Software Carpentry lesson that teaches how to use databases and SQL In the late 1920s and early 1930s, William Dyer, Frank Pabodie, and Valentina Roerich led expeditions to the Pole of Inaccessibility in the South Pacific, and then onward to Antarctica. Two years ago, their expeditions were found in a storage locker at Miskatonic University. We have scanned and OCR the data they contain, and we now want to store that information in a way that will make search and analysis easy. Three common options for storage are text files, spreadsheets, and databases. Text files are easiest to create, and work well with version control, but then we would have to build search and analysis tools ourselves. Spreadsheets are good for doing simple analyses, but they don’t handle large or complex data sets well. Databases, however, include powerful tools for search and analysis, and can handle large, complex data sets. These lessons will show how to use a database to explore the expeditions’ data.

Course Overview:
This course covers the basic statistical principles, procedures, and interpretations of statistical analyses in the behavioral sciences in order to provide an understanding of what is involved in analyzing quantitative data. The course will offer introductory coverage of descriptive and inferential statistics through the use of RStudio. Course topics include data description, central tendency and variability, statistical inference, and significance tests to compare means and conduct analyses of correlation and regression.

Student Learning Objectives:
Through the successful completion of this course, students will:
1) Develop knowledge and critical understanding of fundamental issues related to methodology and the application of various statistical tools.
2) Develop basic skills in using RStudio for data entry, data management, and data analysis.
3) Learn to appropriately interpret the output of statistical software and analyses and to communicate effectively with others regarding results and conclusions.
4) Be able to identify key information in published quantitative research manuscripts.
5) Be prepared to take more advanced statistics courses, such as analysis of variance and multiple regression models.

This is a module framework. It can be viewed online or downloaded as a zip file.

As taught in Autumn/Spring Semesters 2009/2010

This resource presents material from four different courses taught across the School of American and Canadian Studies and Film and Television Studies. It addresses various aspects of nineteenth and early twentieth century American entertainment culture.

You can view module outlines for 4 modules taught within the school:

* American Drama (undergraduate year 3 level)
* American Sensations (undergraduate year 3 level)
* Film History (undergraduate year 1 level)
* Emergence of Mass Culture (undergraduate year 2 level)

The information contained within the module outlines includes: module objectives, lecture schedules, reading lists, teaching and learning methods, module resources, modes of assessment and essay questions.

This resource also presents examples of materials from each of the modules listed above. The materials available address:

* The Sensational Novels of the 1850's (from the American Sensations module)
* Mass Market Magazines around 1900 (from the Emergence of Mass Culture module)
* The movie Palaces of the 1920's (from the Film History module)
* The Depression-Era Theatre of the 1930's (from the American Drama module)

Suitable for: undergraduate study years one to three depending upon topic selected (see individual module titles above for more information)

Dr Matthew Pethers, Dr Graham Thompson, Dr Paul Grainge, Dr John Fagg, School of American and Canadian Studies.

Matthew Pethers is a Lecturer in American Intellectual and Cultural History in the School of American Studies. His research largely focuses on the American Enlightenment and early 19th century print culture, but he also has an ongoing interest in the history of the American stage.

Graham Thompson is the author of Male Sexuality under Surveillance: The Office in American Literature (2003), The Business of America: The Cultural Construction of a Post-War Nation (2004) and American Culture in the 1980s (2007). He is currently working on a new research project on Herman Melville's magazine fiction which re-locates Melville within the print culture industry of the 1850s and explores in more detail how magazine publishing developed and operated in order to better understand how cultural products like Melville's fiction were formed and circulated within it.

Paul Grainge is Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of Nottingham. His teaching and research focuses on Hollywood and contemporary media culture. He is the author of Brand Hollywood: Selling Entertainment in a Global Media Age (Routledge, 2008), Monochrome Memories: Nostalgia and Style in Retro America (Praeger, 2002), Memory and Popular Film (as editor) (Manchester UP, 2003), and Film Histories: An Introduction and Reader (as co-editor) (Edinburgh UP, 2007). Within the Institute of Film and Television Studies at Nottingham, he teaches modules on film history, the cultural industries, the New Hollywood, and media memories.

Dr John Fagg is a lecturer in the School of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham. His research focuses on literature and painting around 1900 and the representation of everyday life. He teaches courses on American Literature, The Emergence of Mass Culture and the art and literature of New York City.