Final assignment - the research proposal

PROPOSAL

Christine ZUNG
Internet Research Methodology – A Canadian Perspective
LV: 603053
June/July 2007
PhD. Bakardjieva Maria
PhD. Friesen Norman Philip



Closing date: Tuesday, 31 July 2007



Topic of my internet research is
“The use of the e-campus from professors and students at the Leopold Franzens University of Innsbruck”.

1)Research area
2)Research objects
3)Theoretical framework
4)Implementing the study

ad.1)
I’m now studying for 2 years at the LFU Innsbruck. In this time I get in contact with the “e-campus”. Some of our professors mention that they will put various information or texts on it. Some of the guest teachers even don’t know how to do that, but they make sure they find someone who can help them.


The reactions of the students I realized are really different. Some students become very angry, because they expect from the professors that they are able to handle it. Others don’t care about it. The differences go on at the student side, too. Several students even don’t know the e-campus, some want to work with it, but they didn’t get any instruction and only few of them regularly use the e-campus.
I think that the e-campus will influence the whole university-life more and more. Maybe in five years nobody could imagine that “e-campus-less” studying times. There are many professors from outside at the institute of educational science in Innsbruck. So the communication is really difficult. Much communication is going on per e-mail, but the potential of the e-campus is much bigger. It can be used much more effective and so this research topic could be useful and informative for several students – and maybe for some professors. So the research area is: professors and students of the LFU Innsbruck.

ad.2)
The research topic contains everything round the e-campus where very many questions are rising. To carve this big area I cite some of them:
· What is the e-campus?
· How many professors/ students take it up?
· What are the professors/students do at the e-campus (communication, discussion, searching for information)?
· Are the students content with the e-campus support of the professors?
· What do professors and students like to have as improvement?
· Were there any user instruction – both for professors and students?


These questions will build the content research frame. I do not have certain prospects of the results of this research, but I’m looking forward to get some interesting conclusion!

Now some information about the e-campus at the LFU Innsbruck.
At the homepage of the institute for educational science you can easily find the e-campus on the menu list on the right column. One click on this button and you are right at the e-campus start side. And there is waiting much user information to be read by everybody who´s ´snoopy´. With the user name and the password – the same identify codes as you use at the LFU – you´re in! There you´ll find every course you´re registered and you see a list of tools. Announcements, calendar, assignments, marks, sending e-mails, user index, address book, personal data, expo directory and finally search. This is a good platform to communicate with other students, to work together, to get useful information right from the professor. And the best of all is the high speed of this medium!

As I mentioned before I personally saw some reactions of few students. One of them thought, that entering the homepage of the LFU means using the e-campus. Also to check the web-mails on the homepage and to look for the lecture information would be part of the e-campus.
Some co-students complained about the missing instruction courses of the e-campus. Actually I easily found such courses on the homepage of LFU, even if I don’t know how many students could take part of it. Thus the missing link is not longer part of the organization and the course offerings but of each student by himself.


Furthermore it would be very interesting to compare the results of the professor’s and student’s habits in Innsbruck with other Austrian universities. Probably the research area could be enlarged to a comparison between European and Canadian universities. But in this frame this would be too large. Maybe sometimes …


ad.3)
Now to the epistemology way: nearly every student I talked with has his/her own picture with his/her own contents of the e-campus – mostly without knowing it exactly. I think I could say that they construct their own version of what it means. I choose the constructivism as one of the epistemological options and moreover the interpretativism as theoretical framework.

Out of the various options of methodology I decided for a quality research, and the guided interview as method. I will not make combined internet based and face to face interviews.
This will be a very laborious way of research, particularly if you will read the number of interview partners I chose later on. Therefore I consider building a research team – if this is possible in this research project? (Dreams are allowed?!?) Especially the composition of the research material will take very much time, the transcription, the finding of the categories and so on.

