Request from academic researchers to ADS-L list members

[Utpal M. Dholakia]

Dear Moderator of ADS-L Mailing List:
Please post the following message to your mailing list. Please let me know
if you have any questions. Your support of our research is greatly
appreciated.
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We are faculty members in the Jones school of management at Rice
University in Houston, Texas (you may verify this by doing a Google search
under Lisa Klein or Paul Dholakia). We are conducting an academic research
project studying different types of social interactions on the internet,
and its influence on participants from a sociological perspective.

In this regard, we are conducting a survey of members belonging to e-mail
groups such as yours, newsgroups, chat-rooms, MUDs, and other social
groups on the internet, seeking information on different elements of their
thoughts, feelings, and motivations for participating in the group, as
well as questions about the group's value to them... The survey is
available for answering on the web at the following URL:

<http://www.surveypro.com/cgi-bin/surveypro/run_survey.cgi?id=2458>

Of course, this research is strictly academic, and has no commercial
motives or interests whatsoever. We hope to publish this research in a
sociology or communications journal.

As a small token of our appreciation for participants' time, and in the
spirit of the philosophy underlying the internet, we will donate $250 each
(a total of $500) to two organizations/ groups/ charities of our
participants' choice (we ask participants to nominate their favorite
groups in the survey). We will randomly select two groups or organizations
from the nominations of all completed responses.

Please, please help us in this research, first through participating, and
second, through encouraging other members of your group or other internet
users to participate in the research. This will not take more than ten or
fifteen minutes of your (and their time).

In addition, if you know other individuals or groups who might be
interested in participating in this research, please let us know.

We welcome all help, and look forward to your participation. If you have
any questions, please e-mail us (Lisa at lklein at rice.edu
<mailto:lklein at rice.edu>) or (Paul at dholakia at rice.edu
<mailto:dholakia at rice.edu>). Thank you very much for supporting our
research.

Best wishes,

Lisa Klein, Assistant Professor, Rice University Web-page:
<http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~lklein>

Paul Dholakia, Assistant Professor, Rice University Web-page:
<http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~dholakia>
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Dr. Paul Dholakia
Assistant Professor of Management
Rice University
314 Herring Hall - MS 531
6100 Main Street
Houston TX 77005-1892
Tel: 713-348-5376
Fax: 713-348-5251
<http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~dholakia>
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