Resources
Cost Analysis
IES-Funded Resources
- Cost Analysis: A Starter Kit is designed for grant applicants who are new to cost analysis. The kit provides a three-phased approach to the basics of cost analysis, setting the foundation for more complex economic analyses. This is accompanied by an Excel Spreadsheet to help structure the actual cost analysis work.
- The Cost Analysis in Practice (CAP) Project provides free, on-demand tools, guidance, and technical assistance. Researchers and practitioners can submit a Help Desk Request for more information about conducting cost analysis and will be connected with a member of the CAP Project Team. Several resources, including the CAP Cost Analysis Standards & Guidelines, an informative infographic, and an Introduction to Cost Analysis video (the first of many planned videos), are designed to ease entry into the world of cost analysis.
- The IES Methods Training in Cost-Effectiveness and Economic Evaluation is planning to provide in-person training sessions in the summer of 2021, 2022, and 2023. The program will serve two cohorts each summer. One cohort is designed for researchers and evaluators, enabling them to apply methods of economic evaluation to educational policy issues. The second cohort is designed for state and local education employees with a focus on the specific needs of education offices. The program also has developed online courses and training materials such as Methods Briefs, CostOut, Relevance & Credibility Indices, DecisionMaker, and Workshops and Training Events. If you would like to schedule a specialized training workshop for your institution or center, please contact cbcse@tc.columbia.edu to discuss pricing and options.
IES Recommended Reading
REL Publication The Critical Importance of Costs for Education Decisions, by Hollands and Levin (2017).
Hollands, F. M., Kieffer, M. J., Shand, R., Pan, Y., Cheng, H, & Levin, H.M. (2016). Cost-effectiveness analysis of early reading programs: A demonstration with recommendations for future research. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 9, 30–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/19345747.2015.1055639
Levin, H. M., & Belfield, C. (2015). Guiding the development and use of cost-effectiveness analysis in education. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 8, 400–418. https://doi.org/10.1080/19345747.2014.915604
OER Cost Analysis Seminar Resources
- Cost Analysis presented by Elite Research, LLC
- Zoom recording of full seminar
- COE faculty member Wei Li also shared his paper Power Analysis for Two-Level Multisite Randomized Cost-Effectiveness Trials (Li, Dong, & Maynard, 2020) on methods of designing cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/1076998620911916
- Dr. Li’s team also developed a statistical tool PowerUp! (Li, Dong, & Maynard, 2020), which is free to download. https://www.causalevaluation.org/power-analysis.html
IRB Boot Camp
The slides and Zoom recording from the February 8 and February 10, 2021 IRB Boot Camps, presented by Lauren N. Griffin, PhD, UF IRB Research Regulatory Analyst III, can be found on the UF IRB webpage Resource: IRB Boot Camp.
Division of Sponsored Programs
Listed below are links to important elements of grant writing and proposal submission provided on the UF Division of Sponsored Programs website:
UF Student Affairs Assessment and Research (SAAR)
COE-SAAR Collaboration Workshop
College of Education – UF Student Affairs Assessment and Research (SAAR), Division of Student Affairs
November 2, 2020
Zoom Meeting Link: https://ufl.zoom.us/rec/share/uFzko3qWZwFU9ITPGbnphDKtsJTZuk2OSYLPiIwiuNKYhc1EFJglvgoqik7bY3wk.WI9muEm7YvK6Imzs?startTime=1604338421000
Grant Writing Educational Data
The Education Schools Project
Educating Researchers by Arthur Levine
National Science Foundation
Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences Directorate, Rebuilding the Mosaic
U.S. Department of Education
IES National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance
National Assessment of IDEA–Overview
U.S. Department of Education
IES National Center for Education Statistics Reports
- Comparative Indicators of Education in the United States and Other G-8 Countries: 2011
- Condition of Education 2014
- Dropouts, Completers and Graduation Rate Reports
- National Assessment of Educational Progress, The Nation’s Report Card
- Projections of Education Statistics to 2021
- Secondary School Programs and Performance of Students With Disabilities: A Special Topic Report of Findings From the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2)
- State Education Reforms
U.S. Department of Education
Our Future, Our Teachers: The Obama Administration’s Plan for Teacher Education Reform and Improvement
Research Tools
- EZAnalyze — Data Tools for Educators
- Introduction to SPSS
- Lynda.com — Go to the UF Information Technology training page and click on the Lynda.com logo (requires a GatorLink username and password). Lynda.com provides excellent training videos on a variety of topics, including a 5-hour SPSS training.
- myinvestiGator — Requires a GatorLink username and password. The tool is also accessible through myUFL by navigating to Main Menu > myinvestiGator.
Transcription Services
- Landmark Associates
- Transcription Express! or email fasttyping@aol.com
- Daily Transcription
- Transcription Services
- Datagain
- Teresa Abney–email inquiries to teresabney@yahoo.com
- Rev-Transcription, Captions, Translation
Oral Transcription Resources–the following are recommendations for Oral Transcription machines, web-based tools and software.
Dragon is by far the best, but it is trained to your voice, so for multiple interviews the quality will be reduced because you don’t have the benefit of training. Also, you’d need the business version which is pricey (~ $300- $500). Here’s a video about it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuABO8nEX44
Voicebase does machine transcription, with timestamps that can be linked to key words and confidence estimates for accuracy. You upload an audio (or video) file to their server and download the transcript in Word, txt, rtf or srt format. Pricing is not clear from the website. (The company seems to be in transition.)
IBM has a free web-based tool that will accept WAV files and generate text (in a web box that you’d have to copy and paste into a document): https://speech-to-text-demo.mybluemix.net/
The Google Chrome browser has an API that will transcribe audio into text. You need an internet connection because the audio is sent to their speech engines for processing. It’s set up for dictation but you can play an audio recording through the microphone port on your computer. Here’s a video explaining how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDX-RVCmfWU
The newest Mac operating system (El Capitan) does the same thing although you don’t need an active internet connection because the speech recognition is done on your computer. It’s set up for dictation but you can play an audio recording through the microphone port on your computer. Here’s an article about how to do it: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-set-up-dictation-voice-commands-in-os-x-el-.html