Research Support and Facilities
The Department of Communication encourages graduate students to become involved in research as soon as possible in order to develop conceptual and methodological skills. Such involvement frequently results in the co-authoring of grant proposals, journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers with faculty and fellow students. A variety of resources are available on campus to support graduate research.
UCSB offers instruction, research, and professional training in more than 40 fields of study. It is also home to a number of national research centers (e.g., Institute for Theoretical Physics, National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis), organized research units (e.g., Center for Chicano Studies, Community and Organization Research Institute), and faculty laboratories. Recently, the Center for Communication and Social Policy was established to support research in the areas of media and public policy, such as projects on the internet, media censorship, rating systems for media content, and educational programming.
The Donald C. Davidson Library houses approximately 2.2 million books and bound journals. In addition, the library has an excellent collection of technical reports, government documents, maps, satellite imagery, and microformat materials. Services also include: computerized access to the catalogs of all nine UC libraries; computerized access to citations in bibliographic data bases of recent social science, humanities, and physical sciences literature; and terminals connected to the main computer center.
The Humanities and Social Sciences Computing (HSSC) facility provides statistical and computer consulting to graduate students and faculty in the social sciences and humanities. Numerous computers with access to the internet and the World Wide Web are available on a drop in basis. These systems are equipped with the latest versions of a variety of major software packages for statistical analyses, spreadsheets, word processing, and graphic presentations.
The Department of Communication also has laboratory space to conduct interviews, observe communication behavior, and code videotapes. The Interaction Analysis Laboratory includes video and sound board equipment (including two wall-mounted video cameras with dual taping capabilities) in a simulated living environment, cubicles for individually completing questionnaires, and several coding stations to analyze videotapes nonverbally and verbally.
The Department also has a graduate computing lab for statistical analysis and document preparation; an experimentation lab with 5 multi-media networked rooms; a digital editing computer; a conference room with overhead projection and live Internet connection; and software and hardware for measuring physiological responses to communication stimuli.