All 2020 courses will be offered online

March 27, 2020

A decision has been made to offer all of the 2020 ICPSR Summer Program workshops and courses online, in accord with the willingness of the instructors to do so.

FOUR-WEEK SESSIONS

Based upon actions taken by the University of Michigan to eliminate classroom instruction on campus this summer, we have decided that both of our four-week sessions usually held in Ann Arbor will be offered online only. We are working with the instructors on preparing for this transition and conducting their courses online. The First Session workshop “Network Analysis I: Introduction” will now be offered from 3-5 p.m. from June 22 – July 17, 2020. We will announce any additional changes to the four-week session schedule via our usual channels.

In light of this move to online instruction, we are also reducing the fees for our four-week sessions, according to the following schedule:

We understand that participants were looking forward to visiting Ann Arbor this summer to participate in courses in person and may not be satisfied with remote instructions. Other personal circumstances may require withdrawal. We will abide by our standard rebate policies for withdrawal from courses by those who have paid in advance, namely:

Applicants may completely withdraw from a four-week session and receive a full refund if done before 8:00 a.m. on the first day of the session (June 22, 2020 for the First Session and July 20, 2020 for the Second Session). Cancellation after 8:00 a.m. on the first day of a session is subject to a late withdrawal fee of $500. There will be no refunds for withdrawal after 6:00 p.m. on the second day of each session (Tuesday, June 23, 2020 for the First Session and Tuesday, July 21, 2020 for the Second Session).

SHORT WORKSHOPS

The ICPSR Summer Program has also decided it will not hold any of its 2020 short workshops in-person. We are currently working with our short workshop instructors to deliver their workshops remotely via online delivery methods to registered participants during the same dates and times that the workshop was originally scheduled.

The following short workshops have been cancelled for 2020:

• Field Experiments
• Analyzing Intensive Longitudinal Data: A Guide to Diary, Experience Sampling, and Ecological Momentary Assessment Methods
• Qualitative Research Methods
• Providing Social Science Data Services: Strategies for Design and Operation
• Exploring and Analyzing Monitoring the Future Data: A Primer
• Latent Class, Latent Profile, and Latent Transition Analysis
• The Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study Data User Workshop
• Efficient Methods for Reproducible Research: A Workflow for Data Analysis

Since the instructional methods for the above short workshops rely heavily on in-person interactions, the instructors believed it better to cancel the workshops rather than offer a virtual course that may not offer the same exemplary level of instruction as would be provided in-person. The ICPSR Summer Program supports the decision of its workshop instructors to cancel their workshops for 2020. The ICPSR Summer Program will provide a full fund of registration fees for participants who have paid their registration fees in advance for a cancelled workshop. We will announce any additional cancellations via our usual channels.

We have also reduced our registration fees for our online short workshops:

Please note that if you paid the higher, in-person registration fee before this policy was announced, we will automatically provide you with a refund of the difference within two weeks. Feel free to contact the Summer Program staff if you have any questions about these plans or policies.

In our deliberations, we paid attention to advice from the CDC and other federal agencies and in accord with federal policies; decisions made by the University of Michigan with regard to their intent to allow in person or remote instruction; and the feasibility of pursuing alternative strategies, including our ability to offer appropriate technical support to instructors and participants.  We understand that networking during the Summer Program and participating in the social activities we ordinarily offer have been important parts of the Ann Arbor experience. We will offer multiple opportunities for online networking and casual interactions that are consistent with the health threat we face and the actions that are necessary to minimize the effects of the pandemic.

Mar 27, 2020

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