I know, this whole month I have been working on the document I just posted on teaching the users how to create a blog. I know it has taken a long time even though I merely almost copied and posted Rob's blogging handbook for his MSc students.(JOKES). Well almost but I have managed to cut it down and its ready for use. I am hopeng to get the website prototype done for next week and get on with the testing
Only problem I am having is with the LREC, which is really becoming a bore now and I have no idea what purpose the NHS ethics committe serve.
Anyway back to work. You can view the how to guide and let me know what you think of it
Thursday 31 January 2008
"How to" Guide to creating your blog.
A ‘how to’ Guide to blogging and using Blogger.com
Blogs provide a means of journaling, exploration, story telling, information sharing, and anything you can think of involving text and pictures which can be made accessible to as many people as you want
Blogs can be:
Journals
News
Fiction
Web links
Communities
Work based forums
Personal web space
An online photo gallery
Blogger can be found at www.blogger.com and blogs created using Blogger have the following form of web address www.myblog.blogspot.com.
Let’s start blogging
Open Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape or which ever web software you are using and go to www.blogger.com.
Take a moment to look around the front-page of Blogger. Blogger.com is fairly easy to use and has useful explanations and descriptions. There is an opportunity to get more information on what a blog is. You can also take a quick tour around the website.
Follow the “Create a blog in 3 easy steps” links on the front-page by placing the mouse pointer over the link marked “Create Your Blog Now” and click.
Create an Account
The next page will request you to create an account. You must have an existing e-mail address in order to do this. This account will then enable you to establish as many different blogs as you would like. You can then return to the account to delete blogs, update blogs, or create new blogs.
To create your blogger account, you will have to input your e-mail address, and a password for your account. Just follow the instructions and directions given on the website as they provide precise guidance on creating a blog.
Finally don’t forget to tick any “terms and conditions” box, if you want to read the terms and conditions following the web link.
And click the “Continue” arrow
Note: With the growth in Blog popularity your first choice of username might not be available – do be patient and try variations until you find one that is accepted.
Name your Blog
This where you can think of what you want to call your blog. This can be related to what you will write about, or named after a favourite pet, friend. The name can either be a phrase or one word.
You will then have the opportunity to choose your blog address .This does not have to match the name/ title of your blog although it may make it easier for you and for others to remember the name.
Blogger uses a word verification box to help with security and data entry. The text for the word verification will appear slightly distorted; simply type the letters you see into the word verification box.
Click the “continue” arrow at the bottom of the page and this will lead you to the next and final step.
Note: The web address for your blog may not be available if it is already used by another blog user. As with Step 2 try different combinations of web address for your blog until you find one which is available.
Choose a template
Blogger hosts your blog for you and provides you with options of what you would like your blog to look like with a series of different templates.
You have the opportunity to select from the list a template of your choice. Not only do the templates differ in colour, but also the settings and layout of content is different. Choose your template by placing your mouse pointer over the template name (e.g. minima, minima black, son of moto) and click.
Once you’ve highlighted your choice of template click on the ‘Continue’ arrow, and CONGRATULATIONS, you have created your blog.
Note: You can always change your template later if you decide you don’t like the one you’ve chosen. Once your blogger account is finalised you’ll find that you access to wider choice of templates than the ones you see at this set up stage.
Blogs provide a means of journaling, exploration, story telling, information sharing, and anything you can think of involving text and pictures which can be made accessible to as many people as you want
Blogs can be:
Journals
News
Fiction
Web links
Communities
Work based forums
Personal web space
An online photo gallery
Blogger can be found at www.blogger.com and blogs created using Blogger have the following form of web address www.myblog.blogspot.com.
Let’s start blogging
Open Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape or which ever web software you are using and go to www.blogger.com.
Take a moment to look around the front-page of Blogger. Blogger.com is fairly easy to use and has useful explanations and descriptions. There is an opportunity to get more information on what a blog is. You can also take a quick tour around the website.
Follow the “Create a blog in 3 easy steps” links on the front-page by placing the mouse pointer over the link marked “Create Your Blog Now” and click.
Create an Account
The next page will request you to create an account. You must have an existing e-mail address in order to do this. This account will then enable you to establish as many different blogs as you would like. You can then return to the account to delete blogs, update blogs, or create new blogs.
To create your blogger account, you will have to input your e-mail address, and a password for your account. Just follow the instructions and directions given on the website as they provide precise guidance on creating a blog.
Finally don’t forget to tick any “terms and conditions” box, if you want to read the terms and conditions following the web link.
And click the “Continue” arrow
Note: With the growth in Blog popularity your first choice of username might not be available – do be patient and try variations until you find one that is accepted.
Name your Blog
This where you can think of what you want to call your blog. This can be related to what you will write about, or named after a favourite pet, friend. The name can either be a phrase or one word.
You will then have the opportunity to choose your blog address .This does not have to match the name/ title of your blog although it may make it easier for you and for others to remember the name.
Blogger uses a word verification box to help with security and data entry. The text for the word verification will appear slightly distorted; simply type the letters you see into the word verification box.
Click the “continue” arrow at the bottom of the page and this will lead you to the next and final step.
Note: The web address for your blog may not be available if it is already used by another blog user. As with Step 2 try different combinations of web address for your blog until you find one which is available.
Choose a template
Blogger hosts your blog for you and provides you with options of what you would like your blog to look like with a series of different templates.
