DRAFT Survey Questions-- YOUR INPUT PLEASE!

Re: DRAFT Survey Questions

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 20:00:02 GMT

by Mark Gelsomino.

I know where I got the idea that you'd already done this. I read in your Wiki where you listed all of the materials you need to build your own.

We've spent a lot of time talking about the benefits of users being able to create their own content. If that's true there must be benefits in creating the physical setup as well.

If binding your own books isn't DIY enough, building the binding equipment takes this idea one step further.

Now you just need to go back to your garage and build me a hand-crank printer.

Re: DRAFT Survey Questions

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 19:26:48 GMT

by Marta Chudolinska.

haha. Thanks for the faith you have in me Mark! Actually, I haven't thought of this but its a great idea. I shot a video on thursday about making your own book squasher, but a schematic drawing would really help. Thanks for the suggestion.

Re: DRAFT Survey Questions

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:26:26 GMT

by Mark Gelsomino.

I apologize in advance if you've already thought of this one...

...have you considered drawing up schematics on how people could build their own book squashers? It wouldn't have to be anything exravagant. Something along the lines of what you get with Ikea furniture.

You already did this, didn't you? If so congratz.

Re: DRAFT Survey Questions

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 03:22:30 GMT

by Marta Chudolinska.

Would it be possible to add a question about available staff resources? It could be put on the staff survey and help determine whether someone is available for learning and maintaining the ODBS system and teaching it to other members of the community.

Re: DRAFT Survey Questions

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 02:56:58 GMT

by Erica Sum.

Maybe you could ask if they are interested in creative commons material and then provide examples of things like graphic novels that have been released w/this kind of licensing? NOt an urgent question if you already have too much on your plate...

Re: DRAFT Survey Questions

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:39:15 GMT

by Mark Gelsomino.

Self-publishing came up an awful lot, especially after our teleconfernce with Kitty & Danica.

We've worked it into the options of a few questions. We have at least one question specifically about what things people would like to self-publish.

We have a question now about whether or not people would like to self-publish or not. It's a yes/no, not a scale but maybe that could be changed.

Re: DRAFT Survey Questions

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:30:43 GMT

by Mark Gelsomino.

We ended up cutting the 1920's question altogether. An entire question devoted to pre-1920's stuff makes it seem likes that all we'll be able to deliver.

As much as I'm sure teenagers dig Charles Dickens it would be a shame to give them the impression that's all the ODBS was for.

We have added some options for choosing specific types of books we've heard people ask about. Kid's book and cookbooks seem to come up a lot. We also keep hearing about community newsletters, comics & graphic novels and printing school textbooks.

Re: Comments on current Survey

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 17:57:45 GMT

by Jesslyn Stoncius.

Leisure reading? I think "reading for fun" would suffice.

Graphic novels are supposed to be very popular with "the kids these days"!

Re: Comments on current Survey

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:19:53 GMT

by Celene Faludi.

Fiona you said it so well when describing how difficult it is to exhaust all the possibilities for genres. I have been reading over the questions on the two surveys, and I am curious whether we need to rephrase some questions that we know we'll never be able to provide all possible options for. Luckily, I don't think we'll run into this problem for all of our multiple answer questions.

As for questions being easy to understand, I wonder how far we have to go with this. If we're creating a user survey that welcomes the possibility of children answering, there will have to be some reformatting of vocab. Have we definitely opted against a small kid's survey? Otherwise, would posing some questions to participants that routinely spend time with kids suffice? Anyways, looking forward to the meeting tomorrow...

Re: Comments on current Survey

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 03:13:47 GMT

by Fiona Martel.

We talked about this alternative before, Mark and Celene, about asking questions in the survey such as "do you have children" and "what kinds of books do they read, are interested in, or you read to them". I don't know how well getting a child to take a survey would go.

As for fiction, that is tricky. I wouldn't call it leisure reading, because only librarians know that term. Even people who do lots of leisure reading don't call it that. Usually people who read a lot break it by topic, like biography, or history, or by genre, like murder mystery, fantasy, science fiction, and romance. These can be broken down further, like science fiction can be broken down into cyberpunk, steampunk, apocalyptic, epic space sci fi, or "soft" social sci fi vs. "hard" sci fi. Wikipedia is actually a very good resource if you want to learn about different genres, subgenres, and popular authors.

