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One hundred and twenty-five people completed our online questionnaire for the planned 2010 NZSSN Summer Short Course Programme. Thank you all very much for your valuable input. The lucky winner of a free course enrolment has been notified by email.
In terms of location, the results were uncannily exactly the same as last year: 89 respondents opting for Wellington and 32 for Auckland. Demand for a South Island location was up, with 12 participants suggesting the Universities of Canterbury and/or Otago as alternative/new location for our courses. Similarly with regards to timing, the exact same number as last year (84) opted for the usual February time slot vs 40 for the winter option. Considering that we have already started preparing for courses planned for February, it is still only feasible for us to run one set of courses per year, so it is good to get feedback in this mutually exclusive way. We provided a list of courses that would likely be run in the upcoming programme, divided into two weeks, allowing for progression options between the weeks where possible. The combinations are subject to change based on responses to our marketing efforts and the courses that the most people are interested in. This time around we included three new courses in the suggested mix, as well as the follow-up to last programme's Introductory Analysis of Linked Health Data and a second attempt at running the special Research Synthesis for Policy and Practice course. The numbers were especially good for Using Mixed Methods in Research and Program Evaluation (30) in week one, and Introduction to NVivo (28) in week two. There was also an indication of high demand for the NVivo course in last year's questionnaire and we ended up cancelling the course for lack of demand – but at this point it looks likely for a revival. For the second week options suggested there were actually good numbers across the board. More details are tabulated below for all courses. Finally, we asked for further course topics and/or general comments on NZSSN's short course programmes. There were a few ideas around more advanced courses on software packages (SPSS, Stata) and general requests for more information, which will be posted on the site when it is available; in the meantime, descriptions of courses run in the last NZSSN Summer Programme are available from the Short Courses page. Thank you to all of our respondents! There were also some general encouraging comments, and these are most appreciated. 
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