Note that this is the second part of this topic; you can read Part 1 here.
Now that you have a good idea of what your project will entail, here are some additional factors to consider and decisions to make, starting with the resources you require, including funding and time on your SWF (form on ICE). So again, I am presenting you with questions to consider as you continue to plan the details of your project.
- How much time each week/month/semester will you require to complete your project? SWF meetings are coming up, so it’s a perfect time to have this discussion (note: a CTL SoTL project is typically awarded 1 hour on your SWF, but you may receive more or less depending on the scope and complexity of the project). Also, how long will your project take to complete (one semester vs multiple years)?
- What resources and supplies will you require for your research (meeting space, equipment, etc.)?
- If you need funding for your project (to buy product licenses, incentivize participation, hire a research assistant or expert (e.g., stats), etc.), how much do you need and where will it come from (CTL, or external CCSIF, etc) and what are the application timelines for it? For the CTL SoTL funding, it typically opens around February or March and proposals/applications are due in May.
- Will any external partners be contributing “in kind” time and resources? (if you have an external partner; SoTL doesn’t often have an external/community partner, but some projects do or could benefit from such a collaboration)
Before wrapping up this post, I wanted to touch back on the hypothesis you’ve been thinking about for your project. If you haven’t already developed your hypothesis based on published literature, now would be a good time to do so as it could have an impact on some of the specific details of your project. Sometimes, people are tempted to wait until the data are analyzed and then form their hypothesis (an approach termed HARKing, which stands for “Hypothesizing After Results are Known), but this is not an ethical approach to research; your hypothesis should be set a priori, before collecting your data (or certainly before analyzing it). In fact, you can (and probably should) write the entire introduction of your eventual article before you collect your data, though I’ll have a whole separate post about disseminating/publishing.
