Often, research papers require that students do more than gather information from books and journals. Conducting interviews with individuals and holding focus and discussion groups can provide key data. Teachers can make use of the integration that Outlook offers between scheduling, e-mail, and note-taking to help streamline students' efforts.

Let's say you've just given each of your students the assignment of interviewing a number of people from five different cultural backgrounds on various subjects. You have asked that they interview the people individually and then in focus groups. This project will take several months, so the students might want to rely on e-mail as a way to keep in touch with their "subjects" as well as to inform groups of meetings and project status.

Setting up a categorized contact list

The people that the students will be working with are from India and France, as well as from South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Idaho in the United States. There are scientists, literature teachers, soybean farmers, engineers, and nurses from each country. As the students meet with each individual for the first time to learn who they are, where they're from, and what they do, the students can add that information to their Outlook Contacts lists by using categories.

By using categories to identify each contact, students can group them easily and then create distribution lists.

To organize your contact list

1. On the File menu, point to New, and then click Contact.
2. Enter the name for the contact and any other pertinent information, such as e-mail address.
3. Click Categories.
4. Click the categories that apply to that contact.
5. Click OK.

The students may find that they need to create new custom categories for the people they are interviewing.

To create new custom categories

1. Select any item in the Contacts list.
2. On the Edit menu, click Categories.
3. Click Master Category List.
4. In the New category box, type a name for the category.
5. Click Add.
6. To create more categories, repeat steps 4 and 5.
7. Click OK twice.

To view contacts by category

1. On the View menu, point to Arrange By, and then point to Current View.
2. Click By Category.

Now the students can see their interview contacts by category, and they can use this view to help them create distribution lists. Distribution lists are a great way to send e-mail messages efficiently to groups of people without having to add each person to the To line individually. The students can create a distribution list for each category.

To create a distribution list

1. Select any item in the Contacts list.
2. On the Actions menu, click New Distribution List.
3. Give the distribution list a name.
4. To add members, click Select members. (When the address book appears, be sure to select the right address book from the drop-down list near the top if more than one address book is available.)
5. Select a name, and then click Members to copy the name to the Add to distribution list box. Repeat this step for each name that you want to appear in the distribution list.

Scheduling interviews and meetings

Students can easily schedule and keep track of appointments with the people they interview, as well as set up group meetings by using the distribution lists that they have created. If the people to be interviewed also are using Outlook, the students can send meeting invitations and even schedule online meetings.

To schedule a meeting by using a distribution list

1. In the Outlook Calendar, click the day you want to hold the meeting, and then double-click the specific time.
2. In the appointment form, click Invite Attendees.
3. In the To box, add the distribution list name for the group of people you want to attend.
4. If you want, click the Check Names button to make sure that the e-mail addresses you added are correct.
5. Add a note to explain the purpose of the meeting.
6. Click Send.

This will put the meeting on each student's calendar as well as notify attendees, who can RSVP simply by clicking the Accept, Tentative, or Decline button. People who are not using Microsoft Exchange servers must accept or reject the proposed meeting time by replying to the e-mail message.

To learn more about how to schedule meetings or set up online meetings, see Help in Outlook.

Taking notes quickly

Notes in Outlook are the electronic equivalent to paper sticky notes or the scraps of paper you might have lying around on your desk. When a student conducts an interview over the phone, he or she can easily record quotes and impressions as the interview progresses by using Outlook Notes.

Students can leave notes open on the screen while they work on other things. Then, as ideas occur or as they gather bits of information, they can add to an open note or create a new one.

To create a note

1. On the File menu, point to New, and then click Note. Or, use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+N to open a new note.
2. Type the text of the note.
3. To save the note to a specific folder, click the icon in the top left of the note, click Save As, and then specify a folder. However, you can also just close the note and move it later from the Notes folder to another folder.

Notes are saved automatically in Outlook, but by using Import and Export Wizard (on the File menu, click Import and Export), students can export notes to Microsoft Word and add the information to the project document. For more information about the Import and Export Wizard, see Help in Outlook.