Data Collection
I was responsible for collecting and auditing data of Ph.D. faculty who joined with the title of Assistant Professor within the last three years. We collected this data to understand how other universities are hiring Assistant Professors, which journals ranks there are publishing in, and how many they published. My team and I had to audit 29 schools in ten different disciplines. I used excel to create a database of all the faculty and label different data points which include their name, year joined, where and when they received their Ph.D., and their journal rankings, years published.
After collecting the data I had to make a distribution sheet that analyzed everyone’s findings in a simple, easy-to-read format. The sheet included a summary of each faculty and their journal rankings, if applicable. I learned how to search different sheets within excel using the Vlookup function to make my data collection work easier and faster. I also integrated the IF and IFNA function within Vlookup to let excel know of my conditional statements and the IFNA to trap errors. I finished this research project within two weeks and the data was presented to the faculty in time. Not only did I learn the different functions of excel, but I was also able to put my time management skill to test and my ability to ask for help when needed. With the short deadline of the project, I made sure I collected enough data for each discipline to have an impact on the research and move on to the next school/discipline.
