Modified Relationship Survey - chance to win a free bag

jon · Post by **jon** » 20 Mar 2006 15:14

Developing Relationships in Online Communities Survey

You are asked to participate in a research study conducted by Dr. Blair Nonnecke and Jonathan Haber, from the Department of Computing and Information Science at the University of Guelph. The results of this research study will contribute to a undergraduate thesis project.

If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact Dr. Blair Nonnecke at (519) 824-4120 ext. 56407 or email: [email protected]

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this research project is to research the development of relationships and statistically rank the quality of these relationships in a special population of online community members. The results expected will most likely show a strong possibility that relationships can and do develop on line and that there is a progression in terms of closeness in these relationships. They will also hopefully reflect and strengthen the results obtained in a similar study "Making Friends in Cyberspace" by Parks and Floyd

POTENTIAL RISKS AND DISCOMFORTS
There are no potential reasonably foreseeable risks, discomforts, inconveniences associated with participating in this research project.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS TO PARTICIPANTS AND/OR TO SOCIETY
Student researcher - will increase the understanding of the developement of online relationships;
Participants - no direct benefit;
Scientific community - the study will attempt to reconfirm results found by Floyd and Parks in the study "Making Friends in Cyberspace";
Society - a better understanding of how relationships compare when developed in online communities as opposed to relationships developed in the real world.

PAYMENT FOR PARTICIPATION
The participants will not receive compensation for the participation in this research project. However one participant in the survey will be randomly selected and receive a free professionally hand-stitched footbag by Jeremy Mirken.
Participants do not need to answer all questions or fully complete the survey inorder to be eligble for the free bag.

CONFIDENTIALITY
Every effort will be made to ensure confidentiality of any identifying information that is obtained in connection with this study. The identities of the persons involved in this research will be protected. The data collected in this study will be erased upon completion of this research project. The resulting data collected in the online survey will not be released to any third parties and will be used solely in the research project by Blair Nonnecke and Jonathan Haber from the Department of Computing and Information Science at the University of Guelph.

PARTICIPATION AND WITHDRAWAL
You may choose whether to be in this study or not. If you volunteer to be in this study, you will be unable to request that your input is withdrawn from our results. You may refuse to answer any questions you don’t want to answer and still remain in the study except for the first question. The investigator may withdraw you from this research if circumstances arise that warrant doing so. Doing any of the above will not impact your chance of winning the free footbag.

RIGHTS OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS
You are not waiving any legal claims, rights or remedies because of your participation in this research study. This study has been reviewed and received ethics clearance through the University of Guelph Research Ethics Board. If you have questions regarding your rights as a research participant, contact:

Research Ethics Coordinator
University of Guelph
437 University Centre
Guelph, ON, Canada
N1G 2W1
E-mail: [email protected]
Telephone: (519) 824-4120, ext. 56606
Fax: (519) 821-5236

The survey will be open for two weeks from the date of this posting.
March 20 - April 3, 2006
The survey takes approximately 15 minutes to complete.
One entry per user.
Results of the survey will be posted to the forum when the study is completed. The winner of the bag will announced the day after the study is closed.

Thank you,
Jonathan Haber

Click here to begin the survey

Example picture of a Mirken bag (not the actual bag that will be awarded)

Mods please sticky.

brian relly · Post by **brian relly** » 20 Mar 2006 15:20

I have that bag in my hand right now.

slapdash21 · Post by **slapdash21** » 20 Mar 2006 15:30

im so glad im 18

Samurai · Post by **Samurai** » 20 Mar 2006 22:04

I did it.

pips · Post by **pips** » 20 Mar 2006 22:17

Done.

SandWraith · Post by **SandWraith** » 21 Mar 2006 11:48

Ditto.

Zeb Jackson · Post by **Zeb Jackson** » 21 Mar 2006 13:17

that was a very interesting survey

it took up a whole class period at school, and it was worth it

Slowsis · Post by **Slowsis** » 21 Mar 2006 15:42

Dunzo....when do we find out who wins the kicky-bag?

jon · Post by **jon** » 21 Mar 2006 16:36

Slowsis wrote:Dunzo....when do we find out who wins the kicky-bag?

