Educational Resources
2008 Summer Workshops
These courses will be offered in 2008:
- BJS Workshop on Quantitative Analysis of Crime and Criminal Justice, June 23 - July 18, 2008
- Workshop on the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN), June 16-20, 2008
See below for further information, and visit the ICPSR Summer Program site from January, 2008, for application materials and deadlines. Admission is on a rolling basis.
Criminal Justice Summer Workshops
The National Archive of Criminal Justice Data offers educational opportunities through its parent organization, the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). ICPSR sponsors a Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research, which offers a comprehensive, integrated program of studies in research design, statistics, data analysis, and social methodology. The Summer Program offers courses during two four-week sessions, with instruction organized in lecture, seminar, and workshop formats.
BJS Workshop on Quantitative Analysis of Crime and Criminal Justice Data
An intensive seminar on Quantitative Analysis of Crime and Criminal Justice Data, sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, covers substantive issues addressed by a number of Bureau of Justice (BJS) datasets, such as recent reductions in crime and increases in imprisonment. Also evident in these datasets are methodological issues concerning new measures of criminal offending, reliable and valid instrumentation design, accuracy of event reporting, administrative record data sampling, missing data imputation, and standard error calculation for multistage sampling designs. Seminar sessions will focus on these substantive and methodological issues through the use of didactic lectures, discussions with guest speakers, computerized problem-solving exercises, and the development and execution of a research report using the available data.
Workshop on the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN)
The Workshop on the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) is a five-day course focusing on the development, implementation, and data products of PHDCN. Initiated by the National Institute of Justice, the PHDCN developed into a multi-disciplinary and multi-agency funded project that combined two studies into a single, comprehensive ten-year research program to: (1) study Chicago's neighborhoods, including their social, economic, organizational, political, and cultural structures; and (2) follow 7,000 randomly selected children, adolescents, and young adults over three points in time. The workshop instructors will cover the project's designs, questionnaires, sampling frames, and data components. Workshop lecturers will present alternative approaches to modeling these data based upon hierarchical, longitudinal, and spatial techniques. The course participants will have the opportunity to reproduce work presented in the lectures and conduct their own analyses addressing questions that interest them using research-ready data files.
Enrollment in the course is limited. Applications must include a vita and cover letter summarizing research interests, course objectives, and experience. Stipend support of up to $1,200 is available for a limited number of students.
Selected participants will need IRB approval prior to the start of the workshop from their home institution if they plan to continue their research with PHDCN data beyond the workshop. Please include the IRB approval with the application if available. More information about PHDCN is available.
Workshop Eligibility
Researchers from colleges and universities, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies are eligible to participate in these workshops. Participants are selected on the basis of their interests in the topical area, prior methodological training, and potential for research contributions to the topical area.
Application Materials and Deadlines
Acceptance into both the criminal justice workshops is competitive.
Selected applicants to the four-week workshop receive stipend support from NACJD to offset transportation, course materials, and per diem expenses. There are three components required for application to the four-week workshop:
- A completed ICPSR Summer Program application.
- A resume or vita.
- A cover letter stating the nature of your interest in the course, the elements of your background that have prepared you for the course, and how you plan to use what you learn from the course.
The NIJ-sponsored courses are typically free to selected applicants. A limited number of spots may also be available for paying applicants. The application consists of a completed ICPSR Summer Program application, and a resume or vita.
Application materials and deadline dates are available from the ICPSR Summer Program Web site. The deadline for applying is in early spring. Applicants are responsible for obtaining the exact dates from the ICPSR Web site.
Further Information
Questions specific to the criminal justice workshops can be directed to:
Director, National Archive of Criminal Justice Data
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
University of Michigan
P.O. Box 1248
Ann Arbor, MI 48106
Phone: 1-800-999-0960
E-mail: nacjd@icpsr.umich.edu
