Archive of materials compiled for now-defunct Columbia University online consortium. Includes “seminars” on a variety of topics ranging from historical and scientific to sociological and political. (http://www.fathom.com/)
Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society site, with report on their national survey of Internet use.
The New York Times Web edition. Regular news stories and other regular newspaper sections. Some pictures and audio files. Also, special news sections for Web users; online forums, allowing you to read comments on some issue—and to send a comment yourself; and search options. (http://www.nytimes.com)
SocioSite. Social science information system based at the University of Amsterdam. Offers links and access to a vast number of helpful sites on the Internet related to sociology. Can be used as a reference source for sociology on the Web.
Quarterly publication of the National Academy of Sciences with articles on recent scientific discoveries. Includes links to related sites. (http://www.beyonddiscovery.org/)
THE PROCESS AND PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL RESEARCH
Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects.
Ethics site maintained by the University of Arkansas. Cases are described that involve various ethical and moral dilemmas confronted in social science research, public administration, policy making, and so on. Each case offers a different example of an ethical issue. Lists of questions allow the reader to explore the complexity of the ethics issues involved and reflect on his or her own opinions regarding the cases.
Glossary of terms used in discussing ethics.
Guidelines for Citing and Searching Sources
Dartmouth College Sources. A compendium on how to cite sources from a variety of media, with examples.
APA style. Electronic reference formats suggested by the American Psychological Association.
InfoPeople Search Engines Quick Guide. Comprehensive and comparative data on most of the major search engines. (http://www.infopeople.org)
Online! A guide to proper citation of different types of online sources, with examples conforming to MLA style, APA style, Chicago style, and more.
Guide to locating, translating, and using the correct citation elements for various styles (such as APA, MLA) when referencing electronically-accessed sources.
Annual Reviews of Sociology online. Abstracts from volumes can be searched by subject or by keywords. Offers downloads of complete text of articles for a fee. (http://soc.annualreviews.org/)
PubList. Quick and easy access to information on thousands of publications. Many of the publications listed can be purchased for a fee. (http://www.publist.com)
American Communication Association site, with overview of activities and links to other sites about communications and social science research methods. (http://www.americancomm.org/)
American Sociological Association. Includes lists of publications, Ethics Code, Employment Bulletin, and summaries of research funding opportunities. (http://www.asanet.org)
The Sociolog. Links to lists of professional associations, sociology departments, university catalogs, data archives.
National Association of Social Workers. Contains a wealth of information for social work practitioners and students.
American Psychological Association. Includes much useful information about the APA, the psychology profession, and the results of selected research studies. (http://www.apa.org)
Society of the Study of Symbolic Interaction. Professional association oriented to qualitative researchers who study social interaction. Includes links to many other related web sites.
Argus Clearinghouse. Provides subject guides on the Internet and classifies them under subject headings.
INFOMINE (Scholarly Internet Resource Collections). This is one example of a site that scholars can use to link to other sites containing a wide range of scholarly materials.
Virtual library of sociology journals and newsletters.
Library resources and links. Library of Congress, presidential libraries, database of academic research journals, academic libraries with Web servers. (http://www.uakron.edu/hefe/lib1.html)
Social Science Information Gateway. An omnibus source offering a comprehensive index of links to multiple resources in sociology, including research methods sites, professional associations, and research centers. A good reference source for social science browsing on the Web. (http://www.sosig.ac.uk)
Library of Congress site with resources for researchers.
Variety of resources useful in teaching research methods.
Listing of various resources for sociologists.
The WWW Virtual Library. The original Internet subject guide that covers many disciplines including the Social Sciences.
Extensive list of links for methodological issues and needs related to social psychology.
Yahoo! A large and comprehensive Internet subject directory.
THEORIES AND PHILOSOPHIES FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH
A Sociological Tour Through Cyberspace. Trinity University site with links to many resources, including government statistics, data sources, and theory groups.
Discussion of strengths and weaknesses of structural-functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism.