As long as this research is limited to the LFU Innsbruck, I’ll work well with face to face guided interviews. Once it will become a comparison with other universities I have to think about a combination with internet interviews. At the least of this moment when

the research area will increase (first whole Austria, then maybe two or three countries of Europe, finally kind of worldwide) a really busy team of researchers is essential.

ad.4)
The sampling
In my initial advisements I just mentioned that I want to work with my co-students and with some of the professors of our institute in Innsbruck (included the guest professors). I learned to know several students who would be ready to give an interview. I counted the sampling size in the following way: to go through this study, it’ll take eight semesters. I want to question students in every semester – the ´new´ students and the advanced ones. It would also be interesting to incorporate the geographical point of view. Students who live in Innsbruck (while the university is in session) and others who has to commute with the car or the train. And also the fact of working beside the studies – in a fulltime job, part time job or no work – and their private situation (family, marriage,…).
But first of all I will interview four students of every semester – two male and two female. Hence the sampling size will be thirty-two students and the number of the professors I determine with ten – five professors from our institute and five from outwards.
I don’t think it will be a problem to find cooperative students at the campus. With the professors as interview partners I have to go to the institute leader and I have to ask for permission first. Than I must check the lecture plan from the professors from outwards and I have to get in contact with them – best via e-mail – and introduce them into this research project. At best I can arrange a date with them while their lecture time in Innsbruck.

Finally I will have forty-two interview partners.

The research questions, I numerated at the beginning, will lead me to the guide-line for the guided interview. Every question should only be an initiation for them to tell about their experiences. I´ll only inquire if the conversation leads to a very wrong point, away from my interview main focus.

Possible guideline:
· What do you know about the e-campus on our university?
· Do you work with it?
· Have you got any user instruction to deal with it?
· If yes: What do you do there? (communication, to give out expertise information, to look for texts, as discussion board, …)
· Only students: Are you content with the update support of the professors?
· What do you like to improve?
· Do you want to add something else?


To open the first contact with the interview partners I introduce myself, the research project and I’ll tell them the duration of the interview. I think that it will last exactly twenty-two minutes – maybe this unorthodox duration decentralizes the situation. Every interview partner gets to know the intentions with the results and I’ll offer them an exemplar of the finished research. In relation of the location I´ll comply with each of them. The interviews will be taped on a recorder and afterwards they will be transliterated. Before this step I have to decide the depth of the transcription.

Than the hard work starts: the finding of the categories to make all texts comparable.
One comparison will be in the results for sure. There will be two result groups – namely the results of the student side and the one of the professors.

Out of these results different consequences could rise. It will be visible if students or/and professors use the e-campus. If they do, several options of improvements could follow. If the result shows that only few students know the e-campus or are able to handle it or see the e-campus as reasonable establishment there would be room for special advertising.
But these steps are far away, before that much work waits …

Here is my final version of the first assignment requested in the lecture:

Internet Research Methodology - A Canadian Perspective

PhD. Bakardjieva Maria & PhD. Friesen Norman Philip

Leopold-Franzens Universität, Innsbruck, Austria

Sommersemester 2007



Cultural Similarities and Differences in the Design of University Websites

Callahan, E. (2005). Cultural similarities and differences in the design of university websites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1), article 12. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue1/callahan.html

The topic of the research I will execute with is: „Cultural Similarities and Differences in the Design of University Websites“
I figured out following main points along which the researcher Ewa Callahan worked.

1.List of the participant universities – widespread in eight countries of the world
2.Empirical research questions
3.Advertising strategies in universities
4.Aspects of web design
5.Hofsted´s model of culture
6.Various pro-chioce and adverse scientific voices ( Marcus&Gould, Robins&Stylianou, etc.)
7.Research questions and hypotheses
8.Study description
9.Findings
10.Finally the conclusion

This research is theoretically based on „Hofsted´s model of culture“ in which I will go later on for a few stepps. Callahan explained a lot of Hefsted´s theorie but mentioned several adverse attitudes towards his comments.

1. Universities from eight countries – namely: Austria, USA, Ecuador, Japan, Sweden, Greece, Denmark and Malaysia - took part of this research. In her study descriptions Callahan revealed here selection criterions; e.g. country selection, website selection, etc..

Each chosen university homepage was surveyd to two criteria: first the demonstration of the organisation and secondly the graphical design.

2. Questions like e.g.: „How do different cultures represent themselves on the web?“, „Are the designs of websites in different cultures distinct or do they follow similar trends?“, „If cultural differences are found, what role do they play, and what are their practical consequences?“ were posed and later on Callahan tried to find answeres.

3. In one passage of this article „advertising strategies in Universities“ were mentioned and some background information were presented; like the use of posters, flyers and other promotional material.

4. The „aspects of web design“ were segmented in language, page design, color preferences, image modality and the tematic strukture. Some pages are color-coordinated with the colors of the national flags, like on government pages. The point „image modality“ deals with images with high quality, the solor saturation, the color contrast or the color coding.

