Project overview

The growth and impact of the internet in recent years has meant that the use of online research methods has proven to be an increasingly alluring option for social scientists. Though there is little doubt that the popularity of these methods has increased, there has still been little empirical study of their effectiveness. In producing this package, the project team aim to raise awareness of some of the key questions raised by online research, and to stress the general need for caution and for more appraisal of its value.

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There has been some variety across different disciplines in the extent to which online methods have taken hold, and in the level of awareness of the theoretical, practical, and technical issues involved. The package aims to make training in these methods widely available across disciplines, and to highlight the potentials and problems that they bring.

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At the outset of the project, although training in research methods was available to UK researchers through a wide range of ESRC recognised programmes, there was little specific emphasis on online methods. A number of specialist text books had been published in an attempt to meet the demand for training, but there remained a lack of easily available hands-on facilities.

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The demand for such facilities was clear to the principal investigators from the interest aroused by their use of online methods in their 'Cyberparents' research. This was expressed at presentations and through the response to publication of the research in Geography, Sociology and Market Research. The commissioning of contributions to books on online methods and the incorporation of the 'Cyberparents' research as a teaching resource at a number of academic institutions further emphasised the interdisciplinary interest in and relevance of the methods used.

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The team felt that an online learning resource would be the ideal means of meeting this demand, offering users choice over how and when to access the package, along with the flexibility to explore different content areas according to need, and prior knowledge and experience. By producing the first complete Online Research Methods training package for online delivery, the team hope to make training in current best-practice available within the UK and for the wider world beyond.

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1. Face-to-face training for academic staff, specifically targeted at staff supervising research students. This will consist of workshops promoted through organisations such as the National Centre for Research Methods, the Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN-GEES), the Geography Discipline Network (GDN), and the M1/M69 Academic Development Network of Universities Training Programme.
2. Face-to-face training for postgraduates, comprising of input at the ESRC-accredited Wessex Consortium Conference for national Geography postgraduate training and through the University of Leicester ESRC-accredited Research Training Programme for Social Scientists which is followed by all social science postgraduates across the University of Leicester.

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• The Learning and Teaching Support Network (LTSN)
• The Geography Discipline Network (GDN)
• The Royal Geographical Society (RGS)
• The ESRC National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM)
• The Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG)

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Heuristic evaluation is a method developed by Nielsen and Molich (1990) for finding usability problems in the design of a computer interface. It is undertaken by evaluators who are experienced in interface design or human-computer interaction. These evaluators are presented with a scenario of use, and each evaluator inspects the interface and produces a written log of their findings. They allocate each problem a severity rating from 0-4.

This evaluation was carried out by evaluation consultant Julia Meek of Birmingham University with a team of evaluators. Julia has a wide range of experience of evaluating learning technologies in Higher Education, and she has developed the 'Evaluation Lifecycle Toolkit' which is an integrated package designed to place evaluation at the heart of the development of learning technology, building evaluation activities into every stage of the process.

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The expert evaluation was supplemented by usability studies to allow the development team to observe and evaluate the use of the facility by potential users and to elicit feedback. These studies took the form of cognitive walkthroughs which provide a framework for structured observation of user behaviour. The user interacts with the site and is asked to 'think aloud', describing what they see, what they are doing and reasons for any choices made. The aim is to identify aspects of a site that are difficult to use or understand. Recommendations from these studies were incorporated into the design of the package.

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At different stages of the development, users were asked to evaluate the effectiveness of the site. They were observed using the training materials and asked to provide feedback on their experience via questionnaire and focus group to assess the effectiveness of the module materials and learning activities. This process informed changes to the organisation and content where required.

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Recognised subject experts undertook a detailed evaluation of the content of the training package once a draft of all the modules was completed. This was supplemented by further content-focused user studies eliciting feedback from target users through questionnaire and focus group activities.

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