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Services We Provide

Statistical & Computing Consultation

The department's overall computing infrastructure is supported by 4 full-time professional computing staff and an experienced team of undergraduate and graduate student associates who remain available to assist you with any statistical and computing issues that may arise. Our computer staff conduct workshops on the use of software and equipment and are available for individual instruction and consultation. They also assist with new methods of data analysis, text formatting, and preparation of tables, graphs or charts.

To read more about the high level of technical support we strive to maintain please visit our mission page and, as always, feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.

Printing

In addition to the main departmental copier and personal laser printers found in most offices, the department offers a wide variety of public printing solutions to meet our user's needs.

The Sociology Research Lab is home to 2 black-and-white laser printers capable of duplex (double-sided) printing. The lab also has a wax color printer for producing high-quality color print jobs on paper and transparencies. These printers are networked and accessible to anyone printing from Bricker Hall.

While graduate student offices typically do not have private printers, there is a shared network printer in the graduate student research lab that is capable of duplex (double-sided) printing from any graduate office. This printer is available 24 hours per day.

The Sociology Instructional Lab houses 4 black-and-white laser printers for in-class printing. These printers can also be accessed by students during non-classroom hours.

Departmental E-Mail

Sociology operates a central e-mail server for its graduate students, faculty, staff and other members affiliated with the department. On departmental machines we support the use of Eudora and Thunderbird to access the server, but other e-mail clients can be used outside the department. We even have an online webmail interface which can access the mail on our server from any computer with an Internet connection.

Our e-mail server supports accessing your e-mail using either POP or IMAP technologies. It also features some protection against incoming "possibly-hazardous-to-your-pc" content by implementing virus checking during mail reception. We also try to identify possible "spam" messages and provide tags in the headers to mark possible spam or bulk messages for later special handling by mail client filters.

We encourage all members of the department to talk with one of our computing staff about your e-mail needs and best practices when using the sociology e-mail server.

Hardware Loan

The Sociology Research Lab encourages the use of a variety of hardware items available to graduate students, faculty and staff to checkout on a no-cost basis for short and long-term periods of time. Our goal is to fill voids created by travel and library research, and to accommodate unusual situations. Checkouts for these and other Department-supported purposes will be accepted.

Items available for checkout include laptop and LCD projector kits for department presentations and instruction; personal laptops; cassette recorders and transcribers; digital voice recorders and USB transcriber pedals; and manuals for statistical packages, hardware and other software.

These items are available on a first-come, first-served basis. We also accept reservations in advance. If you are interested in borrowing our equipment please either visit the SRL in person, call us at 614.292.1294, or send e-mail to the Labsters list.

Multimedia Projector Kits

As mentioned in the hardware loan section above, the department offers several 'multimedia' kits comprising a fast laptop, LCD projector, and remote. We also have a limited number of speakers that can be borrowed but are not included with every kit. These kits are only for on-campus class display and for department presentations. They cannot be checked out overnight and must be reserved in advance. Clear documentation on setup is provided with every kit, but you may also contact a Labster for assistance if you desire additional consultation.

Network Drive Storage

The sociology department maintains several servers which provide file storage areas for members of the department. These areas show up as drive letters when you log on to your machine. The X drive is your own private space on our network where no other user accounts have access to the files you store there. We also offer a public S drive which is used for files you wish to share with other people in the department. The I drive holds files used for the department's web site. The department's M drive provides central storage for large datasets that are used widely in the department, as well as some SRL-related files. If you have a large dataset and want to store it on our network, please contact the SRL about your needs.

In addition to the common drives above, we also make special research and administrative shared file storage locations available to groups who request it. Currently we have specialized storage areas in use for administrators as well as research groups who need to restrict access to current participants.

Remote Access

The department offers remote access to certain services via a Virtual Private Network (or VPN). Some users will be able to install a VPN Client on their personal machine that will allow them to log onto our network and access network drives from remote locations as if they were working from their own office. Please contact a computing staff member to learn more about this service.

All department members with a Sociology Username can access network resources from any machine with an Internet connection via our WebVPN Client. The WebVPN Client is essentially a web interface that allows you to download and upload files to your sociology network drives such as X or S. You can also use this tool to use university web-based resources (i.e., JStor or other library research databases) as if you were connecting from a campus location.

Web Consultation

The department maintains its own web server which allows us to offer space for graduate students, faculty and staff to have their own web sites for professional and personal purposes. Members of the department are free to organize and present their information however they see fit, but we also offer site templates and other consultative services for anyone who requests them.

In addition to personal web pages, we may also be able to provide web solutions for facilitating group collaboration, online survey research or other departmentally supported causes. Please see the Department's Web Developer/Coordinator for more information about any of these services.

Carmen/E-Learning Consultation

Carmen is Ohio State's online course management system, where instructors, TAs and students can collaborate and share course materials outside of the traditional classroom-based setting. The Department of Sociology encourages the use of this system by providing a full-time staff member who is trained on all facets of Carmen. Our Carmen Distributed Support Specialist conducts workshops and is available for one-on-one Carmen consultations throughout the academic year. For more information about Carmen please visit Ohio State's Carmen information page.

Digital Scanning

The Sociology Research Lab has a digital flatbed scanner capable of scanning both black-and-white and color materials. It is also equipped with a document feeder for quick and convenient scanning of multiple-page documents. With Adobe Acrobat Reader Professional users can easily convert scanned pages into PDF format, or you can import your work into any other software package necessary. Please see any Labster for help with scanning documents.

Computer Software

To help get your most important work done quickly and efficiently, we offer a wide variety of statistical and productivity software applications to choose from. Most of our standard workstations have the following software packages installed on them: Amos 7, Adobe Acrobat Pro, ArcGIS 9, Eudora, E-Views 5, Firefox, HLM 6, Internet Explorer, JMP 6, JRE 1.5, Limdep 7, LISREL 8, Minitab 14, Microsoft Office, Procite 4, R, SAS 9, SPSS 15, Stata 10, Textpad 4, Thunderbird, VirusScan 8, and WordPerfect 10. We also offer the following software packages on select machines which are clearly marked as such: StatTransfer 8, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Photoshop, among others.

We are always monitoring and evaluating the software needs of the department, so if you are in need of something we don't already have please ask one of our computing staff for assistance.

Recycling

In the Sociology Research Lab we have provided several containers for recycling. Drop by the lab to recycle the following types of products: #1 and #2 plastics, aluminum cans, glass (clear, brown/yellow, green and blue), most types of paper, telephone books, and textbooks. Most university buildings, including Bricker, provide a place to dump old newspapers and cardboard, but unfortunately we cannot accept these in the lab. You may also drop off toner cartridges and old cell phones that will either be disposed of properly or given to charity.