To register, please send email to researchservices@bc.edu with the names of the tutorials that you are interested in attending.  

Creating Web-based Surveys with SurveyMonkey

Survey Monkey offers a way to create surveys without complicated programming or coding. Working within pre-defined templates, you can use several different types of questions, including text, multiple checkboxes, single-answer radio buttons, Likert scales. Once the survey is completed, data can be downloaded into a format that can be used with Excel, SPSS, or other analysis programs.

During the optional second hour of the workshop participants will have an opportunity to create an online survey that is ready to be sent to participants. Research Services Staff are also available, upon request, to schedule follow up consultations regarding analysis of your online survey data once the data has been collected.

Workshop participants are encouraged to contact the instructor, Rani Dalgin, (dalgin@bc.edu) in advance, to discuss their survey development needs.

2:00 - 4:00 June 19, 2007 Gasson 9  

Data Resources at Boston College

The first hour will consist of an overview of secondary data repositories that are available to members of the Boston College Community and how to search them. For those interested, the optional second hour will provide a hands on opportunity for participants to download at least one data set and to prepare it for analysis using  SPSS or Stata.

Boston College offers many sources and repositories of data for secondary research in the Social Sciences, Education, Nursing, Economics, Finance, Business and other disciplines.  This tutorial is particularly geared to researchers who need to access, analyze and manipulate data from BC's subscription data repositories.  This tutorial will help you: find the data you need for your research or class project; learn about the Boston College collection of data resources in the Statistical Data Catalog; and how to download the data onto your desktop, including how to import into quantitative analytical tools such as SPSS or Stata.

If you choose to stay for the full two hours, you will leave the workshop with at least one dataset that you can use for your research project. Based on the participants' interests, data manipulation can be demonstrated in SPSS or Stata.

Workshop participants are encouraged to contact the instructors, Barbara Mento (mento@bc.edu) and/or Rani Dalgin, (dalgin@bc.edu) in advance and to provide a description of their research interests and the type of secondary data that they are seeking.

2:00 – 4:00 June 7, 2007 O'Neill 105

Introduction to Linux

Linux is one of the most popular operating systems on supercomputers. This tutorial give an overview of Unix/Linux.  This tutorial will use Boston College's new Linux Cluster for specific examples of how to use Linux.  Topics covered include:

1. Remote login to the Linux Cluster
2. Changing passwords
3. An overview of basic Unix/Linux commands
4. Editiors: vi and emacs

2:00 - 3:00 June 18, 2007 Gasson 9

Introduction to the Linux Cluster

1. The hardware
2. The compilers
3. How to run job
4. How to Optimize code
5. The parallel programming models: MPI and OpenMP
6. Basic debugging

2:00 - 3:00 June 25, 2007 Gasson 9

Introduction to Parallel Programming 1: OpenMP

This tutorial will introduce the concepts of parallel programming and the OpenMP programming model.  OpenMP is  a standard for parallel codes on shared-memory machines.  At Boston College, OpenMP is available on the Scorpio Linux Cluster and can be used on up to 4 cores, the number of cores on a single node of the cluster.

Experience in FORTRAN or  C/C++ is required for this tutorial.

2:00 - 3:00 July 9, 2007 Gasson 9

Introduction to Parallel Programming 2: MPI

This tutorial will talk introduce parallel programming beyond what can be done on a single node of a cluster or a single computer.  The Message Passing Interface(MPI) is the de facto programming interface parallel programming involving a large number of processors.

Experience in FORTRAN or  C/C++ is required for this tutorial.

2:00 - 3:00 July 16, 2007 Gasson 9

MATLAB 1 (Introduction to Matlab programming)

MATLAB fundamentals provide a working introduction to the MATLAB technical computing environment. Matlab can be used with all aspects Mathematical computation, analysis, visualization, and algorithm development. This course is intended for beginning and intermediate users. No prior knowledge of MATLAB is required. Familiarity with a programming language (Fortran, C for example) will be helpful. Themes of vector and matrix data analysis, graphical visualization, data modeling, and MATLAB programming are explored in the context of realistic examples.  This Matlab hands-on practice workshop will present:

