All About Books discussion

The moderators have agreed to allow the following information from some University of Michigan graduate students to be added here:



'My name is Sulaimon, and I am a graduate student at the University of Michigan. I’m writing to you on behalf of a group I’m in for a class studying online communities. Our team is comprised of three graduate students, Jatin, Aravind and myself. We are interested in studying how reading interests develop and evolve within a community of readers. We found that All About Books group intersects with our interests; reading, talking about books and picking out books to read any chance we get are some things the three of us share with members of your community.

All About Books group fits the profile of a community where members enjoy a sense of community, and with your permission, we would like to interview your members to learn what makes it successful. Specifically, we would like to learn how All About Books group has influenced their reading experiences, how they network with other members and how their reading interests have developed/evolved through the community. We hope that there are members of the community that are as excited about sharing how their involvement in the community as influenced their reading experiences as we are! We believe that our study could also be helpful to you, and if there are topics that you are interested in studying we’d be happy to talk with you about integrating that into the interview protocol. The report will be completed and submitted in our class at the end of April, and we’d be happy to send you a version then as well.

We are trained in ethics and privacy, and will not interview anyone without their explicit consent. If members of All About Books group are willing to participate in an interview, we would not use their name, photo, or any identifying details in our report, and would not use their contact information for purposes other than this research. Finally, we would never mention All About Books group by name in our report in order to protect the identities of community members.

The idea behind All About Books group makes it a vibrant place for reading habits to evolve and we’d love to find out more about what makes it so effective.'

If you are interested in finding out any more about this (with no commitment at this stage), if you post that you are interested here, and then Sulaimon will be able to provide you with further information.

Below is a link to a Google Form with more information about our study. It also contains a consent form for members who decide after reading about our study to participate. Regular members and moderators are invited: https://docs.google.com/a/umich.edu/f...

I would like to help but it's nearly impossible: phone (I live in Italy) and I don't have a webcam to do a video on skype (and I wouldn't do it even if I would have a webcam). Why not a form with questions? It would be much easier, at least I think so.

dely wrote: "I would like to help but it's nearly impossible: phone (I live in Italy) and I don't have a webcam to do a video on skype (and I wouldn't do it even if I would have a webcam). Why not a form with q..."
How does an audio Skype interview sound? It doesn't require a webcam. The reason we require some type of synchronous communication is because it offers an opportunity for us to ask insightful follow-up questions based on your answer to a scripted question. Answers to these follow-up questions are crucial in reaching a conclusion in our study that is specific to the All About Books community.

Here is a link to a Google Form questionnaire for members who prefer answering our interview questions by filling a form instead of a phone/Skype interview. We appreciate your participation: https://goo.gl/forms/E4mwpqZb2XHl1V3e2

Thanks Sulaimon! I think (and hope) that it will be appreciated by members that would have problems with a phone interview.

I already answered the form and hope that my fellow AAB friends will help too.

Same with me as dely!!!

Same with me ...