UROP Research Mentor Project Submission Portal: Submission #489

Submission information
Submission Number: 489
Submission ID: 8716
Submission UUID: f8143825-0d9f-4c96-ab1e-bcd64a2e4dd0

Created: Fri, 08/18/2023 - 02:46 PM
Completed: Fri, 08/18/2023 - 03:17 PM
Changed: Mon, 08/28/2023 - 08:43 AM

Remote IP address: 104.57.138.135
Submitted by: Anonymous
Language: English

Is draft: No
Primary Research Mentor Name Richard Waters
Research Mentor Preferred Pronouns
When potential research assistants are reaching out via email, what is your preferred honorific? Dr. but really prefer first name
Contact Email (FSU Email if affiliated) rdw22@fsu.edu
Position Title Faculty
FSU College (if applicable) Communication and Information
FSU Department or Non-FSU Organization Affiliation School of Communication
Headshot (optional) OptionA.jpg
Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from above)
Research Assistant Supervisor Preferred Pronouns
Research Assistant Supervisor Preferred Honorific?
Contact Email (FSU Email if affiliated)
Name of Other Faculty/Collaborator(s) (if applicable)
Other Faculty/Collaborator(s) Preferred Pronouns
Other Faculty/Collaborator(s) Preferred Honorific?
Contact Email (FSU Email if affiliated)
Title of the Project Examining the Priorities of the Smithsonian Institution's Giving Pledge Letters
Project Keywords Philanthropy; Communication Campaigns; Content Analysis; Nonprofit Sector
Are you currently looking for research assistants? Yes
Number of Research Assistants Needed 2
Relevant Research Assistant Major(s) Open to all majors
Project Location: On FSU Main Campus
If the project location is off campus, does the research assistant(s) need to provide their own transportation? No, the project is remote
Please select the choice that most accurately describes your expectations for the research assistant(s): Partially Remote
Approximately how many hours a week would the research assistant(s) need to work? 5-10
Roughly what time frame do you expect research assistant(s) to work? Flexible schedule (Combination of business and outside of business. TBD between student and research mentor.)
Overall Research Project Description This project involves reading the 75 Giving Pledge letters from the Smithsonian Institution critically to examine what the major philanthropic donors from around the world have as their nonprofit priorities. The project will require the students to work together with the professor to create the questions that will be used to analyze the letters. Questions, such as nonprofit missions stated, personal background of the donors and their pledge amounts, are likely to be ones that will me developed and entered into Qualtrics so they can be analyzed remotely. The students will ideally work on collecting the data in the Fall semester and putting together a research paper in the Spring semester for submission to an academic journal.

The student will mostly help with the literature review and data collection. I'll work with the student to develop research questions to analyze the Giving Pledge letters and devise a content analysis codebook to use in the analysis of the 2010-2023 letters. We will work on achieving interceder reliability by coding several letters together. When that is achieved students will work independently and remotely. An internet connection is needed to access the Giving Pledge Letters website and Qualtrics to analyze data. No special library training is required. I want students to work on the project in the areas that they wish to, as well. Data collection via coding the letters is a must, but if students want to help analyze data, I'm glad to help them learn those skills. I would
like to see the data collected by the end of January 2024 to allow us to write up results by mid-April.
Research Tasks Literature Review, Data collection (content analysis), Data analysis if the student wants to learn basic statistics
Skills that research assistant(s) may need: The main thing that is needed is an interest in exploring what global philanthropists are focused on with their donations. This can be due to advancing personal career interests by better understanding technology company's social responsibility efforts, better understanding the nonprofit sector domestically and globally, or simply wanting to get a better visino of what the future of global philanthropy looks like.
Mentoring Philosophy I like working with undergrads who are interested in learning about research methods, especially content analysis. We will meet in-person or via Zoom depending on our schedules so that we stay on track to meet the April, 2024, deadline. This is not my project. It is our project. I want the students to take ownership of the project and be proud of their work. I want to challenge the students to write a research article that we can publish in a nonprofit-focused research journal.
Please provide a link to your publications, a video clip, or a website for your research project (if applicable): https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2B9WhRcAAAAJ&hl=en
Please add any additional information here (if applicable):
Roundtable times and Zoom links https://fsu.zoom.us/j/93786138126 on Sep 6, 2023, 05:00 PM Eastern Time
Mentor Handbook, FAQs, and Communication Yes
UROP Performance Evaluation Yes
Materials Grant Yes
UROP Poster Presentation Yes
Year 2023
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