ARC: Connections: ELMAR: Posting

areas: methods: event

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This is the first ELMAR announcement of January online Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) workshops using SmartPLS for faculty, practitioners, and students. Online registration (which can fill up quickly) for the PLS path modeling workshops is now open. We are conducting two online SmartPLS workshops, one on Jan 5-6 (6PM – 10PM EST); and the second one on Jan 8-9 (9AM-1PM EST). The cost for faculty and/or practitioners is $250 (USD). The cost for full-time students is $150 (USD) (using the discount code ‘student7’ while registering for the workshop). If you have any questions about registration, or seek a detailed agenda for the workshops, please read the message below and then contact Geoffrey Hubona at ghubona@cis.gsu.edu.

In cooperation with ELMAR posting this workshop notice, we are holding a lottery for two complete scholarships for graduate students who register for either workshop as a result of seeing this ELMAR notification. We will take the names of all graduate students who register, and randomly select two of them for complete scholarships. In addition to being contacted directly, we will post their names on ELMAR once the winners are announced. In order to be considered for a scholarship: (1) you must be a full-time student; (2) you must register for either workshop; (3) you must register; and (4) you must send an email to ghubona@cis.gsu.edu indicating that you registered and that you wish to be considered for one of the lottery scholarships. We will then select two of those and award each a full fee remission.

Please note that we have increased the contact hours for our workshops to 4 hours on each of two consecutive days. The fees for the workshops remain at: $250 for faculty and practitioners; and $150 for full time graduate students (who should use the discount code ‘student7’ when registering to realize the discount at checkout). If you register as a student, you may be asked to provide evidence of your full-time student status. Also, group discounts for registrations of five or more participants from the same organization may be negotiated. Registration fees are refundable (less a $25 processing charge) if the participant cancels his/her registration up to one week prior to the workshop.

In cooperation with: (1) the University of Hamburg (http://www.uni-hamburg.de) and SmartPLS (http://www.smartpls.de); (2) Radboud University (http://www.ru.nl) and PLS-School (http://www.PLS-school.com); and (3) faculty at Georgia State University (http://www.gsu.edu), we are offering synchronous, live, interactive, video- and audio-supported online workshops for structural equation modeling (SEM) partial least squares (PLS) path modeling using SmartPLS. The live, synchronous, online workshops are conducted using the award-winning eLearning platform Elluminate Live ! The purpose of the online workshops is to inform participants of the uses and applications of PLS path modeling using SmartPLS and to provide live, "hands-on" demonstrations of the basic and intermediate techniques of using SmartPLS.

Each workshop consists of two integrated sessions on two consecutive days. All that is required to participate is a fast, reliable Internet connection (not dial-up) and a set of inexpensive headphones with a microphone (cost: $13 anywhere). There is no cost for participants to use the Elluminate Live ! platform. Participants will receive the SmartPLS software, all training materials, data sets, and slides from the training sessions, and access to high-fidelity reproductions of all of the presented live material after the workshop is completed (on Internet-provided recordings available free of charge for three months following the workshop). These workshop recordings are for individual participant use only, and include all video, audio and "hands-on" demonstrations and exercises.

There are two online SmartPLS Elluminate Live ! workshops scheduled for January, 2010:

1. January 5th and 6th 6:00PM until 10:00PM Eastern Standard Time (visit the following url to register:

   https://www.regonline.com/smartpls-jan-5-6-2010); and

    

2. January 8th and 9th 9:00AM until 1:00PM Eastern Standard Time (visit the following url to register:

   https://www.regonline.com/smartpls-jan-8-9-2010).

   (Note: you may have to copy and paste the above urls into your browser address bar should you encounter an error or a screen requesting a username and password)

The content and agenda for the two workshops is identical and is described on the bottom of this page. Both workshops run for 4 hours on two consecutive days. The only difference is that the second one is offered in the morning (on the East Coast of the United States) for the convenience of participants in the Eastern US, Canada and Europe, whereas the first one is offered in the evening (on the East Coast of the United States), for the convenience of participants in the Western US, Canada, and the Pacific Rim countries, including Japan, China, Malaysia, New Zealand and Australia.

In addition to an introduction to PLS path modeling using SmartPLS, the following topics (in addition to others) are included:

CB-SEM vs. PLS-SEM
SmartPLS Visual Interface
Scale Development
Bootstrapping vs. Jackknifing
Blindfolding
PLS Algorithm
Theory Testing vs. Prediction
Assessment of PLS Path modeling estimates (measurement model and structural model)
    Reflective vs. Formative
Interpreting SmartPLS Output
Overall Goodness-of-Fit
Effect Size
Reflective vs. Formative indicators
Second-order Factor Models
Mediating Factors
     Assessing the effect
Moderating Factors
     Product indicator approach
     Group differences approach
     Three-Way Interactions
     Determining strength of moderating effect
     Two-stage approach
Non-linear Effects
Multi-group Analysis
Heterogeneity, Segmentation and FIMIX-PLS

The workshop agenda approximates the following schedule. There are seven separate learning modules in each workshop, five of which conclude with a “hands-on” exercise using SmartPLS with existing data sets (provided).

DAY 1

1) Introduction to PLS, Latent Constructs, SEM and SmartPLS
2) Basic path modeling with SmartPLS
     Basic path modeling exercise – TAM model data
3) Evaluating PLS path models
     Model evaluation exercise – UTAUT model data

DAY 2

1) PLS algorithm, bootstrapping, jackknifing and blindfolding
2) Mediation
     Mediation exercise – Social presence model data
3) Moderating variables
     Moderation exercise – UTAUT moderating relationships
4) Second order models, multi-group analysis, heterogeneous data and FIMIX-PLS
     FIMIX-PLS exercise – UTAUT heterogenous data

Your instructor for these SEM SmartPLS workshops will be Dr. Geoffrey Hubona. Please send an email to Geoffrey Hubona (ghubona@cis.gsu.edu) should you have any questions about these SmartPLS workshops or if you want a more detailed agenda. More information about Geoffrey Hubona and his background may be viewed at http://www.cis.gsu.edu/~ghubona.

Geoffrey S. Hubona
Associate Professor
Computer Information Systems
J. Mack Robinson College of Business
Georgia State University
Atlanta, Georgia

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