History of the Internet -- What is the Internet? -- Subject-Based Discussion Groups -- Library Catalogues -- Newspapers -- Indexes to Periodical Literature -- Art Archives -- Government Official Databases -- Electronic Texts Including Literature -- Is the Internet a Viable Research Tool? -- Sampling from the Internet User Population -- To What Extent is Internet Sampling Problematic? -- Internet Sampling Methodologies -- Generating Data: Possibilities in Internet-Mediated Research -- General Advantages of Internet-Mediated Primary Research: When and Why Would It Be Better to Conduct a Study via the Internet? -- Ethical Considerations in Internet-Mediated Research -- Equipment for Internet-Based Research -- Internet, Intranets, and System Diversity -- Basic Requirements -- Software Technologies Useful for Research -- Using the World Wide Web for Research -- Conclusions and Caveats -- How to Design and Implement an Internet Survey -- Design Issues -- Software Procedures for Implementing Internet Surveys -- Implementing a WWW Survey -- A Simple UNIX Server Script -- An ASP-based Windows Server Script -- Adding JavaScript to the HTML Form -- Getting More Information -- Timing Participants -- Form Data Validation -- Stimulus Randomisation -- What Can Go Wrong? -- Equipment -- Methodology -- Netiquette -- Hackers -- Empirical Evidence Regarding the Folk Psychological Concept of Belief -- Decision Making in a Medical Diagnosis Task -- Tandem Language Learning
Summary
This book provides a detailed explanation of all the main areas of Internet research. It distinguishes between primary research (using the Internet to recruit participants, to administer the research process and to collect results) and secondary research (using the Internet to access available material online)
