Case Study Guidelines
From COST Action FP0804: FORSYS
Revision as of 06:05, 25 October 2011 by SeanGordon (Talk | contribs)
DRAFT ideas for discussion at Leuven meeting.
Contents
Purpose(s) of Case Studies
- (Forsys general) Produce guidelines for the development and use of forest decision support systems
- Possible audiences: academic, DSS developers, forest managers, DSS funders
- types of case studies: exploratory, descriptive, explanatory
Methods - Theory development
General
- One or more existing theories vs. grounded theory
- If purposes are different, relevant theories will be too
Specific
- Does the adoption and use of DSS vary by problem type?
Methods - Case definition options
- A particular DSS over its lifetime
- The application of a single DSS to a particular problem
- The application of DSS (possibly multiple) in a problem domain (eg fire)
Methods - Selecting studies
General
- Representative sample of problem types
- Replication strategy: same DSS & same context OR same DSS & different contexts OR different DSS & same context, etc
Specific
- asking other FORSYS members preferences; looking at country reports; looking at wiki contents; …lottery
Methods – Data sources & collection methods
- six general sources for case studies: documents, archival records, interviews, direct observation, participant observation, physical artifacts
Reporting results
- Add to wiki
- Publish most developed case studies as journal articles (seek special issue?)