The Researcher's Toolkit is a practical rather than an academic text for all those undertaking, perhaps for the first time, small-scale research. Written by an experienced team of practising researchers, it covers the entire research process - from designing and submitting a research proposal through to its completion. This book is suitable for all researchers, but is particularly designed for those practitioner-based researchers from the fields of education, social work, nursing, criminal justice and community work. This fresh new idea for those conducting small-scale research comes from a team of practising researchers who possess a broad range of experiences and knowledge of research design, execution and completion. They write in a user-friendly style that those researchers new to the subject will find easy to follow and understand. It will act both as a roadmap to planning, execution and completing research and also as a dip-in reference guide. Using features such as activity boxes to highlight key concepts and short summary boxes to indicate fundamental elements of the research area under discussion, this accessible book will be of great value to all who read it.

Urban Public Health grapples with the complexity of the urban setting as a physical and social space while also providing an abundance of global and local examples of current urban health practices.

Searching Skills Toolkit is an expert guide to help you find the clinical evidence you need more easily and effectively. Clearly presented with useful tips and advice, flow charts, diagrams and real-life clinical scenarios, it shows the best methods for finding quality evidence. From deciding where to start, to building a search strategy, refining results and critical appraisal, it is a step-by-step guide to the process of finding healthcare evidence, and is designed for use by all health and social care professionals. This second edition has been expanded with new chapters on searching for sources to support evidence-based management decision making and how to better enable your patients to make informed choices. It has also been fully updated to include new web sources, open source reference management software, and new training resources and exercises. Searching Skills Toolkit is an ideal reference for doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, managers and decision makers, researchers and students.

This book offers a toolkit of methods and technologies to undertake qualitative research on digital spaces. Unlike commonly used traditional methodological strategies, which are ‘retrofitted’ to digital spaces, Qualitative Research in Digital Environments offers researchers a set of ‘digitally native’ tools that are designed for online social environments. Thanks to a broad range of cases including Louis Vuitton, YouTube and the concept of ‘hipsterism’, this text illustrates the practical applications of techniques and tools over the most popular social media environments. This book will be a valuable guide to qualitative research for marketing students, researchers and practitioners, as well as a central reference point for tutors in the growing field of Digital Sociology.

Designed for those undertaking research for the first time, this fully updated edition of The Researcher's Toolkit is a practical and accessible guide for all those partaking in small-scale research. Jargon-free and assuming no prior knowledge, it covers the entire research process, from defining a research topic or question through to its completion. This second edition has been fully revised by a collaborating team with a wealth of knowledge and practical experience in research project work. Including activity boxes to highlight key concepts and short summary boxes to indicate fundamental elements of various research areas, the chapters cover: The importance of research and framing your research question and research ethics Practical elements associated with planning and executing your research activity The application of survey-based research methods and the value provided by social media as data collection devices Deploying both quantitative and qualitative tools and techniques to analyse research data Writing up your research work and preparing it for wider access and consumption Examining the effect of your research work through assessing or measuring its impact The Researcher’s Toolkit is a must-read guide for students and budding researchers as well as educators seeking to explain academic research and writing to their pupils. It will benefit anyone looking to complete a research project whether inside academia or beyond.

Writing high quality grant applications is easier when you know how research funding agencies work and how your proposal is treated in the decision-making process. The Research Funding Toolkit provides this knowledge and teaches you the necessary skills to write high quality grant applications. A complex set of factors determine whether research projects win grants. This handbook helps you understand these factors and then face and overcome your personal barriers to research grant success. The guidance also extends to real-world challenges of grant-writing, such as obtaining the right feedback, dealing effectively with your employer and partner institutions, and making multiple applications efficiently. There are many sources that will tell you what a fundable research grant application looks like. Very few help you learn the skills you need to write one. The Toolkit fills this gap with detailed advice on creating and testing applications that are readable, understandable and convincing.

This book facilitates the completion of action research studies by providing a series of tasks that guide action researchers from the beginning of a project and selecting a topic for study, to completion of the project and editing final reports. All too often, students and practicing professionals in professional development schools are overwhelmed by the thought of doing an action research project and resort to using quasi-experimental designs. A Toolkit for Action Research puts an end to both, with the result being a life-long learning and reflection tool for teachers. This workbook can be used alone, or in conjunction with traditional action research texts, such as Daniel Tomal's Action Research for Educators.

For years, educators have turned to the Hess Cognitive Rigor Matrices (CRM) when it comes to assessment. Now for the first time, the modules are packaged into one resource to help teachers evaluate the quality and premise of their current assessment system.

This old edition was published in 2002. The current and final edition of this book is The Data Warehouse Toolkit: The Definitive Guide to Dimensional Modeling, 3rd Edition which was published in 2013 under ISBN: 9781118530801. The authors begin with fundamental design recommendations and gradually progress step-by-step through increasingly complex scenarios. Clear-cut guidelines for designing dimensional models are illustrated using real-world data warehouse case studies drawn from a variety of business application areas and industries, including: Retail sales and e-commerce Inventory management Procurement Order management Customer relationship management (CRM) Human resources management Accounting Financial services Telecommunications and utilities Education Transportation Health care and insurance By the end of the book, you will have mastered the full range of powerful techniques for designing dimensional databases that are easy to understand and provide fast query response. You will also learn how to create an architected framework that integrates the distributed data warehouse using standardized dimensions and facts.

Metasploit Toolkit for Penetration Testing, Exploit Development, and Vulnerability Research is the first book available for the Metasploit Framework (MSF), which is the attack platform of choice for one of the fastest growing careers in IT security: Penetration Testing. The book will provide professional penetration testers and security researchers with a fully integrated suite of tools for discovering, running, and testing exploit code.This book discusses how to use the Metasploit Framework (MSF) as an exploitation platform. The book begins with a detailed discussion of the three MSF interfaces: msfweb, msfconsole, and msfcli .This chapter demonstrates all of the features offered by the MSF as an exploitation platform. With a solid understanding of MSF's capabilities, the book then details techniques for dramatically reducing the amount of time required for developing functional exploits.By working through a real-world vulnerabilities against popular closed source applications, the reader will learn how to use the tools and MSF to quickly build reliable attacks as standalone exploits. The section will also explain how to integrate an exploit directly into the Metasploit Framework by providing a line-by-line analysis of an integrated exploit module. Details as to how the Metasploit engine drives the behind-the-scenes exploitation process will be covered, and along the way the reader will come to understand the advantages of exploitation frameworks. The final section of the book examines the Meterpreter payload system and teaches readers to develop completely new extensions that will integrate fluidly with the Metasploit Framework. - A November 2004 survey conducted by "CSO Magazine" stated that 42% of chief security officers considered penetration testing to be a security priority for their organizations - The Metasploit Framework is the most popular open source exploit platform, and there are no competing books