It’s been a crazy couple of weeks, but I have some big (and past-due) updates!
So far, I have completed three interviews (the PMA president, the PMA Festival Officer, and one of the professors in charge of JazzFest) all of which left me with a substantial body of information to sift through. I’m currently in the slow-but-steady process of reviewing and transcribing these interviews.
JazzFest 48 is also over and seemed to be a great success. As usual I had a lot of fun attending the performances, but I also had the pleasure to sit in on the rehearsals and clinics, which gave me an exclusive behind-the-scenes look into the festival from the music students’ perspective.
There’s a lot of work to be done in the weeks ahead, including follow-up interviews and archival research. I have set tentative deadlines that I really hope to stick to. With the stress of midterms behind me, I plan to front load the work for this class in hopes that I will have more time later in the semester to devote to actually creating and polishing my website.
Still, I am very excited to really start digging deeper and analyzing this festival. From my observations of the festival itself, I already feel like I have a better understanding of the JazzFest from the perspective of both the audience and the performers/participants/organizers.
Tanya
Awesome! Looking forward to your project 🙂
Tanya
Tanya
By the way, could you share your experience with the IRB? Right now I’m having some difficulty getting my interview questions approved, and I’d love to hear what other classmates have experienced regarding this. Thanks!
Tanya
Drew
Thanks Tanya!
So I had a lot of the same issues as you did (if I remember correctly from Tuesday’s class). I asked someone from the IRB and a few professors and they all said that it was “journalistic in nature” and that I wouldn’t have to submit an application or my questions at all… So far this has ONLY been the case for me/Truman State University, which is confusing because everyone else in our class does at their universities. Anyway, I would suggest consulting with a professor or someone in the IRB office who is familiar with the process and can help you word everything in the most appropriate way possible so you can get your project approved (at Truman, they ask researchers to attach any questions, surveys, tests, etc. at the end of the actual IRB application, and sometimes they send things back for revision or clarification, which is annoying but not unheard of).
Hopefully that helps a little bit. Like I said, my experience with the IRB turned out to be different than everyone else’s so far, but when I have submitted IRB applications for other projects in the past, that’s pretty much what I did.
Good luck!
Tanya
Thanks for that! I feel better now. I finally got my approvals yesterday (just in time before my school’s spring break!) so I can finally move on with my project. It took a week and a half and ended up being exempt from the more rigorous requirements. Anyway, good luck on your project.
Drew
Yeah, the “exempt” form complicated things even more… I’m glad you figured everything out though. Good luck to you as well!