From: Meenasarani Murugan <meenasaranimurugan2013@u.northwestern.edu> and Debs Cane <deborah.cane@northwestern.edu>
Hello from the Digital Curation and Repository Work Group at Northwestern University Libraries!
Our working group is responsible for the functional development and community adoption of Avalon Media Systems. Our staff has applied for and received generous support from the Mellon Foundation to conduct the following user research:
A study of scholarly use of audio and video collections by researchers in at least two academic disciplines using contextual inquiry methods; we will use these results to guide future feature prioritization and communicate the value of Avalon to institutions supporting humanities scholars. Our methodology for the study is seated in ethnographic inquiry and user experience modeling. The study is being conducted with three different kinds of data collection:
- Environmental Observations
- In-person Interviews
- Diary Study
Mellon has made it possible to offer scholars a stipend of up to $600 for study participation. We believe that the researchers in the Digital Humanities Working Group, because of their work in time-based media, would be prime candidates for this study. As a study participant you would agree to:
- keeping a private online diary for the length of the study to record when you work with media;
- being observed twice in a setting of your own choosing while using media for your own research;
- and up to three follow-up interviews that would occur during the span of the study.
All data collected during this study will remain confidential and will aid us in better developing the software and understanding the specific needs of researchers who use media. Chances are, if you have used the library to stream your media reserves for your courses, you’ve already been acquainted with our open-source software. As we further develop the software, we would like to improve its capacities for academic researchers. We are interested in how you use media, you are not in any way required to use Avalon in your own work to be a participant, nor are we asking you to try Avalon.
If this study piques your interest, and you have some time (estimation of time for participants is about 20 hours total over 6 months) to share your research methods with us, please respond to this Google Form by March 22 with your name, e-mail address, and the preferred time that you could attend an info session.
We thank you in advance for considering this project. Please feel free to write back to Repository Community Manager Debs Cane (deborah.cane@northwestern.edu) or Research Assistant Linde Murugan (murugan@u.northwestern.edu) with any additional questions about the study or to suggest any other researchers we should contact.