Central course website for MC 451 Research Methods in Mass Media and MC 501 at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. The Hub integrates the textbook, R workbook, Methods Vault, and all course resources into a single site.
Live site: https://sim-lab-siue.github.io/liaison-program/
Instructor: Dr. Alex P. Leith (aleith@siue.edu)
| Section | Description |
|---|---|
| Home | Course overview, quick-start cards, ecosystem map |
| Syllabus | MC 451 (Spring 2026) and MC 501 (Fall 2026) |
| Phases | Five progressive modules: Journalist, Architect, Builder, Analyst, Publisher |
| Workbook | 7-chapter R workbook with narrated video walkthroughs (embedded) |
| Textbook Preview | Fall 2026 edition of From Vibes to Variables — 22-chapter outline |
| Methods Vault | Obsidian workspace template — download, setup, and usage guide |
| Resources | Software installation guides, downloadable assets, FAQ |
| Phase | Role | Focus | Weeks | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | The Journalist | Reading journals, critical thinking, GitHub setup | 1–15 | 150 |
| II | The Architect | Software setup, archive research, project planning | 2–4 | 125 |
| III | The Builder | Ethics, theory, codebook, sampling, pilot testing | 5–12 | 250 |
| IV | The Analyst | R programming: wrangling, visualization, inference | 13–15 | 225 |
| V | The Publisher | Final web portfolio: PDF + GitHub Pages | 16–17 | 250 |
The workbook lives inside the site at workbook/ with a docked sidebar for chapter navigation:
| Chapter | Title |
|---|---|
| 1 | From Vibes to Variables: Building Your Quantitative Codebook |
| 2 | Data Collection: Consistency at Scale |
| 3 | Meet R and RStudio |
| 4 | Data Wrangling: Import, Diagnose, Clean, Export |
| 5 | Describing Data: Tables and Visualizations |
| 6 | Inferencing Data: Testing Relationships |
| 7 | Publishing Your Research: Quarto Books & GitHub Pages |
Each chapter opens with a narrated video walkthrough generated by Orator using a fine-tuned F5-TTS voice clone.
- R Workbook — 7 chapters + 2 appendices with embedded narrated videos
- Methods Vault — downloadable Obsidian workspace with journals, project folders, and offline textbook chapters
- Textbook preview — Fall 2026 edition chapter listing with part-by-part structure
- Installation guides for R/RStudio, VS Code, Git/GitHub, GitHub Desktop, and Obsidian
- Syllabi for MC 451 (Spring 2026) and MC 501 (Fall 2026)
- Phase module pages with learning objectives, weekly breakdowns, and assignment descriptions
- Quarto (v1.4 or later)
quarto renderOutput goes to docs/. Open docs/index.html in your browser.
quarto preview| Project | Description | Link |
|---|---|---|
| vibes-to-variables | Open textbook — From Vibes to Variables (2nd Ed., 22 chapters) | Read Online | GitHub |
| coursepackR | R package — helper functions, unified_music dataset, weekly templates |
Docs | GitHub |
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.