Category Archives: tools & technology

data visualization and theinfo.org

theinfo.org is a website that collects info about large data sets… tips and tricks aplenty. There is a section on data visualization that includes great examples, as well as tools for data visualization. The Baby Name Voyager is a fun one but there are lots of serious examples too.

As an aside, one guy behind theinfo.org is Aaron Swartz, currently under indictment for hacking into MIT’s servers and downloading more than 4.8 million articles from JSTOR. To give them credit, JSTOR did not bring charges, MIT did. It is an interesting piece in the open access conversation particularly and the commodification of knowledge in the academy more generally. Read more here. And Swartz’s manifesto follows…

some ideas for stakeholder engagement

While this document from the IBM Center for the Business of Government Using Online Tools to Engage The Public, focuses on strategies for governments to engage the public in issues, there are a number of strategies and ideas that make sense for evaluators thinking about how to engage stakeholders in the evaluation process. The discussion focuses on the use of online strategies, a particularly useful focus when evaluators are working across sites and geographic areas.

There are 10 strategies in all, 4 for collaboration, 2 for surveying perceptions and opinions, and 4 for prioritizing ideas offered, complete with specific suggestions for software and an illustrative example of each.

spicy nodes ~ a tool for mapping ideas

Spicy Nodes is a web development tool, but some of my students have used it to create concept maps, in developing research questions, and keeping track of layered information about research constructs. This might be an alternative to the linear logic model formats.

free app for managing references

If you use Firefox, Zotero is a free downloadable app that will facilitate management of your references and citations.