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ERS Online Communication Task Force and Survey Report
Submitted by Christine Di Bella and Rose Roberto
August 2003
Charge to Task Force
At last summer's ERS meeting in Birmingham, the membership discussed a number of issues related to the ERECS-L
mailing list. Concerns were expressed about the low traffic and relative difficulty in establishing and maintaining
meaningful discussion on the list. Some of those present at the meeting also expressed interest in increased
communications options and functionality, including document sharing, the ability to establish ad hoc lists related
to particular issues, and the ability to send particular announcements to ERS members only (the discussion can be
found in section 6.3.1 of the ERS meeting minutes). A group was established to investigate these issues and various software options and report the findings back to the membership.
As part of that work, Christine Di Bella and Rose Roberto, with assistance from Kevin Glick, Rosemary Pleva Flynn, Jean Marie Deken and Brian Doyle, created a brief online survey to assess experience and interest in using various online communication tools. The results of that survey serve as the basis for this report.
Online Communication Survey
Publicity
Announcements of the survey were sent to ERECS-L, the Archives listserv, and the ERS leaders list in May 2003. A reminder message was sent to ERECS-L about three weeks after the initial announcement. An announcement also appeared on the ERS website and in the current issue of the ERS newsletter.
Participation
123 survey responses were submitted. Although ERECS-L is hosted by ERS, participation comes from a far broader population. The survey responses reflected this broad participation, with 57% of the responses coming from people who were not members of SAA. Of the SAA members who responded, 62% indicated that they were also members of ERS. Length of SAA membership ranged from 2 months to 30 years, with an average of 8 years (median – 5 years). Length of ERS membership ranged from 1 month to 8 years, with an average of 4 years (median – 4.25 years).
Countries of origin for respondents included the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Iceland. Job titles reflected a range of job functions, including Archivist, Records Manager, Policy Analyst, Systems Analyst, Webmaster, Reference Librarian, Preservation Field Services Officer, and COO.
Experience With and Interest in Communication Options
Email (48%) and listserv (34%) were most often cited as the primary methods of communication between SAA members. The other choices -- face-to-face (4%), mail (4%) and other (4%) -- were cited by very few respondents.
Among the options listed for future communication for both SAA and non-SAA members, listserv remained the top choice of respondents, with 76% saying they were “Very Interested” and 18% indicating they were “Somewhat Interested” in using a listserv for the cited purpose. Email was also popular, with 61% claiming to be “Very Interested” and 24% “Somewhat Interested.” 74% of respondents indicated at least some interest in a threaded messageboard (30% “Very Interested” and 44% “Somewhat Interested”). Chat and instant messaging were relatively unpopular options, with 69% expressing no interest in instant messaging and 65% uninterested in chat.
Lack of experience with the less popular communication options may have played a factor in these results. While 97% of respondents had moderate to extensive email experience and 96% had moderate to extensive listserv experience, only 52% of respondents claimed the same degree of familiarity with threaded messageboards, 23% with instant messaging, and 17% with chat. 16% of respondents had no experience at all with threaded messageboards, 39% no experience with instant messaging, and 41% none with chat.
Threaded Messageboard Features
The last section of the survey asked about respondents’ level of interest in specific types of features of threaded messageboards.
| Feature |
Very Interested |
Somewhat Interested |
Not Interested |
No Response |
| Edit Messages |
36 (29%) |
50 (41%) |
34 (41%) |
3 (28%) |
| Email Notification |
50 (41%) |
46 (37%) |
25 (20%) |
2 (2%) |
| Email Delivery |
55 (45%) |
47 (38%) |
19 (15%) |
2 (2%) |
| User Profile |
59 (48%) |
43 (35%) |
19 (15%) |
2 (2%) |
| Private Forums |
29 (24%) |
60 (49%) |
31 (25%) |
3 (2%) |
| Private Messaging |
17 (14%) |
53 (43%) |
50 (41%) |
3 (2%) |
| Search Engine |
86 (70%) |
25 (20%) |
9 (7%) |
3 (2%) |
| Polling |
40 (33%) |
59 (48%) |
22 (18%) |
2 (2%) |
| Rate Postings |
28 (23%) |
61 (50%) |
30 (24%) |
4 (3%) |
| Document Sharing |
66 (54%) |
49 (40%) |
6 (5%) |
2 (2%) |
| Password |
57 (46%) |
44 (36%) |
18 (15%) |
4 (3%) |
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(due to rounding, some percentages add up to more than 100%)
A search engine and document sharing were the most popular features, with 90% or more of respondents indicating some interest. A customized user profile, password protection, and email delivery were next, with over 80% of respondents indicating an interest. Polling and email notification came next, with around 80% of respondents interested. Private forums, the ability to rate postings, and the ability to edit messages were chosen by around 70% of respondents as being of interest. Private messaging was the least popular feature, with only 57% of respondents indicating any interest.