The trick with defining what you mean by "what topics or genres do you read" is that you risk priming the respondants to answer in a certain way. Sometimes if I ask someone what they like to read and I give them examples of types of fiction that I read, that person says they don't read very much. When I ask them further questions, it often turns out that they like to read things like biographies, but because of the examples I gave them, they thought biographies did not count.

PS. I recommend the Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov-its about a planet of librarians that take over the galaxy by hoarding all the information everyone else forgets ;)

Re: Comments on current Survey

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:53:11 GMT

by Mark Gelsomino.

Thanks Jalal. We really want to put some kid-friendly questions in there or at least make it easy for kids to answer.

You're right, most kids probably don't conceptualize "community organizations" but they would know if they go to the rec centre or not. Do you think making a list of options (band office, library, health centre...) would make it easier to answer?

As for the "fiction" thing, we'll probably fix the whole list. Maybe we'll be able to break "fiction" down into a few categories. Or maybe we can just call it "liesure reading"?

Margaret had also mentioned asking about which websites people frequent. We cut this one (sorry Marge!) when we were just doing a short questionairre. Now that we've bumped it up to a full size survey maybe we can squeeze this one back in.

Re: Comments on current Survey

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:33:51 GMT

by Jalal Fietz.

I think it's a good survey overall.
I just have a couple of suggestions. I was wondering if you could be more clear or detailed by what you mean by "fiction" and what you mean by "community organization"? I'm just thinking if I was a twelve year old kid filling this out, I wouldn't be sure as to what you were talking about. Also, what content they usually look at if they do go on the computer would also be good to know.

Re: Comments on current Survey

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 18:21:12 GMT

by Erica Sum.

In this case, we should have the project name change nailed beforehand so that we don't confuse ppl w/a survey that says ODBS and then send out pamphelets w/a POD logo. I'm not sure how to ask for everyone's input though b/c not everyone is reading the renaming thread in the Promo forum. Perhaps next class we can take 2 min to hold a vote.

Re: Comments on current Survey

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:27:21 GMT

by Dominika Solan.

Hey Guys,

The introductions look great and the survey is shaping up well. *Hopefully we'll be able to meet Adam and Nadia in the next day or two, get clearance from Brian and then get that survey out to Danica and Kitty by the end of the week?

Re: Draft survey introductions

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:45:46 GMT

by Margaret Lam.

Sure, I can do that. Look at the random gallery photo on the front page of the meeting place, I think I am not putting in the right URL link. I've tried a few different ones, and this is the only one so far that shows any kind of content. I'll try and figure out how to get it to show one picture at a time. =)

Re: Draft survey introductions

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:21:08 GMT

by Mark Gelsomino.

Yeah, they really throw that whole right bar out of whack.

Can we free up some real estate by getting rid of that Shoutbox? Nobody seems to be using it and the Instant Message functionality does the same thing.

Re: Draft survey introductions

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:17:12 GMT

by Margaret Lam.

There is no key necessary, they will need to 'enroll' in order to participate in the forums. Feel free to invite them as part of your communication with them!

Photos are up, just trying to figure out how to make them look 'nice' on the right bar now...

Re: Draft survey introductions

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:41:09 GMT

by Mark Gelsomino.

I'll email the pics to you at your Gmail address. I've set up a Lightbox Gallery and a Random Picture Box that I'll populate.

Try Zamzar.com for the MP4. It's a free file conversion site that may be able to convert to a more compact file extension.

Unless you have a key Kitty & Danika need to log in I can send the invite.

Re: Draft survey introductions

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:27:40 GMT

by Margaret Lam.

I COULD be "the boss" of inviting them.... if no one else at CR has contacted them directly by email already about it, I will be happy to do it.

Dominika sent me an mp4 of the video conferencing recording, but unfortunately it's JUST over 8MB which is the upload limit on moodle. I'm going to try and find ways to clip it a bit shorter or compress it. Maybe do it in two parts or something.

We can upload files already I believe. Moodle has an existing file directory structure that's kind of hidden until you try to upload things. Send me the pictures and I'll put them up!

Margaret

Re: DRAFT Survey Questions

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:18:09 GMT

by Trisha Faulhafer.

hi guys!

great work with the survey questions. i think it's a great idea to add a few examples to question #5 of the survey, which asks about pre-1920s content. i think some might say no rather quickly without some guidance.

also... might there be a question or two that asks about more specific genres, for example children's books, cookbooks, teen fiction, etc... perhaps asking - if they would be willing to pay a little more for copyrighted materials if the books were more current?

Trisha