Resources and definitions on rhetorical analysis.
Diverse resources on a range of topics spanning art, communications theory, sociology, literary criticism.
Entire course (printed) on philosophy of science.
Series of slides with text and points about qualitative research, its basis in interpretive philosophy and the differences between that perspective and positivist philosophy.
Guide to philosophical sources on the Internet.
An entertaining and informative essay on positivism, interpretivism, and hermeneutics.
Clear outline of differences between interpretivism and positivism, and qualitative and quantitative research.
Information on contemporary social theorists and philosophers, mostly those with a “postmodern” slant.
CONCEPTUALIZATION AND MEASUREMENT
Question Bank from the Centre for Applied Social Surveys. Contains questions used in different surveys.
National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse. Provides many of the most popular measures of substance abuse.
Measures of personality and other individual traits, from the “CyClone Project” of William Sims Bainbridge.
Discussion of generalizability of research results.
Sample size calculator, using confidence intervals.
Generates random numbers.
CAUSATION AND EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
Online Social Psychology Studies. A site at which you can participate in a social psychology experiment on the Web.
Overviews of different experimental designs, with simulation exercises (which require Minitab to run).
Good examples of problems with internal invalidity.
Good Powerpoint slide show on internal validity.
Case studies followed by questions and answers about validity.
Case study scenarios involving issues in external validity.
SURVEY RESEARCH
Centre for Applied Social Surveys (CASS). Offers access to the Question Bank (a reference source for information on how questions are formatted and worded in major social surveys) and general knowledge about survey data collection methods, design, and measurement. Access to CASS newsletters and CASS courses as well as links to other research sites of interest such as articles on social survey methodology.
General Social Survey. Search all years of the GSS for variables of interest. Check wording of questions and response choices, see frequency distributions for variables in different sets of years, obtain lists of GSS publications, and download GSS datasets. (http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/gss/)
The Question Factory. A laboratory for exploring survey instruments. Allows Web users to participate in interactive survey creation and gives access to survey results.
Online Survey Research/Public Opinion Centers: A Worldwide Listing. University of Kansas site with a listing of and links to a great many different survey research organizations.
Research Triangle Institute site with information and resources about different aspects of survey research. (http://www.rti.org/)
Site for designing online surveys that allows the first 50 surveys to be collected without charge.
Take an online survey at this commercial site.
QUALITATIVE METHODS
Ethnographic laboratory site at University of Southern California, with list of films and project reports. You can view pictures and text from ethnographic research on such topics as rickshaw drivers in India, traditional dancers in Malawi, and Vietnamese immigrants. (http://www.usc.edu/dept/elab/welcome/)
Glossary terms used in qualitative research.
EVALUATION RESEARCH
Governmental Accounting Standards Board site, includes information on performance measurement in government, with case studies. (http://www.seagov.org/)
The Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University, with checklists and tools for use in evaluation of schools.
Empowerment evaluation and related techniques are described and resources are provided.
Official site of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education project.
HISTORICAL AND COMPARATIVE RESEARCH
A compilation of statistical information by the United Nations on the nations of the world that allows generation of charts for comparing nations and detailed statistics on individual nations. (The first URL is for the most recent version; the second one is for an older version).
Information on the procedures used by professional document examiners to determine authenticity, age, etc.
Government Resources on the Web. A subject directory of government information compiled by the University of Michigan Documents Center. (http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/)
Thomas, Legislative Information on the Internet. Federal legislation, including pending and past legislation, and committee composition. (http://thomas.loc.gov)
World Bank. Resources that are useful for comparative research. Includes detailed maps and statistical data on many countries.
Centre for the Study of Democracy at Queen’s University, Ontario. Canada. Includes links to data archives and courses.
QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS AND CONTENT ANALYSIS
Content analysis research site, with links to sites for quantitative content analysis software as well as to sites that provide instruction in content analysis and those maintained by relevant organizations. (http://www.car.ua.edu/)
QUANTITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
National Election Studies. Includes responses to questions asked since 1952, a test of the 1996 NES questionnaire, and data for online analysis. Searchable by keyword.
