Hello All, I am happy to announce the formation of the Association of Internet Researchers Graduate Student Research Group (AoIR-GSRG) and a call for participants. The purpose of the GSRG is to recruit graduate student members of AoIR who wish to take a more active role in the association. GSRG members would agree to serve one year as part of a pool of volunteers from which specific Graduate Student Research Teams (GSRT) would be drawn. GSRT participation would be on a voluntary basis. Individual teams would be tasked with a research project that would benefit the association and its members. The AoIR Executive Committee would determine the projects, the scope, and the disposition of the research performed. The rationale is that the association and its members can make better decisions with accurate information on topics of interest. More details on potential projects are below. It is envisioned that any project would be distributed among team members so that the time commitment would be on par with an average research paper or less. Members wanting to serve for more than one year may be renewed at the discretion of the Graduate Student Representative to the Executive Committee who acts as overall project coordinator. Teams are largely self-managing, but will be required to submit research plans and meet specific deadlines. The Executive, through the Graduate Student Representative, would work collaboratively with each team to ensure that projects are successfully completed within the terms originally approved by the Executive. GSRG and GSRT members will be recognized by the association at the annual conference, receive tasteful certificates (suitable for framing) and most of all the gratitude of the Executive Committee and the association. Service for AoIR in this way provides a significant credit to members' vitae and valuable experience working in a multi-disciplinary, distributed research team. In many cases, data and results will be made available to GSRT members for their own use in publications or presentations if they so desire. It is the hope of the Exec that the experience will help reinforce the concept of the association as a field for action and interaction, and build strong ties across geography, disciplines, and outside of thematic interest areas. GSRG applicants must be a graduate student and a paid member of AoIR. Interested graduate students should contact Ted M. Coopman, Graduate Student Representative, at coopman@u.washington.edu. Project Details Please note that all protocols concerning ethical research methods and the protection of personal data will be strictly adhered to. In the case of AoIR member information, all identifying data will be stripped out prior to any release to a GSRT. Students who favor social scientific as well as humanistic approaches are welcome. Research approaches could include both qualitative and quantitative methods or (more likely) a combination of both. Potential projects would include analyzing data that would give the Exec more accurate information on the demographic make-up of AoIR membership and/or conference participants (disciplines, affiliation, nationalities, etc.), identification of Internet related graduate programs, and creation of annotated subject related multi-disciplinary bibliographies to name a few. The research would result in professional-practice publications that would be available via the AoIR website some of which will be exclusively for AoIR members. This initial effort is a pilot program to see if there is sufficient interest in participation, the ability to execute association directed tasks, and the quality/utility of results. Sincerely, -TED Ted M. Coopman AoIR Graduate Student Representative Department of Communication University of Washington