Tom's Planner Keeps on Growing!

See this picture? This is the Aloha stadium in Hawaii, when sold out it holds 50.000 people. That is the same amount of people that have registered for a Tom's Planner account uptill now! This week we received our 50.000th user, happy planning everyone!

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New feature: Schedule Setting under One Button

The toolbar in Tom's Planner has been simplified. From now on you will find all the project settings (general, timeline and logo) under one button. This means the timeline and logo settings no longer have their own button in the toolbar:

In the Schedule Settings menu you will be able to adjust visible elements in the tool like the reference date line, logo and legend. From now on you can also highlight today's date, a much requested feature! You can also adjust the timeline and logo settings in this window, just click the tabs on the left side. These settings haven't changed, only their location.

Today's date highlighted

In the coming months, while we are adding new features to the tool, more tabs will be added to the Schedule Settings. We'll keep you posted on updates!

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New Feature: Show and Hide Columns

If you want the hide columns, right-click at the top of the column area and choose 'hide column'. You can also right-click the column area and click on 'Columns' at the bottom of the menu list to show the columns options.

We are very pleased with the new 'Show & Hide Columns' feature. When you hide columns in Excel you can barely see where the columns are hidden. If you are collaborating on a project, this could create confusion. You need to visually see if and where columns are hidden. We really like the visual solution our designer came up with!

Right-click for the drop down menu

Right-click in the column area

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Planning your Dissertation Part 6: 'Data Analysis' by Roy Horn

Data Analysis - Finding a good story to tell!

Once you have all the data for your dissertation you can ‘breath a sigh of relief', you should be able to create a dissertation that passes from this point! Before you start to do any detailed analysis it is sensible to ‘validate’ the data you have. Errors can creep into the recording process at a number of points and carrying out some simple checks can ensure that a participants responses can be entered into the research rather than having to be discarded because of errors. When you are using on-line surveys think carefully about making all the questions compulsory. This ensures that participants cannot miss important questions. In ‘paper’ surveys as each one is handed-in visually check that all the important questions have been completed. The other general task, at the point of data entry, is to make a visual check of the answers to ensure that more general errors have not been made.

There are a myriad of possible methods for analysing data and I cannot do them justice in this short space. So if you need ideas or information on how to carry out quantitative or qualitative analysis consult my textbook on the subject:

Researching and Writing Dissertations (2009), Roy Horn, CIPD: London, pages 141:219.

The two standard packages for quantitative analysis are SPSS and Excel both of these work well and will provide you with a huge output of raw analysis. The main problem and issue that must be addressed is to find a ‘Data Story’ to tell. The section in your dissertation that analyses the data and represents the analysis is vital to its success. The effort you have expended so far can be lost or dissipated with a weak or illogical data analysis section.

Checklists
Analysis is often categorised in parts as:

• the study of the constituent parts and the interrelationship of the parts
• the breaking down and separation of the whole into constituent parts
• simplifying the whole into parts to display the logical structure
• an explanation of a process and the parts of that process.

So in creating a Data Story you will be trying to address all these elements. When your dissertation is marked the marker will be expecting a certain type of story, such as:

1. This is a problem.
2. The problem has these parts.
3. People say these things about the problem.
4. If people did this or that, the problem would lessen or even be solved.

Now take a second look at that story. Does it look like your dissertation?

Your data story should:

• be simple, brief and relevant
• have a beginning, middle and end
• have a ‘punchline’, a discovery
• have data and evidence to support the story (but only to support the story)
• be specific and appropriate to the research study
• offer improvement and solutions
• illustrate how it might be relevant to a wider audience.

Be simple, brief and relevant
Now this immediately presents a problem. How can all your research and effort be simple and brief? The answer is that it must be expressed in this way if it is to be understandable and clear to the reader.  The simple and brief characteristic is achieved by separating out the important outcomes of the analysis. One main idea creates one main story, then the next idea and story, and so on.

Have a beginning, a middle, an end - and a punchline, and evidence
Normal story structure follows this format and your data stories must follow this format if you want to successfully explain your research. What does this look like for a data story?

● Beginning - Analysis showed that (for example) there was a significant difference between the book-buying habits of law students in comparison with business students.

● Middle - Explore this in more detail using data and evidence such as tables and graphs. Ask questions about why this might be occurring. Relate the issue to any known theory from the literature review. Create a punchline in the middle section - a ‘wow event’, if you like.

● End - Find a conclusion to your story, also a summary - and if the data story presents a problem, say what the solution might be. Relate the conclusion to the punchline.

● Data and evidence to support the story - The important thing here is to be sure that the data and evidence does support the story. The data can never be the story.

Be specific and appropriate to the research study
At the beginning of your research you set out some aims, objectives, research questions or hypotheses - all your stories should relate to these. It is best if this relationship is made explicit. One of the marking criteria for your dissertation will be how well you have achieved the aims, objectives, research questions or hypotheses. Making the link explicit in the stories will address that issue in an integrated and effective manner.

Offer improvements and solutions
Some stories have a moral conclusion, and your data stories must have a similar thing. In the data stories you will conclude with improvements, solutions or recommendations. This will allow you a ‘handle’ in the data section that you can return to in the conclusion of your work.

Illustrate the significance to a wider audience
Your data stories are specific to your research, but depending on the philosophical stance your research takes, may have useful implications for groups beyond your context. Even specific qualitative data may have general points that are worthy of mention.

Good planning makes for a successful dissertation! Check out this ‘Tom’s Planner’ schedule with all the parts of a standard dissertation added.

Well! That is the end of the blogs on dissertations. I hope you have enjoyed them and that they helped you to complete your dissertation. Remember! Good organisation will allow you to enjoy your dissertation and to be successful. Good luck!

Get a head start on your dissertation by using this template and start planning now! This schedule will save you lots of time and energy.

***

Roy Horn is an academic at Buckinghamshire New University in the UK and tutors dissertation students. He has written two books one on dissertations and one on skills.

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Tom's Planner on your Desktop

Wouldn't it be handy if you had a direct link to Tom's Planner on your desktop? One of our users tweeted about using Prism to do just this. We checked it out and are very enthusiastic because of  its ease of use (yes, that's very important to us :-). We tested Prism and Fluid and found that Prism works best for PC users and Fluid is a great tool  for Mac users. We want to share these two great tools with you that will help you be even more productive!

How to install Prism 

Step 1. There are two ways to use Prism; A Firefox extension or a standalone application. Either way, you can easily turn any website into a Prism application:

Choose how to download Prism

Step 2. Let's follow the route to download the standalone application:

1. Extract the files

2. Open the folder

3. Double click the Prism Icon.


Step 3. Fill in the Tom's Planner URL to go directly to the website or 'https://www.tomsplanner.com/?template=new' to go directly to the tool. TIP: use Prism to link directly to your bookmarked projects! That will help you be more productive. Use the bookmark-link that you will find in the in the 'My Schedules' settings menu and copy/paste it into this prism window and name your project.

Click OK and the shortcut will appear on your desktop! That's all!

How to install Fluid 
On the Fluid website we found this great instruction video that will tell you the steps to install Fluid in your computer.

Fluid from Todd Ditchendorf on Vimeo.

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