March 23, 2020
CARMA announces its first response to the global crisis created by COVID-19, now making available to anyone free access to CARMA’s Video Library and its extensive archive of recorded lectures and panel sessions on research methods topics. These recordings were previously available only to faculty and students whose universities were members of CARMA Institutional Premium and Basic Membership Programs. They will be available for those who register for our new CARMA Care Package through the CARMA website: https://carmattu.wpengine.com
As background for the decision to create the CARMA Care Package, since established in 1997 CARMA has cared about the people it serves and those who serve them. These people include graduate students taking statistics/research methods courses and conducting research for presentation/publication or for use towards program degree requirements. These people also include the instructors and faculty who teach their courses and supervise their research. Sadly, the current Coronavirus crisis has impacted these students and faculty in many ways, including restricting access to some of the resources used to meet educational needs as classes have been temporarily cancelled and/or moved to on-line delivery. In many instances, access to university facilities has also been limited, and conferences of professional associations have been cancelled or postponed.
In response, CARMA is pursuing new means through which it can contribute to helping these needs be met. Toward this end, the CARMA Care Package allows free access until July 15, 2020, to our CARMA Video Library that is normally limited for access to only members of our Institutional Membership Programs and the AOM Doctoral Student Development Program. The CARMA Video Library includes over 150 video/audio recordings made since 2004, including lectures and panel sessions, covering a wide variety of introductory and advanced quantitative/qualitative methods topics. Presenters included in these recordings include distinguished career award winners, journal editors and editorial board members, and leaders from several professional associations. A full list of the contents of the CARMA Video Library can be found here.
To obtain this free access to our CARMA Care Package, a person must be a registered CARMA Website User. If one is not currently registered as a CARMA Website User, faculty and students must first register (NO FEE) as a CARMA Website User and obtain a password allowing access to their User Area. “https://carma.azurewebsites.net/account/register”. Once registered, in their User Area they can follow steps required to register for the free CARMA Care Package.
Let me also add that in addition to creating the CARMA Care Package, in response to the Coronavirus crisis CARMA has also decided to offer its upcoming set of CARMA Short Courses live on-line rather than in-person. These Short Courses cover introductory and advanced quantitative and qualitative topics and are offered during April, May, and June. Further, members of many professional associations may now receive a discounted registration fee. For more information on our Short Courses visit the CARMA Website: https://carmattu.wpengine.com/short-courses/.
We hope our new CARMA Care Package, with its free access to the CARMA Video Library, and our now live on-line Short Courses will help graduate students and faculty as they navigate these difficult times while pursuing their education and research. Learning and the pursuit of new knowledge remain important even given the health, economic, and social challenges of now and the future. Please let us know if we can help in other ways, good luck in all you are involved with, take care and be safe.
Dr. Larry J. Williams, CARMA Director, on behalf of the entire CARMA Team