Research methodology

I've found trying to sort out what method of research I'm going to use quite difficult. It seems odd doing research about how to research....

Anyway, my literature searches finally came off (thanks in no small part to some excellent training that I received from a colleague at Pennine Acute Trust a few years back) in that I found this interesting piece by Bonnie Kaplan who suggests evaluating health informatics systems through use of the '4Cs'. The 4C's are:
communication
care
control
context

and Kaplan's approach considers how an information system 'fits' within an organisation, taking into consideration the 4 parameters above. The 4C's help us to assess the take up of systems through the consideration of social and professional, as well as technical factors. All very interesting and it made sense to me!

For more details see:

Kaplan, B (2001). "Evaluating informatics applications-some alternative approaches: theory, social interactionism, and call for methodological pluralism". International Journal of Medical Informatics 64, 39–56

My Bibliographic tool of choice...

... is the excellent Zotero which is a Firefox add-on.
If like me, you do a lot of searching of online resources, Zotero let's you automatically save resource details by clicking on an icon in the browser URL field. The resources which can be added in this manner are not only journal articles and book information, but news articles, blog postings etc.

If the resource that you have found cannot be automatically be added to Zotero, you can easily add resource details manually.
Zotero also allows you to tag your resources and make notes easily, and it will create a bibliography for you too although Harvard is not one of the export formats.
Other features include a search facility which is very handy if, like me, you keep forgetting which resources you have already found!

For more information see: http://www.zotero.org/

A good book for newbie researchers

I recently ordered a book on research methods to help me with err, my research methods!

This book is very well written, describing the different methodologies available to health and social science researchers in plain English without the jargon!

See: 'Doing Your Research Project: A Guide for First-Time Researchers in Education, Health and Social Science (4th Edition) by Judith Bell [Paperback - June 2005]'

share and share alike

The purpose of this blog.....

As I have been doing a bit of research and general background reading for my MSc in Health Informatics, it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to share experiences, any good literature findings, and general musings as I go along.

I hope that some fellow students, friends, and colleagues may find this useful and will feel inspired to contribute to the blog.

Ingrid