[EL] students to research a state or local project for you

[Doug Hess]

Starting in January I will have 40 students in my State and Urban
Politics course. I am considering taking advantage of that number to
assign a single, short research question each student, or pair of
students, would answer for a different city or state. The info they
would gather could then be compiled into a wiki, table (data set), or
perhaps a report that could be released publicly.

So...do you have an interesting research question next year that
requires a national scan of many, or all, states, or many
counties/cities? Or a past report or database you want updated or
expanded? Since it is a federal election year, I thought something
related to election laws or policies might work (see restrictions
below). Email me privately with any ideas.

A good candidate project would fit these criteria:

A. The ability to answer the question cannot be too taxing (they have
other assignments, classes, etc.). The question should be something
that would take just a few emails to officials, a couple hours of
web-based research, or research from library services...and, maybe,
one phone call at most (not as good as email due to costs). Records
requests might work if needed in a few states, but looking up the regs
and pushing the state on them could be beyond our resources.
B. Four to six hours for two locations.
C. The question is not oriented to any particular party, race, or jurisdiction.
D. No costs involved (i.e., no huge records requests, etc.).
E. No human subjects (or animal for that matter).

Again, email me privately.

Thank you and happy Thanksgiving.

Doug