The School of Communication Studies supports a vast array of faculty and student research interests. Members of the Communication Studies community have access to research resources enabling archival, observational, survey, and experimental research in all areas of interpersonal and organizational communication. Some of our research-related facilities include video-conferencing equipment, a computer laboratory, a public speaking laboratory (in development), and an array of analytical software. Also, the School actively seeks to develop and maintain collaborative relationships with entities both on and off campus to maximize accessibility to allied research facilities.
Dedicated research support is also available from several centers on campus. These centers include:
Center for Information and Communication Studies
In addition to supporting many of the research initiatives in the College of Communication and Information, the Center provides assistance in seeking, developing, and managing external grant proposals. Center-supported researchers have conducted projects for the federal government, state and local governments, and business and industry. Projects have ranged from strategic planning efforts to information system and service evaluations, to modeling of scientific and technical communication.
Statistical Consulting Center
The mission of the statistical consulting center is to help UT students, faculty, and staff enhance the quality of their research by working together to effectively apply analytical methods, especially statistics. Other areas that the Center supports include web-based surveys, text analysis, data mining, and graphics. The center offers a variety of services in support of this mission.
Data Services
Data Services, maintained by Hodges Library, assists researchers in accessing data from secondary data sources.
Funding
Funding for research is supported by several different campus units. In addition to the external funding support offered by the Center for Information and Communication Studies, the School of Communication Studies offers internal grants and graduate student assistance in support of faculty research. The College of Communication and Information offers limited financial support for faculty research. In addition, the University offers an extensive array of research incentive funds.