Welcome to the course

COMM 411 Public Opinion Research.

First of all, this is a hybrid course (half online, half onsite). We will meet face-to-face in the official classroom (RVAC 102) Wednesdays from 9 to 10:35 am. The online part of the course will be asynchronous. In case you do not know, asynchronous means, in the context of online teaching, that we will NOT meet at regular times as a group. In the online section of this course, you will have to work independently.

The first onsite meeting (RVAC 102) is Wednesday, January 17th.

In this Welcome Message, I will discuss the contents of the course, the readings and other learning material, as well as the grading elements. You can find online all the material you need to success in the course. You will have the flexibility to work whenever you can plan it in your schedule. It is, thus, very important that you regularly (at least once a day) log in to Blackboard Learn in order to keep up to date.

This course will, first of all, give you an idea of the nature of the social-psychological phenomenon we call public opinion and its role in contemporary democratic societies. Still, the main focus of the course will be public opinion research. You will learn the essentials to study and interpret how the public may feel about the different issues.

The first step should be to carefully read the syllabus of the course (available in the course’s main menu). Then, you should to start exploring the learning units in the course’s contents area.

In this Web-site, you can find all the contents of the course, as well as the necessary resources.

You should keep the link in your favorites. You can access it directly from any device since it is not within the Blackboard Learn environment:

510.jcdelama.info

Personal Introduction

My name is Jose Carlos del Ama.
Although I originally come from Spain, I have spent the most important part of my life and academic career in Germany. I received my PhD from the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. Before I came to the United States in 2003, I had been teaching and researching in Spain at the Universidad de Navarra (Pamplona) and in Germany at the above mentioned university. My emphasis areas of teaching and research are, in addition to strategic communication, Mass Media effects research, public opinion, persuasive communication, new technologies and Web publishing.
More information about the instructor, you can find out in this link:
Jose Carlos del Ama

Course Contents

In the course’s main menu (in Blackboard Learn), you can find a link that takes you to the Web-site’s homepage. In the main menu, you can find the two main subjects this course will cover:

“Public Opinion Theory”,

“Public Opinion Research I: Questionnaire Design”

“Public Opinion Research II: Data Analysis and Interpretation”

The dropdown menus in both tags will show you all the course’s learning units

You should start exploring the contents as soon as possible. Since you have to start immediately doing research for your case studies.
As I said in the syllabus, this online course is reading intensive. You will find the contents in three main formats:
Online Lectures (HTML documents and audiovisual files)
Readings (mostly PDF documents)
Streaming Media (videos)
There will be no textbook in this course
ALL THE CONTENTS OF THE LEARNING MODULES ARE RELEVANT FOR THE COURSE AND WILL BE RELEVANT FOR THE WRITING ASSIGNMENTS, THE WEEKLY DISCUSSIONS AND THE FINAL EXAM.

Grading

Grading in the class will be based on a number of elements. They are

• CITI Certificate (10%
• Midterm Exam (20%)
• Public Opinion Research Case Study (25%)
  • Presentation (5%)
  • Paper (20%)
• Public Opinion Research Project (40%)
• Participation (5%)

You can find a detailed description of every grading element in the “assignments” page

Extra Help

For the first time, I will simultaneously run a research program. Students can volunteer to participate in this project. If you join the project, you will participate in all the phases of a real public opinion research project (definition of the research question, questionnaire design, data gathering, data processing and interpretation).

This voluntary assignment would never have a negative impact on your final grade. If you decide to participate, I will add a grading element to your final grade (if you get a B, it will be upgraded to B+; if B+, to A-, etc).

Interaction with the Instructor

Please, use the “Contact the Instructor” area in the course’s main menu to ask questions related to this course. I am in Blackboard Learn several hours every day and check regularly your messages.
Please, check the announcements every day.
Good luck!

Technical Issues with Blackboard Learn

If you have any technical issue with the online learning system, please contact the help-desk at CCSU (860) 832 1720.