• Introduction: The Matlab system; Matlab documentation and help; Starting and quitting Matlab; How to use Matlab on Linux cluster “sorpio”
• Matrices and arrays:  Entering matrices; Load data; Matrix Algebra;
• Matlab programming: Program control statements; Data types; Variables; Operators; Expressions; Matlab functions; Creating a program; Importing and exporting text and Excel data;
• Introduction to Matlab graphics capabilities;

2:00 - 4:00 June 5,  2007 Gasson 9

MATLAB 2 (Graphs and Visualization)

The type of graph needed in a specific project depends on the nature of available data and on what is intended to reveal about the data. MATLAB predefines many graph types,  such as line, bar, histogram, and pie graphs. There are also 3-D graphs, such as surfaces, slice planes, and streamlines.  There are two basic ways to create graphs in MATLAB: 1) Use plotting tools to create graphs interactively; 2) Use the command interface to enter commands in the Command Window or create plotting programs (m files).

This Matlab hands-on practice workshop will focus on m-files to produce graphics, data visualization, and animation. We will show:

• Basic Plotting Commands: Commands Plotting Steps; Creating Line Plots; Specifying Line Style; Colors, Line Styles, and Markers; Specifying the Color and Size of Lines; Adding Plots to an Existing Graph; Plotting Only the Data Points; Plotting Markers and Lines; Line Styles for Black and White Output; Samples of various 2D plots;
• Figure Windows: Displaying Multiple Plots per Figure; Subplots; Save and print plots;
• Samples of 3D Plots;
• Animation:  Movies; Erase Modes; Examples on how to create animations;
• Examples presented (m files) can be easily modified and applied to your specific  experimental or model data.

2:00 - 4:00 June 7, 2007 Gasson 9

Parallel computing using Matlab with Star-P

This seminar introduces Matlab users to Star-P, which can accelerate  Matlab codes, especially long running Matlab codes in research projects. Examples will be shown on how to run Matlab on the Scorpio Linux Cluster, and how to use Star-P to speed up your Matlab codes. We will compare the performance of Matlab codes run on one processor, versus Star-P version of the code run on several processors. Familiarity with Matlab, Applied Mathematics and UNIX are needed.  We will discuss also projects of interest for your research that could benefit by the use of Star –P with Matlab.

2:00- 4:00 July 26, 2007 Gasson 9

Stata

Stata is a powerful and yet easy to use statistical package. This hands-on tutorial is designed as an introduction for beginning users who are just getting started using Stata and for intermediate users who want to refresh their knowledge. No prior knowledge of Stata is required. The following topics will be covered:

• Overview of Stata, including how Stata compares to the other most popular statistical packages and special features of Stata.
•  Getting started with Stata
•  Working with Data in Stata
•  Stata graphs.
•  How to record sequences of Stata commands and how to make simple modifications to the sequences of commands (ado and log files)
•  Discuss simple regression models and significance tests.
•  Using loops in Stata. 

9:30 - 12:30 June 26, 2007

Qualitative Analysis Using Nvivo7

The first hour will be an overview of Nvivo7 and how it can be used to eliminate the problems of managing large amounts of qualitative data, to code and re-code qualitative data, to keep an audit trail of the analysis process, and to support both individual researchers and research teams in discussing coding and analysis issues. This course is intended for beginning and intermediate users who have had some exposure to the methodologies and theories of qualitative analysis.

For those interested, the optional second hour will provide an opportunity for one-on-one or small group collaboration/consulting on how to use Nvivo7 for qualitative analysis. Participants may bring their own copies of Nvivo7 or they may download a thirty-day trial copy from: http://www.qsrinternational.com/DemoReg/DemoReg1.asp

To maximize the time spent in this part of the workshop participants are encouraged to contact Rani Dalgin, (dalgin@bc.edu) in advance and provide samples of the qualitative data (or similar data if the actual data is confidential) to be coded into Nvivo.

Assistance will be given with:
   1. Getting started with Nvivo7;
   2. Thinking about qualitative research design;
   3. Source Preparation;
   4. Attribute Variables;
   5. Coding Data;
   6. Other topics based on researchers’ interests
  
2:00 – 4:00 June 21, 2007 Gasson 9