 | Community Research: Methodology Brainstorm |
|
Hey all, How do you guys feel about the points that Ricardo raised today? The suggestion that surveys are a great tool for gathering general data from a wide user group was an interesting observation. It got me thinking about his suggestion that we contact active, interested members of the community. I dunno if you guys read the Durrance, Pettigrew and Unrah paper "Facilitating community information seeking with the internet: Findings from three public library/community network systems", but it seemed to suggest that identifying "information gatherer social types" and working with them to gain access into the information needs of the community might be the way to go. I agreed with Ricardo that we need to find advocates and champions in the communities we'll be working with and his suggestion that we not do a survey at all got me thinking. Perhaps the information we could glean from these superstars would be more functional than a survey? I wonder what people thought about this point... In light of our teleconference with Ricardo, do you think that a survey is still the way to go? |
 | Re: Community Research: Methodology Brainstorm |
|
I think his mention of 'keeners', or those who have a avid interest in promoting book culture, are a great group to start. We can aatempt to build relationships left right and centre, but the most effective ones are those that we know would be behind this idea. We have already OLSN staff members as an example of such a group. Ricardo also mentioned the existence of such indivduals within the communities, even though they might not be a majority representation. I am trying to think of ways in which moodle can facilitate the need to draw the attention of such individuals, and some how bringing them into the conversations here. Perhaps CR and other teams will have some dieas. Even if we get some of their ideas in a free-form dialogue — like what Brian Beaton has already started doing here — it will give us insight that we cannot come up with on our own. It takes more than one to make a baby! (Rough paraphrasing of Adam in class today.) Just thinking out loud for now. |
 | Re: Community Research: Methodology Brainstorm |
|
I thought he raised some really interesting points generally but also about the survey. My thoughts on his thoughts are as follows; His advice comes from a place of trial and error which is great because as a professional he is obviously speaking to specific examples even though he may not have mentioned them. But as students we don't have the luxury of saying from previous experience surveys are faulty because of these numerous field tests whereby this, that and the other was discovered. And is it not fair to say that part of the point of this class is for us to gain first hand knowledge of what works and what works better? Also, I think we may want to ask ourselves what is the harm in doing a survey in addition to exploring other avenues? |
 | Re: Community Research: Methodology Brainstorm |
|
I've always considered the online survey to be the Ringo Starr of the methodology world... ... but they are doable and within our means. As much as I'd love to run a Margaret Mead-style ethnography we don't have the luxury of using ideal techniques. Here are a few thoughts on the packages Ricardo suggested. Social Analysis Systems 2: focused on building knowledge through collaboration not in extracting it from respondents, uses participatory excercises and problem solving tasks, suggested 3-5 day training session. PowerTools: $40 US for the basic package, also focuses on collaborative knowledge building, no workshop required but comes with 68 page user manual. My concerns with surveys (other than lack of uptake) is that we don't know enough about these communities to create appropriate questions. But if we manage to word it properly a survey can still return valuable info. I agree with Margaret, engaging people in free-form dialogue is far richer in context than tallying a bunch of checkmarks on a questionnaire. Running a brief survey in addition to face-to-face sessions with our community champions could give us both the richness of personal experience and a general overview of our target users. Whatever we decide we should sort it as soon as we can. |
 | Re: Community Research: Methodology Brainstorm |
|
Mark ... you are bang on ... I do suggest getting a simple (and small, two or three question) survey out there (on this web site) right away to see what response you get and to see who is interested in following up with you on the face-to-face. Of course I really appreciate your summary of some of the stuff that Ricardo discussed ... I love that man [smiles]!! Brian |
| Re: Community Research: Methodology Brainstorm |
|
If we are to do a small survey, that's very easy to do. While CR is developing some broad questions, I would suggest flipping through the websites on myknet (link on the top of the screen), and target that demographic which comprises of high school level students it seems. For promoting purposes, perhaps Brian could help us put a 'feature' on the KNET home page, that would link people here to take the survey. We'd get some quick responses.. yesterday alone there were 2000 websites updated on myKnet! And if we are doing that shortly, this meeting place definitely needs to be cleaned up and groomed so community participants are given some more context as to what we do. =) Something I will bug Outreach about... let me know if you have a deadline by which you'd like to send out the survey. |
| Re: Community Research: Methodology Brainstorm |
|
Phillipp Budka, a Ph.D. student from the University of Vienna (who has co-authored some papers with Adam on the study of myKnet) started a meeting place about his research, with plenty of useful documents to review! http://meeting.knet.ca/moodle/course/view.php?id=51 The document links on the right has a sample of the final survey which he sent out. I believe this is the survey that Brian has been referring to with the excellent results. Reading Philipp's report will give us the benefit of his experience, so that we don't make the same mistakes he did, or neglect to do something that worked really well for him! |
| Re: Community Research: Methodology Brainstorm |
|
Thanks for finding the Budka survey, Margaret. Tapping into the kids who already use Knet is a pretty good place to start. We may not be able to do a full-blown survey but this could be a good fishing expedition for our face-to-face talks. Brian, it looks like we're leaning towards doing just what you've suggested. So what's the protocol for putting it up? Would you and/or Brian Walmark like to vet it prior to posting? |
| Re: Community Research: Methodology Brainstorm |
|
Mark ... Good stuff ... of course I would like to see what is being considered and would be pleased to review it and provide feedback. I am traveling this week but hope to be online at least once a day to catch my messages. Thanks for moving all this forward in such a professional manner ... very impressive team working together!! Brian |