Dear Professor Nielsen, Professor Caroline Haythornthwaite <haythorn@uiuc.edu> and I are currently using automated content analysis to analyze bulletin board postings in e-learning communities. Below are couple of our papers that may be of interest to you. As part of this work, I'm also developing a web-based system called Internet Community Text Analyzer (ICTA) for the automated analysis of large size textual data such as bulletin board postings. It's only a prototype at this point, but if you're interested to try it, please email me at agruzd2@uiuc.edu and I can provide you access to the system. Haythornthwaite, C. and Gruzd, A.A. (2007). A Noun Phrase Analysis Tool for Mining Online Community. In the Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Communities and Technologies, Michigan State University. Available at http://www.iisi.de/fileadmin/IISI/upload/C_T/2007/Haythornthwaite.pdf Gruzd, A. and Haythornthwaite, C. (2008). Automated Discovery and Analysis of Social Networks from Threaded Discussions. Paper presented at the International Network of Social Network Analysts, St. Pete Beach, FL, USA. Available at http://tinyurl.com/3xsdyu -Anatoliy ====================== Anatoliy Gruzd PhD Student Graduate School of Library and Information Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign agruzd2@uiuc.edu http://people.lis.uiuc.edu/~agruzd2/ ---- Original message ----

Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:12:45 -0500 From: Laura B Nielsen <lbn4@georgetown.edu> Subject: [Air-L] Content Analysis for Web Discussion Boards To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org

Dear Colleagues, I am looking for reference material for use in my work at EPA. We are planning to launch a discussion board with a limited number of comment fields. But we also want to analyze discussion content in order to better understand the needs and interests of our customers--in particular those who come to EPA seeking environmental information.

1) Have any of you been teaching about content analysis methods lately? If so, what's your favorite reference?

2) Has anyone been working on content analysis of discussion boards as a research method?

Laura B. Nielsen, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor of Public Policy Georgetown Public Policy Institute 3520 Prospect Street, Suite 308F Washington, DC 20007 WEB http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/lbn4/

Program Analyst Environmental Analysis Division, MC 2842T Office of Information Analysis and Access Office of Environmental Information U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (202) 566-0621

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