Statistical Resources on the Web. A subject directory compiled by the Documents Center at the University of Michigan.
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences home page, with news and exemplary findings. (http://www.spss.com/)
Resources for professional statisticians, including datasets.
A simulator that can calculate a range of statistics. Request the normal curve simulation, enter the value of the mean and standard deviation, and it generates a normal curve with this statistics. Enter values for X and Y and this simulator will calculate bivariate regression statistics.
Bill Trochim’s Center for Social Research Methods, with a variety of resources for learning and using research methods, including statistics tutorials. (http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/)
Institute of Social Science Research at UCLA, with data archives listing hundreds of quantitative datasets available for downloading and analysis. (http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/issr/)
Korean Social Science Data Center, with extensive tutorial on statistical analysis.
REPORTING RESEARCH
National Institutes of Health. Information about NIH programs and grants. (http://www.nih.gov)
National Science Foundation’s Social and Economic Sciences. Information regarding the Sociology Program, research funding, current and past supported projects, and so forth.
Institute of Medicine site with recent research reports online. IOM reports summarize the “start of the art” in a particular area of investigation and often include policy recommendations.
National Academies Press with hundreds of research reports on different topics available for order or for reading (for free) online.
Political Science Resources on the Web. A subject directory compiled by the University of Michigan Documents Center.
Guidelines for report writing from University of South Australia.
Extensive guidance on report writing and organization.
Lengthy discussion about writing a scientific research paper.
Links to proposal writing resources on the Internet.
SUBJECT INFORMATION
American Society of Criminology. Includes much useful information for students, academicians, and practitioners in the many disciplines related to criminal justice.
The American Bar Association’s Commission on Domestic Violence. Includes a definition of domestic violence, procedures for identifying a person as a victim of domestic violence, and a list of “basic warning signs.”
Crime Stoppers International, an organization devoted to fighting crime and violence around the world. Offers links to interesting sites related to the subjects of crime and violence.
Federal Bureau of Investigation. Much interesting information on crime. (http://www.fbi.gov)
Institute for Criminal Justice Studies Web Links. “One of the most comprehensive web links pages for Criminal Justice Information on the Internet.”
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention web site.
Demography
Population Index on the Web. Population index for 1986 – 1996.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Labor. A significant source of data on employment and earnings.
U.S. Bureau of the Census home page. Contains tables and graphs reporting detailed census data. Population data and economic indicators. (http://www.census.gov)
Health, Homelessness, Substance Abuse
Centers for Disease Control site, with statistics, news, fact sheets, and links. (http://www.cdc.gov/)
Subject directory maintained by Institute of Medicine, with links to related sites.
The National Coalition for the Homeless. Current statistics, publications, legislative developments, and links to other resources. (http://www.nationalhomeless.org)
KIDS COUNT web site for the Annie E. Casey Foundation, with easy-to-access interactive statistics and charts that describe children’s well-being by state, city, and other geographic divisions in the U.S. (http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/index.htm)
National Institute on Aging internet links to research resources, including statistics, literature, and funding opportunities.
Center of Alcohol Studies. Offers links to numerous sites related to alcohol, alcoholism, and so on. A comprehensive index of a wealth of information on the subject. (http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~cas2/)
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Offers summaries of publications, reports, and statistical information on SAMHSA research. (http://www.samhsa.gov)
Gallup poll.This site contains election poll results dating back to 1936 and information from polls on current events.(http://www.gallup.com)
The Roper Center. General information on the center and poll results on presidential performance.
Federal Electoral Commission site, with rules and news.
American Religion Data Archive, with survey and area data concerning religion and churches.
Federal and state constitutional, statutory and case law.
University of Michigan site with list of many, many online resources for political scientists.
Extensive public opinion data from Rasmussen Research.
