[sldev] SLDev Digest, Vol 29, Issue 15

[Armin Weatherwax]

Am Wednesday 06 May 2009 19:03:33 schrieb Tateru Nino:
> At least four lists.
>
> Maggie Leber (sl: Maggie Darwin) wrote:
> >> Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 20:31:24 +1000
> >> From: "Jonathan Bishop"<bishopj at bishopphillips.com>
> >> Subject: Re: [sldev] Avatar-user survey: PLEASE complete it
> >> To:<sldev at lists.secondlife.com>
> >> Inappropriate use of this list.
> >>
> >> In spite of the University of the Free State URL, I would doubt this is
> >> legitimate as this is not the way university research surveys are
> >> conducted.
> >>
> >>
> >> I would think carefully before following this link (I have not).  To
> >> start with, the invitation is missing the ethics committee authorization
> >> and university certification ID, and one would have to wonder what
> >> sampling approach involves the sldev list as an avatar sampling base.
> >>
> >> If we sent out an invitation for University research studies like this
> >> in Oz we would be up before the ethics committee in a flash.
> >
> > This spam hit the scripters list too, where I mentioned the lack of
> > research ethics compliance.
> >
> > I'd be in favor of banning the sender from both lists.
> >

honestly I have mixed feelings about the post in question.

On the one hand I understand that people feel spammed (and I do feel spammed 
myself) by surveys, esp. when it's claimed to be for scientific research but 
without proof.

On the other hand  when I was student I had to let fill in people a lot of 
surveys for scientific research and my professors didn't think about 
providing anything that could have been used as proof that the survery was 
really university research. "And better not mention it is for the department 
of psychology, because that could be bad for compliance". Cool. And now get 
100 particpants or you'll miss your course. "Hello,  I can not tell you for 
whom I'm gathering data and what I'm up to because that would bad for the 
design, but please give me 100 answers about absolutely personal questions. I 
promise it's all anonymous".

I know the research instrument of the post in question very well and that it 
is only useful for science, because its only a weak measure for the 
underlaying construct, so I tend to believe that this comes from another 
victim of professoral ignorance about the non-anonymity of the internet.
I can not tell, could also be just spam and from somebody up to no good.

To bring my post on topic: It's absolutely necessary to gather  behavioural 
data,  like the  "UI streamlining strategy" thread shows. That includes 
gathering data about psychological constructs, if you don't want to waste 
your time and gazilobytes of storage. At the mentioned thread Frans is 
writing "I agree though it would have to be opt-in and maybe only in public 
nighties and release candites. I expect users using those clients are more 
willing to share that info.". This is a theory about behaviour, and by the 
way it fits very good to a common psychological theory about personality 
dimensions (see 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits#Openness_to_Experience). 
According to that theory it's also more likely that persons using  public 
nighties and release candites are better informed about how to use more 
sophisticated features and more likely up to try new features.  Bad sample 
though for getting to know what an average user would do.
Shows that research is necessary and it needs to be planned carefully.

So to learn from the post in question: what are the community standards to do 
scientific research, how can the researcher make clear this is not spam, this 
is not to abuse data, this is to help to find new solutions which are useful?
Is there a wiki page or another ressource where researchers can learn how to 
do it right for not annoying people? Are there Lindens which can be contacted 
for scientific research purposes?

Sorry for that post got way too long, but if you read that far I hope you 
understand why :)

Armin