Online Bulletin Boards An Introduction

Online Bulletin Boards An Introduction

Online Bulletin Boards are Internet-based, virtual venues where participants gather and engage in interactive, text-based discussions lead by moderators. Group Works has partnered with 20/20 Research of Nashville, TN to provide Qualboard, the leading bulletin board software in the research industry.

Profile of Online Population Age Online Overall 18-29 25% 22% 30-39 20% 18% 40-49 21% 20% 50-64 23% 24% 65+ 9% 16% Gender Men 50% 48% Women 50% 52% Source: Harris Interactive, Oct 2007

Profile of Online Population Ethnicity Online Overall White 73% 75% Black 13% 11% Hispanic 13% 13% Income < $25k 13% 17% $25-50k 23% 22% >$50k 53% 51% Source: Harris Interactive, Oct 2007

Profile of Online Population Education Online Overall HS or less 39% 47% Some college 30% 27% College grad 30% 26% (or post grad) Source: Harris Interactive, Oct 2007

Online Bulletin Boards are Conducted on the internet Benefit: no restrictions because of geography, available facilities, time or travel Asynchronous/self-paced Benefit: participants have time to think about what they want to say, resulting in very rich, detailed responses

Online Bulletin Boards are Not conducted in real time Benefit: Participants can log in and post responses at times that are convenient to them (think pajamas at 3am) Benefit: No issues getting all participants to log on at the same time

Online Bulletin Boards are More time / Bigger groups (vs. Focus Groups) Usually last 3-7 days and include 15-25 participants Benefit: the information generated is equivalent to that of four focus groups

Online Bulletin Boards Are designed to easily accept stimuli Imbedded (e.g. static images, movies) Links (e.g. pop-up PDF documents or surveys) Whiteboard (e.g. for showing live websites)

Online Bulletin Boards Can be used for Online Journals (Blogs) Utilize full masking feature Journals are private seen only by the moderator and client Intimate thoughts and feelings are more readily shared

Online Bulletin Boards are Conducted using Proven in thousands of studies conducted by hundreds of clients Version 2.1 released March, 2008

Qualboard users include

Best Applications for Qualboard When a wide geographical mix is needed Personal topics like exercise and home finances Sensitive topics like acute diseases and sexual dysfunction Highly specialized audiences, where very few reside in one geographical area

Best Applications for Qualboard Product / creative development on a tight deadline Hybrid studies, when part of the study is conducted inperson and part in Qualboard Consulting research, prior to the start of the engagement

Best Applications for Qualboard On-going Panels In these studies, a group of participants stays involved for an extended period of time (weeks, months) and provides continual feedback on products and services

www.qualboard.com: All those involved in the study participants, the moderator and all clients access Qualboard through a highly secure portal with individual Logins and Passwords.

Creating a new discussion board is easy and very customizable: - Appropriate colors can be selected - A Moderator or Client logo can be inserted - One of 10 Languages can be selected: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Slovenian, Danish, Korean and German - Choosing a Time Zone will impact when questions appear in the discussion

Each of the questions in the Discussion Guide can then be customized: - The Date and Time of posting can be selected. - Questions can also be masked, meaning that the posts will not be shared with others ever, or until the others respond.

In the Discussion Guide, Tags can be established: - Tags allow the moderator to highlight participant posts that contain specific words, phrases or ideas. - At the close of the project, the transcript can be sorted, based on these Tags, making key information easier to find.

A list of all study participants is found under the Participants tab. In this section: - You can communicate to respondents via e-mail (hidden in this example) - More importantly, you can actually manage their involvement by monitoring: > How often a participant logs in > How many times they post comments Participants not fully engaged can be prompted with e-mail reminders

The basic discussion itself is a threaded dialog: - The moderator posts a question in blue (or any other chosen color). - The first level of indentation is a participant s response to the moderator's question - The second level of indentation is a participant s response to another participant comments

In addition to text: - Images can be imbedded into the discussion - Links to other documents or websites can also be included

A versatile whiteboard can also be used for display purposes. It can contain static images, movies or live, fully-functioning websites (as above).

When typing a post to the Board, a participant: - Can view the question they are responding to (on the right) - Uses a text editor and has complete control over font selection, type size, highlighting, colors and the use of emoticons - Can also imbed an image in their post

In addition to static images, participants (and moderators) can imbed videos into their posts quickly and easily (in YouTube-like fashion).

At the end of the study, a transcript of the entire Board can downloaded in text (.rtf) or spreadsheet format (.csv).

This is what the downloaded transcript looks like in text (.RTF) format.

And this is what it looks like downloaded in CSV format, which can be sorted (by Tag, by Participant, etc.) like any other spreadsheet.

Any questions? Ellen Schaefer, Principal Group Works 861 San Ramon Way Sacramento, CA 95864 ellen@groupworks.net (916) 974.0555