Regarding methods for online research: Ulf-Dietrich Reips is too modest to recommend his own edited volume: Batinic, Reips & Bosnjak, Eds. (2002). Online Social Sciences. Seattle: Hogrefe & Huber. This is from his former email to AoIR: I would like to inform you that we published a book with the title "Online Social Sciences" (Batinic, Reips, & Bosnjak, Eds.). It contains 24 chapters about the possibilities to use the internet for data collection (e.g. online panels, personality assessment via internet, psychological experimenting on the world wide web, forms of research in MUDs, dialogue and interview-bots for the www). At the end of this email you`ll find a general introduction. Ever more researchers in the social sciences and market research are interested in using the benefits of the Internet to obtain data, and as this book shows online studies can address many questions that are asked by social scientists. This unique text provides comprehensive and up-to-date information, from the basics upwards, about online research methods, technical approaches to data collection, and the quality and limitations of data collected online. Included among the twenty-four chapters, written by leading online researchers from Europe and North America, are ones investigating the implementation of both reactive and non-reactive methods of data collection. The studies reported utilize Web-based questionnaires, Web experiments, observations of virtual worlds, case narrations, content analyses, and analysis of mailing-lists and other log data. In addition to featuring various fields of research in the online environment and reporting the results of such studies, this book also seeks to bridge a gap between Internet scientists in Europe and the US. In the past, researchers have tended to work on similar projects without collaboration: this book represents a joint effort among these researchers. Online research from an international perspective: the latest developments and techniques for social scientists and others interested in exploiting the opportunities the Internet provides. http://www.hhpub.com/books/isbn/0-88937-257-8.html Cheers, Denise ===== "The distance between here and there is growing; and getting even larger as we speak" (S. S. Hall) Denise N. Rall, PhD student, School of EnvironSciMgmt, Southern Cross Uni, Lismore, NSW, 2480 Australia Phone +61-2-6624-8627 Fax +61-2-6624-8637 Office (Tuesdays) (02) 6620 3577 Mob 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/index.html __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now http://companion.yahoo.com/