Next next tuesday.

brinard · Post by **brinard** » 22 Mar 2006 10:26

im done. ... now to wait for the decision of who wins that mirken.... i hope its me!
good luck with da study...

brian

pips · Post by **pips** » 22 Mar 2006 11:25

Are you studying other forums too?

slapdash21 · Post by **slapdash21** » 22 Mar 2006 11:33

interesting point. maybe there is something special about footbag, or this forum, that tightens the relationships, especially since we are more likely to actually meet up with each other in real life...as opposed to a...i dunno...some other type of forum where it doesnt involve actual activity with other people, just discussion.

Zeb Jackson · Post by **Zeb Jackson** » 22 Mar 2006 13:02

true.......
i hope i win that bag! all i have is 2 32's and id like another good solid bag

jon · Post by **jon** » 22 Mar 2006 13:37

pips wrote:Are you studying other forums too?

slapdash21 wrote:interesting point. maybe there is something special about footbag, or this forum, that tightens the relationships, especially since we are more likely to actually meet up with each other in real life...as opposed to a...i dunno...some other type of forum where it doesnt involve actual activity with other people, just discussion.

I am not studying any other forums.

Yes this forum is special. The sense of community within Modified is amazing because of factors like the one you mentioned (meeting in person at tourneys). When trying to decide what to study for this thesis course I choose to study modified because it was already something I was very interested in and something I knew I would enjoy. I discussed Modified to a great extent with my advisor before finally deciding on the topic. He suggested I rerun a study previously done in 1995, “Making Friends in Cyberspace” by Parks and Floyd (two professors from the US). Their study looked at thousands of participants in Newsgroups in an attempt to try and determine if it was possible to develop relationships online. At the time people were unsure it should a thing was really possible. To day it seems almost too obvious that it does occur and quality relationships can form online, however this study differs from theirs in its ethnographic approach and because the internet has changed quiet a bit over the last 10 + years. It will be interesting to see how my results compare to theirs because of these two factors.
This survey is by no means supposed to be ground breaking, it is more like practice for the real thing, a full blown graduate thesis which I will be doing over the next two years. My undergraduate thesis entails completing a literature review (analyzing studies and papers that deal with similar concepts), carrying out my study, and compiling my results into a final paper and presentation. This study is probably the easiest part of the project for me as the methodology is largely done for me as I am basically rerunning a study already done. Dr. Parks even sent me his original survey questionnaire, which mine is very heavily based on. Having very similar questions will make comparisons of my findings and there findings easier to correlate and also saved a lot of the hard work of developing a survey from scratch. I hope to reinforce the findings of their very well know study and offer my own interpretations of differences in results that may be found.
Ultimately my purpose for doing this project is for practice. It also gave me a chance to work closely with the professor that will be my graduate advisor next year and give him a chance to get know me better. I believe doing this study was also a contributing factor in my acceptance into graduate school for next fall.
After the study is done I plan to work on fixing it up a bit more and then I will submit it to a well know online communities conference being held in Hawaii this summer. I will not be able to afford to travel there myself but my professor said he would present if it was accepted. If it is not accepted to the conference I will try more conferences and journals until it is accepted into one of them

Hope this post fills in some of the background information for all of you. If you have more questions I would be happy to answer them.

jon · Post by **jon** » 27 Mar 2006 21:14

Just a reminder that the survey will only be open for one more week. It will be closed on Monday April 3rd, 2006 at midnight. Thanks to all those that have participated thus far and if you have yet to complete the survey please take the time to do so and you will be entered for your chance to win the free Mirken bag.

Thanks,
Jon

jon · Post by **jon** » 03 Apr 2006 20:11

The survey period is now over. Thank you to everyone that took the time to participate.

The winner of the free bag is:
Joshua Lackey
Modified username: Lackey82

Thanks again!
Jon

jon · Post by **jon** » 03 Apr 2006 20:13

The survey period is now over. Thank you to everyone that took the time to participate.

The winner of the free bag is:
Joshua Lackey
Modified username: Lackey82

Thanks again!
Jon

edit:
To anyone that is wondering how the winner was choosen ...
There were 65 entires for the bag and I used a random number generator to pick a number between 1 and 65. Joshua was lucky number 14

jon · Post by **jon** » 03 Apr 2006 20:13

edit:
To anyone that is wondering how the winner was choosen ...
There were 65 entires for the bag and I used a random number generator to pick a number between 1 and 65. Joshua was lucky number 14

Slowsis · Post by **Slowsis** » 03 Apr 2006 21:21

Sweetness...I shred with this guy twice a week. I guess I'll get to try out a Mirken bag.

Senor Grommet · Post by **Senor Grommet** » 05 Apr 2006 14:10

lucky you!