Some of you may be interested in a free online course in corpus linguistics that is being taught by Lancaster University. It begins on September 28th. Fuller details available here. I am not affiliated with the course, so I am unable to answer further questions. While not directly related to Japanese, the concepts within can be applied. Corpus linguistics is a hot field of study in the Japanese academic community, as well as increasingly at universities. I've noticed occasionally several users here including data from various corpora in their answers.
I am posting this here for those that may be interested in it. If it is not appropriate, please feel free to delete it.
