preparation statements
 * Time of day/season statements for assessments

Procedures
 * What happened when to the participant - detail (not measures, more intervention, timing of measures etc)
 * Intervention details

Measures
 * Detail of how measures were taken - equipment used.
 * What actual measures were recorded.
 * When data was averaged/sampled.

Analysis
 * Data cleaning procedures
 * Statistical analysis

Other manuscript tips
When writing about any research, but in particular an RCT, make sure you follow the CONSORT statement.

As for the abstract, there are some helpful templates for abstract writing.

Columbia University perhaps offers the best guide on writing a scientific research article through explaining the general format as well as some general tips on terms and things to look out for in your writing.

For more detailed information about writing papers from Hopkins, see How to Write a Research Paper.

Although written for political science students, MIT has a guide on "how to write a paper" with many useful tips employable to all fields of study.

Task
Literature Review
 * 1) Complete a literature review related to your area of research (generally before you start your actual research project to help construct the ideas and justification of your particular project)

Manuscript
 * 1) After completing your research project write your project up as a academic paper for submission (real or not) to an academic journal. It's a good idea to start structuring it in a way that meets the publication requirements of a suitable journal/outlet (see Getting published for more.

Resources

 * Columbia University perhaps offers the best guide on writing a scientific research article through explaining the general format as well as some general tips on terms and things to look out for in your writing.
 * The University of Toronto has an excellent set of resources for advice on academic writing
 * Monash University has a short simple resource for Engineering students, but useful for everyone on Improving your scientific writing style
 * Elements of Style by Strunk. The BEST resource on writing style - read it 10 times and then read it a few more. This online version is the original published in 1918. There is also an updated paper version authored by Strunk and White.
 * Hopkin's Writing Post Data (slideshow) is all about writing a thesis, journal article, and lay report.
 * How to organise your thesis by John Chinneck
 * The wikiversity writing portal provices useful information.

Bibliographic tools
Often its a good idea to use an electronic bibliographic tool/reference manager to keep your references and annotations. Examples include Endnote and Refworks. If you annotate directly into a tool such as this it is often easy to search for certain words and quickly format your references in a document. But this doesnt apply to formatting online documents (at present at least) and is not ideal for sharing annotations. So you may also want to consider using tools such as delicious, an electronic document, a wiki or even pen and paper.

title: Sport research/Writing


text:
Sport research/Ethics

All research and teaching conducted in Australian institutions must be conducted in accordance with the National Health and Medical Research Council's (NHMRC) National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Research Involving Humans and the legislation introduced to protect the welfare of animals, by ensuring that their use in research and teaching is always humane, considerate, responsible and justified.

Ethics approval is thus needed if a project involves one of the following:

 * Research involving human participants
 * Vertebrate animal experimentation
 * Preparation or use of recombinant nucleic acids constructed in vitro from sources which do not ordinarily recombine genetic information
 * The use of ionizing radiation.

Only human research is further considered here. There are some circumstances where ethics approval is not required in exercise and sport research. One example is where free to air footage is used in descriptional research such as is common in performance analysis.

From Wikiversity:Research ethics: The ethical guidelines for scientific research in the developed world are well established by governmental agencies, professional societies, universities, and journal publishers.

Research ethics try to answer what actions are good, and what actions are bad. The key issues for research published on Wikiversity [and a good general guide for most ethics] are:

 * Verifiability - Research projects must fully document the methods, original motivations, and hypotheses. Research in progress must be clearly labeled as such.
 * Honesty - Research results are always honestly reported and without omissions, even if the results are undesirable, don't fit predetermined beliefs, or proposed hypotheses. Don't lead participants into drawing specific conclusions.
 * Transparency - Research reports must clearly explain everything done in the course of the research in a open and transparent manner so that other participants can draw their own independent conclusions.
 * Objectivity - Strive to conduct and report research in a way that allows experts to independently test, verify and confirm the validity of the research.
 * Subjectivity - You are free to express your views and opinions, but they should be clearly identified as such.
 * Disclosures - Any biases or potential conflicts of interest must be declared at the start of research projects. This fosters trust, and helps the community to understand your point of view.
 * Sources - When sources of previous knowledge, data or other information is relied on cite your sources. This allows examination of those works too. Be clear to distinguish previous knowledge from new knowledge.
 * Safety - Research must be conducted in a safe and lawful manner. Do no harm.
 * Review process - The peer-review process contributes to quality control and is an essential step to ascertain the standing and originality of a research project.

Often its useful to think of your proposed research and ethics with these things in mind:
 * Potential harm to participants
 * Physical (e.g. injury, infection)
 * Psychological (e.g. deception procedures, confidentiality of results, participant understanding, any coercion or power relationships)
 * Commitments (e.g. time requirements, unnecessary procedures, justification of research question, justification of participant numbers - power analysis, procedures in place to ensure research can go ahead if costs increase)
 * Potential harm to researcher
 * As above plus integrity of researcher/institution may come up with controversial research

 * At each point you should address how risk is being minimalised (e.g. pre-screening questionairre, laboratory protocols, qualifications/experience of researchers, participants being able to cease participation at any point without consequence)
 * As well as how the participants benefit (e.g. maybe they get healthier, have access to information about themselves they wouldn't get otherwise, benefit from knowledge about performance improvement)

The Process
Research involving humans/human participants requires an approval from a Human Research Ethics Committees, obtained before starting any research, as approval is not granted retrospectively. All human ethics applications at the University of Canberra requires the completion of either the National Ethics Application Form (NEAF) or the University of Canberra Ethics Application Form. The NEAF form is standardised across Australia. Once an individual has registered on the NEAF site (which requires approval from recognised home institutions) the following generic process generally applies (but individuals should check with their home institution).

 * NEAF form is completed in it's entirity and attachments included (attachments often include the participant information form and the consent form, University of Canberra guidelines on how to complete these forms are here). Students will require their supervisor to approve their addition to the form
 * NEAF form is printed and submitted to the local human research ethics committee with approval from appropriate managerial structures.

 * The UC specific form will need similar completion, and co-researcher, supervisor approval.

Whichever the pathway:
 * Submission may require cover sheets and duplicate copies of forms and committees often meet several times per year with deadline dates for ethics submissions to each meeting. Make sure you check the submission and meeting dates.
 * The local human research ethics committee approves or otherwise the submission for a set period of time. Generally submissions require adjustment and the committee will request changes to the submission before it is accepted. Approval may then be granted by the full committee again or by just the head of the committee.
 * Ethics approval can take a long time unfortunately. Make sure you are thorough, and get on to it early!

Task

 * 1) Consider whether you need ethics approval or whether it is already granted. If not, register for NEAF if you haven't already and then work through the NEAF form. You will also need to complete a consent form and an information sheet for participants. Remember that everything needs to be in layman terms. Check it all with your supervisor(s).

Resources
University of Canberra guidelines on how to apply for ethics are here

National Health and Medical Research Council

National Ethics Application Form (NEAF)

Hopkin's has general advice about scientific writing and specific advice about grants, proposals, and ethics applications in Writing Pre Data (slideshow).

See also Steve and Amanda Olivier's articles on ethics forms and comprehension in consent forms.

Things to consider when writing an ethics proposal

title: Sport research/Ethics