RESEARCH QUESTION: Does Online "Working Out Work" as a Treatment and Prevention for Depression in Older Adults? An Analysis of a Prescribed and Monitored Exercise Program Administered via the Internet for Senior Adults with Depression.
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to investigate and access the effectiveness of an online prescribed and monitored exercise program for the treatment of depression in Older Adults. The Dependent Variable for the study is Depression. The Independent Variable for the study is the Effects of Exercise administered via the Internet and the population is geriatric adults defined as senior adults aged 50 and older. Depression is defined by Princeton University Scholars (Wordnet, 2006) as a mental state characterized by a pessimistic sense of inadequacy and a despondent lack of activity.
METHODS: The presence and severity of depression will be assessed by using The Merck Manual of Geriatrics (GDS-15) Geriatric Depression Scale. Assessments will be performed at baseline, before and after the treatment is concluded. The subjects will complete the Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (PAR-Q) prior to participating in an exercise program three times per week.
LIMITATIONS OF RESEARCH: The limitations of this study are: 1) There is a small sample size limited to Senior Adults aged 50 - 80, and 2) there is no control group with structured activity or placebo, therefore researcher is unable to evaluate if the marked improvement was due to a non-specific therapeutic effect associated with taking part in a social activity (group online exercise program). Further research could compare and analyze the positive effects of a muscular strength training exercise program verses a cardiovascular training exercise program.

This applied project investigates the methods, modes, and tools used to communicate between different audiences at Divine Unity Community Church (DUCC) to create a communication guide. Communication is an integral part of the church’s function and effectiveness, not only externally to the congregation and surrounding community, but also internally to ministers, leaders, and volunteers. As the church continues to grow, it has struggled to maintain a consistent, efficient, and scalable communication culture. To document and sustain the communication culture, I drafted a communication guide that provides a comprehensive explanation of the church’s culture and tools for communicating in different contexts. The guide was developed with feedback from focus groups and observations of DUCC’s communication practices, and is being used as a training resource for leaders and volunteers.

For more than 50 years, my aunt was a professional chef and baker who catered hundreds of events and owned a bakery before retiring. Her recipes have never been formally documented and are rarely shared because only she knows them. The purpose of the cooking website content strategy was to document five decades’ worth of my family’s recipes and write a cooking website content strategy report that will be used in the future to create the cooking website. Creating the website preserves the recipes and provides a resource that can be cited and referred to by future generations of my family. The cooking website applied project consists of a website content strategy report, including a social media strategy and website designs, documented recipes and oral histories, content audit, and content analysis.

This report aims to provide The Arts Partnership, an arts-based non-profit organization in the Fargo, ND-Moorhead, MN area, with recommendations on improving its “Connecting the Dots” weekly e-newsletter. The research was conducted using three separate channels – a quantitative survey of the current e-newsletter recipients, a qualitative coding exercise to uncover themes in each e-newsletter, and an analysis of the top-clicked links in each e-newsletter. The original research, combined with information gleaned from the literature review, results in seven recommendations The Arts Partnership can implement into its current program. These recommendations include reducing the amount of HTML in each e-newsletter to avoid SPAM traps, keeping the email as scannable as possible, maintaining its subscriber base to eliminate waste, ensuring its e-newsletters are mobile-responsive, improving the subject line of the e-newsletters, and finally, considering using a different email program that provides more features The Arts Partnership can use to continue to improve its newsletters.

The purpose of this applied project was to research potential methods for conducting performance and evaluation observations on users of Positive Train Control (PTC) and recommend the most effective measures of performance (MOPs) and measures of efficiency (MOEs) of those users. I conducted a study to collect and analyze what data could be observed and examined most effectively to produce causal explanations of behaviors when utilizing the PTC system. This study was done through literature review, interviews of PTC users and trainers, and through direct observations as I rode on trains watching crews interact with the system. Additionally, I researched several studies on human computer interface (HCI) usability studies of various software applications. Based upon the results, I recommend that direct-participant observations be employed and apply both the system and individual MOPs and MOEs identified in the report to track user’s proficiency. The data collected from these observations can be centralized and used to identify behavioral trends, drive corrective actions, create future policies as well as training content. These observations will address the need to have structured observations which allow observers to focus undistracted on the specific behaviors that affect train operations. This database would also identify employees that may need additional or refresher training.

Operational materials--the procedural guidelines provided to front line employees of Banner Bank--act as a guide to completing complex banking transactions. Being able to successfully navigate these materials and complete the complex transactions are essential to meeting both the client's expectations and maintaining federal regulations. However, employees have noted a lack of usability with these materials, resulting in confusion and frustration while trying to navigate the operational materials to successfully complete client requests. Employees who try to use these guides commit errors that result in negative client impact, as well as putting the bank at risk for being out of compliance with federal regulations. To analyze and address this situation, I designed a usability test and deployed a survey given to division branch management.

This report details the communication training workshop from inception to implementation. The overall goal of the workshop was to give the company's internal employees the tools necessary to effectively communicate with the organization's external employees. Developing the workshop required first determining the organization's key challenges. From there it was necessary to identify which of those challenges would be improved through improved communication. The observation method was used to research where communication between internal and external employees commonly broke down. Once the significant communication challenges were identified, the workshop was developed and implemented. This report examines the effectiveness of the workshop in detail and outlines both the successes and the challenges the workshop faced. There are detailed plans to improve the workshop as well as a thorough explanation as to why permanent implementation of Communication Training Workshop will be beneficial to the organization.