5. As aforementioned Callahan worked on the theoretical base of Hofsted´s model of culture. Various terms, like powerdistance (PD), which deals with the question of hierarchie in a country – that would be a „high power distance“ country (he mentioned Malaysia, Guatemala and Mexico). If subordinates can involve themselves and their opinions in desicions which are elsewhere chosen only by managers, Hofsted talks about a low power distance country, e.g. Austria, Israel and New Zealand.
Furthermore I met the IC – individualism vs. Collectivism – also with adequate namings. The MAS index – femininity vs. Masculinity, UA – uncertainty avoidance and LTO – longterm, shortterm orientation completed Hofsted´s remarks to find cultural differences or similarities.

6. In Callahan´s article many scientists are quoted, e.g. Marcus&Gould (linguistic aspects), Dormann&Chisalita, who worked also with the MAS-index in 5 countries, and McSweetey, who is mentioned as a researcher with contra-choice statements.
As scientisticly representative who worked with UA and LTO Rajkumar was listed there.

7. „The question that guides this study is to what extent the design of websites differs across cultures, and whether the differences can be measured using Hofstede's cultural model.“ Callahan mentions her hypotheses and if they correlates with the research results.
I will not go into detail of the hypotheses and their issues, they can be found at page 11 ff.

8. Interessant for me was Callahans way to select the University websites. She always took two countries of both, high and low form countries. She chose Malaysia for the high PD, Austria because of it´s low PD index. USA stands for her high IC example and Ecuador as low IC country. Japan with it´s high MAS index in opposite to Sweden, the low MAS representative, and so on.

Generally only websites of Universities with bachelor degrees and master degrees get a chance to be choosen. The universities pages of three countries , Austria, Japan and Ecuador, are linked on the ministerial sites. Out of these selection terms Callahan worked with „RANDBETWEEN FUNCTION“ as analytical tool. She randomly selected 20 Universities pro country.

As next working Stepp Callahan mentioned the coding of pictures. Are there logos, persons, buildings, art, nature, artifacts or figuratives depicted. And in what countings comparative to all images on the page. The number of pictured persons, the gender, status, activity and the social distance followed. This social distance is one more devided in terms like: intimated pictured, which means only the head is on the foto, close person – with shoulder, far person is a term for a picture up from the waist, and more.

A detailed passage of her findings follows now where she tried to include the „study limitations“ of her research. This research only showed up 8 countries, only 20 sites pro country and it was only a graphical – and no linguistical research. Is this a representative number of university websites?

9. But now to the findings: In this part of the artice we find different topics. The results of them, compared with the hypothesis are listes here. First the languages used on the homepages were discussed, followed by the several colors. Which color stands in the background, are the colors of the respectiv national flag on the site. Then the information of the organisation were lightened up. Image analysis of the universities and the comparison of the results with „Hofsted´s“ dimensions of culture form the end of this part.

10. In the conclusion Gallahan mentioned the located differences and respectively the similarities of the research. Some of the searched topics were represented more often on certain sites; for example use of photos in Sweden, art depiction in Greece, use of animation in Malaysia and Ecuador, pastel colors in Japan, etc. Similarities can be found in the fotos – mostly students are pictured at the homepages, also the campus and on almost every homepage there ist he banner of the university and it´s logo.
I´ll close with a citation: „ …it is possible that Hofstede's model is valid, and can be used in studying differences in web design, but that the limitations of the present study—including the small number of countries studied—do not show the full potential of the model. In as much as most correlations did occur in the hypothesized direction, it would seem that the last interpretation is most likely, and that Hofstede's model may be helpful in interpreting cultural similarities and differences in graphical design. However, Hofstede's dimensions and graphical cultural markers require more intensive study, especially when interpreting Uncertainty Avoidance. Therefore, Hofstede's model should be used with caution by researchers and/or developers attempting to construct culturally appropriate websites.“

My conclusion:
It was very interessant for me to work through this article. Callahan described every step of her work traceble. I had not the faintest idea of the criteries that has to be compared to eachother. The importance of the color giving, the central decentral graphic layout or the different leves of a homepage.
I decided to make an overview in my exposition, which is not going into the very detail of the results. I wanted to search Callahan´s way and tools of her research considering the second part of my assignment – the reseach proposal.
It is very clear to see Callahan´s searched results, she went into detail precisely and tried to compare the various points.
I wondered a little bit about the paragraph where she talked about the undersized number of countries and universities. Why did she take 20 websites of 8 countries and finds fault with it instead of researching more institutions?
Maybe it was the first part of a longer research project furthermore. Maybe she will continue more widespread researchs later on. I would appreciate that because this article arose my interesst!

