14 April 2008 - Data Management for Dummy

An update: The past few weeks have been interesting. Having been looking initially at educational usage of SL, I found myself slipping into education and out of IS (Information Systems). I thought I would do this by throwing out all I had gathered on approaches to education etc and concentrating instead on technology acceptance and implementation using educators as a group. That was looking good. Very do-able. Totally unlike the process based approach I had imagined for myself. Absolutely non-interpretive all of a sudden. Hard to square that circle. But it was looking good. Then it was suggested that I try out for a book chapter. This really threw the cat amongst the pigeons. I had to apply myself. To whether or not Virtual Worlds are a form of Web 2.0 or not at all. I found this question interesting. I engaged in an unfocused, rambling, information search. Then I really did begin to drown in information, until it was suggested that I comment on that phenomenon in and of itself for the purposes of the chapter (which was subsequently accepted). So right now, I'm looking for ways of going about content analysis. And after a day of reading mailing lists and digests and discovering yet more wikis and blogs, I have rediscovered Denzin and Lincoln. Chapters like "Data Management and Analysis Methods". I am annoyed at myself for not thinking of this sooner. Sheesh.