You have the opportunity to select from the list a template of your choice. Not only do the templates differ in colour, but also the settings and layout of content is different. Choose your template by placing your mouse pointer over the template name (e.g. minima, minima black, son of moto) and click.
Once you’ve highlighted your choice of template click on the ‘Continue’ arrow, and CONGRATULATIONS, you have created your blog.
Note: You can always change your template later if you decide you don’t like the one you’ve chosen. Once your blogger account is finalised you’ll find that you access to wider choice of templates than the ones you see at this set up stage.
Monday 28 January 2008
GMS training
I havent blogged for a while, I know I have been so busy with my work.
Well just before Christmas vacation I went to a GMS Training with Nick in Liverpool. This is a tool that will be used for the Prison project. It was quite an intense time but was very interesting as well. It does look like a very useful tool although I think it is a bit too long. I guess for prisoners it isnt that bad, I mean they have all the time to offer for the interview.
The tool is called the Geriatric Mental State (GMS), and is self explanatory really. This schedule assess and records mental state in the elderly. After completing the interviews, the data is input into the AGECAT (The Automated Geriatric Examination for Computer Assited Taxonomy), which groups symptoms into symptom components. These components are further grouped, and these groups are used to derive levels of confidence of diagnosis for each syndrome cluster.
The syndrome clusters represent:
Organic
Schizophrenia and related paranoid states
Mania
Depression
Obsessional Neuroses
Hypochondriasis
Phobic Neuroses
Anxiety Neuroses
This is what I understood so far because we didnt actually use the computer tool. I will try and get hold of Nick at a later stage of his project and see what further analysis is done to the data
Well just before Christmas vacation I went to a GMS Training with Nick in Liverpool. This is a tool that will be used for the Prison project. It was quite an intense time but was very interesting as well. It does look like a very useful tool although I think it is a bit too long. I guess for prisoners it isnt that bad, I mean they have all the time to offer for the interview.
The tool is called the Geriatric Mental State (GMS), and is self explanatory really. This schedule assess and records mental state in the elderly. After completing the interviews, the data is input into the AGECAT (The Automated Geriatric Examination for Computer Assited Taxonomy), which groups symptoms into symptom components. These components are further grouped, and these groups are used to derive levels of confidence of diagnosis for each syndrome cluster.
The syndrome clusters represent:
Organic
Schizophrenia and related paranoid states
Mania
Depression
Obsessional Neuroses
Hypochondriasis
Phobic Neuroses
Anxiety Neuroses
This is what I understood so far because we didnt actually use the computer tool. I will try and get hold of Nick at a later stage of his project and see what further analysis is done to the data
Wednesday 9 January 2008
First Meeting this year of 2008!!!!!!
Supervision Meeting for Nothando Ngwenya on the 9th of January 2008 at 1pm in Paul Kingston’s Office.
Present: NN, PK, SM
1) I gave an update on the letters that we sent to the hospices requesting general patient population.
2) The LREC wrote a letter to say they had received all the amendments they had requested except for the hospice letters. They will therefore be waiting for the letters from the hospices before they can give a favourable opinion to the ethical application.
3) We discussed the placement opportunities that I was trying to arrange. I will contact both ……..Hospice and …….. to see whether I could do 10days work experience.
4) We then discussed the schedule for the data collection part of the project. Paul advised that I should include some time to go back to the hospices to motivate the participants to keep blogging.
5) I then shared my concern on using a questionnaire for the research. I was mainly concerned about the time I would have to analyse the interview data in order to create the questionnaires for the last part of the data collection section. We reviewed the need of the questionnaire and Stella advised that I could employ both unstructured and structured interview methods. If the first part of the interview is unstructured and the second part is more structured, then I could get both qualitative and quantitative data.
6) I informed my supervisors that I have completed my PgCRM (Postgraduate certificate in Research Methods) which is a requirement for my PhD upgrade.
7) Stella then advised that I start working on the user characteristics for the design of the website to help with the design guidelines.
Things to do by next meeting
1) Follow up on the hospice letters to the LREC committee.
2) Do some research and on user characteristics and develop design guidelines for the website.
Present: NN, PK, SM
1) I gave an update on the letters that we sent to the hospices requesting general patient population.
2) The LREC wrote a letter to say they had received all the amendments they had requested except for the hospice letters. They will therefore be waiting for the letters from the hospices before they can give a favourable opinion to the ethical application.
3) We discussed the placement opportunities that I was trying to arrange. I will contact both ……..Hospice and …….. to see whether I could do 10days work experience.
4) We then discussed the schedule for the data collection part of the project. Paul advised that I should include some time to go back to the hospices to motivate the participants to keep blogging.
5) I then shared my concern on using a questionnaire for the research. I was mainly concerned about the time I would have to analyse the interview data in order to create the questionnaires for the last part of the data collection section. We reviewed the need of the questionnaire and Stella advised that I could employ both unstructured and structured interview methods. If the first part of the interview is unstructured and the second part is more structured, then I could get both qualitative and quantitative data.
6) I informed my supervisors that I have completed my PgCRM (Postgraduate certificate in Research Methods) which is a requirement for my PhD upgrade.
7) Stella then advised that I start working on the user characteristics for the design of the website to help with the design guidelines.
Things to do by next meeting
1) Follow up on the hospice letters to the LREC committee.
2) Do some research and on user characteristics and develop design guidelines for the website.
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