first concept of my assignment

Cultural Similarities and Differences in the Design of University Websites

The topic of the research I will execute with is: „Cultural Similarities and Differences in the Design of University Websites“
I figured out following main points along which the researcher Ewa Callahan worked.
List of the participant universities – widespread in eight countries of the world
Empirical research questions
Advertising strategies in universities
Aspects of web design
Hofsted´s model of culture
Various pro-chioce and adverse scientific voices ( Marcus&Gould, Robins&Stylianou, etc.)
Research questions and hypotheses
Study description
Findings
Finally the conclusion

This research is theoretically based on „Hofsted´s model of culture“ in which I will go later on for a few stepps. Callahan explained a lot of Hefsted´s theorie but mentioned several adverse attitudes towards his comments.

Universities from eight countries – namely: Austria, USA, Ecuador, Japan, Sweden, Greece, Denmark and Malaysia - took part of this research. In her study descriptions Callahan revealed here selection criterions; e.g. country selection, website selection, etc..

Each chosen university homepage was surveyd to two criteria: first the demonstration of the organisation and secondly the graphical design.

Questions like e.g.: „How do different cultures represent themselves on the web?“, „Are the designs of websites in different cultures distinct or do they follow similar trends?“, „If cultural differences are found, what role do they play, and what are their practical consequences?“ were posed and later on Callahan tried to find answeres.

In one passage of this article „advertising strategies in Universities“ were mentioned and some background information were presented; like the use of posters, flyers and other promotional material.

The „aspects of web design“ were segmented in language, page design, color preferences, image modality and the tematic strukture. Some pages are color-coordinated with the colors of the national flags, like on government pages. The point „image modality“ deals with images with high quality, the solor saturation, the color contrast or the color coding.

As already noted Callahan worked on the theoretical base of Hofsted´s model of culture. Various terms, like powerdistance (PD), which deals with the question of hierarchie in a country – that would be a „high power distance“ country (he mentioned Malaysia, Guatemala and Mexico). If subordinates can involve themselves and their opinions in dsicions which are elsewhere chosen only by managers, Hofsted talks about a low power distance country, e.g. austria, Israel and New Zealand.
Furthermore I met the IC – individualism vs. Collectivism – also with adequate namings. The MAS index – femininity vs. Masculinity, UA – uncertainty avoidance and LTO – longterm, shortterm orientation completed Hofsted´s remarks to find cultural differences or similarities.

In Callahan´s article many scientists are quoted, e.g. Marcus&Gould (linguistic aspects), Dormann&Chisalita, who worked also with the MAS-index in 5 countries, and McSweetey, who is mentioned as a researcher with contra-choice statements.
As scientisticly representative who worked with UA and LTO Rajkumar was listed there.

„The question that guides this study is to what extent the design of websites differs across cultures, and whether the differences can be measured using Hofstede's cultural model.“ Callahan mentions her hypotheses and if they correlates with the research results.
I will not go into detail of the hypotheses and their issues, they can be found at page 11 ff.

Interessant for me was Callagans way to select the University websites. She always took two countries of both, high and low form coutries. She chose Malaysia for the high PD, Austria because of it´s low PD index. USA stands for her high IC example and Ecuador as low IC country. Japan with it´s high MAS index in opposite to Sweden, the low MAS representative, and so on.

Generally only websites of Universities with bachelor degrees and master degrees get a chance to be choosen. The universities pages of three countries , Austria, Japan and Ecuador, are linked on the ministerial sites. Out of these slelction terms Callahan worked with „RANDBETWEEN FUNCTION“ as analytical tool. She randomly selected 20 Universities pro country.

As next working Stepp Callahan mentioned the coding of pictures. Are there logos, persons, buildings, art, nature, artifacts or figuratives depicted. And in what countings comparative to all images on the page. The number of pictured persons, the gender, status, activity and the social distance followed. This social distance is one more devided in terms like: intimated pictured, which means only the head is on the foto, close person – with shoulder, far person is a term for a picture up from the waist, and more.

A detailed passage of her findings follows now where she tried to include the „study limitations“ of her research. This research only showed up 8 countries, only 20 sites pro country and it was only a graphical – and no linguistical research. Ist his a representative number of university websites?

welcome :-)