Hi Pedro, I've not read anything on web cases studies of non-profit websites, but I've worked in web development for many years and have conducted similar studies, so I'll share some practical experience and opinions on the matter. When the web started, Webmasters were generally jacks-of-all-trades who worked on technical, editorial and visual components of websites. In many cases, institutions would send all content to a single Webmaster or web team, and if they reviewed all content, they were the single source of knowledge for the company/organization's website content. Now, it's become more common to divide these roles into technical, editorial, and visual tasks. A few years back, I case studied three leading UK non-profit websites and we arranged interviews with various staff from each site: the programme directors, editors, technical staff, info architects, etc... The feedback we received after interviewing several staff answered most of our questions, but no single person could answer them all. For another study, last year, I worked on an audit of 48 non-profit websites and the biggest challenge was to get the organizations to assign a focal point who could collect the information from the various website stakeholders. And again it was quite challenging to find one person who could easily answer questions across a range of website issues. In centralized websites, in general the manager usually provides a clear big-picture perspective, the technical people can tell you about log file trends and other interesting technical details, the content editors should know the users and how what they're interested in, and the person who answers email requests will really know their users. Furthermore, in a decentralized website, such as one run on an institutional CMS, the knowledge of users may only reside in the departments that produce content and who react to client requests. In these cases, the Webmaster or web team would only provide the infrastructure and would be the wrong persons to contact. So to answer your question, I would argue you need to contact the people who produce content and interact with the users. Then contact the technical people to make sure you have good statistics and other insights. Also, I think it is important to contact the higher level Directors who may be technically lost, but can set the stage in broad and easy to understand language (afterall, the Internet is a digital network that connects human networks and it's the people and issues that count). And remember, few Webmasters and web team are the same, so the range of skills, aptitudes and tasks are often randomly distributed among the members. There may be one key person, but there may be 3 people that cover the key areas. So perhaps you would need to ask "who does what" before arranging interviews. I'm venturing further into this area over the next three years and would be interested to learn how your approach works out. Good luck on your project. Brian pjo@unr.edu Sent by: air-l-bounces@lis To tserv.aoir.org air-l@listserv.aoir.org cc 18/07/2006 17:04 Subject [Air-l] non-profit web sites Please respond to air-l@listserv.ao ir.org Hi everyone, I am seeking advice in relation to a subject that I am currently researching. I am doing a study on non-profit web sites -what are the online discourses articulated by ethnic community-based groups in the US? I have conducted interviews with webmasters. However, my colleagues are raising serious doubts about the representativeness of the information and opinions provided by the webmasters. Because of the nature of the technology they believe that the web sites and their contents are just products of webmasters and not of the entire association. In other words, if you carry out research in non-profit groups, and you conduct interviews with for example the director of the group, how representative would be her opinions in relation to those of the rest of the group? Could I take for good the contents posted on the web sites as products of the entire association? Any suggestion, advice, bibliographical reference would be much appreciate it. Thanks Pedro J. Oiarzabal Center for Basque Studies/322 University of Nevada, Reno NV 89557 -USA 1-775-784-4854 Fax: 1-775-784-1355 pjo@unr.edu http://basque.unr.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/