Several respondents chose not to answer some or all of the questions in this section, with one citing lack of familiarity with the features as the reason.
Respondent Comments
While we received 123 survey responses, only 15 respondents included additional comments. Although the survey was not designed to assess satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the current listserv, some respondents submitted comments related to the current list or the effect the addition of a threaded messageboard might have on it. Those who did comment tended to indicate a preference for the current format, saying that they liked the relatively low traffic level of the list, and were reluctant to move to any format that would generate more traffic or require additional effort on the part of the user. Several respondents expressed concern that additional communication options would serve to dilute participation in already existing forums such as ERECS-L. As comments were submitted by only 12% of respondents, however, it is difficult to tell whether they are an accurate representation of the opinion of the larger population.
Results of Other Task Force Investigations
Time and Financial Commitments of Forum Administration
While the task force did not conduct a thorough investigation of software options for a potential threaded messageboard forum to take the place of ERECS, we did collect some general information about forum administration. Options range from freeware software that can be hosted by the software provider to high-end packages that must be purchased and mounted onto a server provided and maintained by the administrator. In most cases, the administrator can customize the design and features of the forum through a web front-end, though some require advanced knowledge of scripting languages such as Visual Basic or PHP. Once the forum has been established and customized, depending on the security options selected, the administrator must continue to provide support in the form of monitoring user registrations, establishing and archiving threads, moderating discussions for spam or inappropriate posts, providing technical support to users, and posting announcements or other time-sensitive information.
On the other hand, the current listserv format requires relatively little administration time and presents no financial expense to ERS. The technical administration and storage of the listserv is handled by the SUNY Albany mailing lists system. (Specific financial costs of ERECS were not available as they are absorbed within a much larger infrastructure.) The two ERS members who perform the day-to-day moderation of the ERECS listserv estimate that they spend less than 10 hours a month on listserv duties, even less since the listserv moved to a self-moderated format. In contrast, administration of a threaded messageboard could require almost daily attention, and probably at least some financial expense.
Software Options
As mentioned previously, we did some investigation of software options, mainly to inform the questions on the survey, but did not do a thorough analysis of all available software. Given the modest level of enthusiasm expressed by survey respondents for the threaded messageboard idea, a freeware or relatively inexpensive option which requires little initial design effort and administration time would likely be most desirable as a starting point. If the forum proves successful, then additional study could be made of options for something more robust.
A good starting point may come from SAA itself. According to SAA Webmaster Brian Doyle, SAA is investigating the possibility of hosting threaded messageboards with document sharing capability for SAA sections and groups. Given the prohibitive time and financial commitment of hosting its own threaded messageboard and the modest level of interest, ERS would likely find SAA hosting to be a good solution as a trial run. Brian Doyle assisted with the creation of the online survey and will be receiving a copy of the results. Because our section is the first to provide information on interest in particular communication options and features, the survey results from the ERS group could help to direct SAA’s discussions.
Conclusions
As evidenced by their participation in the survey, ERECS users and ERS members do have a continuing interest in online communication. While listservs and email overwhelmingly remain the most popular options for future communication, there is openness to threaded messageboards as well. While interest is currently at a somewhat modest level, increased familiarity with the capabilities and use of threaded messageboards may lead to increased interest. We recommend that ERS explore and participate in SAA's planned experiment to host section messageboards. At least initially, the messageboard should serve as a supplement to ERECS, rather than a replacement. The survey results point to features in which our users are interested, and it is our hope that our results will help to inform SAA's forum development plans as well.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank ERS members Rosemary Pleva Flynn and Kevin Glick for providing information about the administration and moderation of ERECS-L, Jean Marie Deken for posting the survey on the ERS website, and Jennifer Jacobs for announcing the survey in the newsletter. We would also like to thank ERS Chair Geof Huth, and ERS Steering Committee members Cal Lee and Nancy Deromedi for their helpful suggestions and feedback on the survey design and the overall study. Finally, we are especially grateful to SAA Webmaster Brian Doyle for his technical assistance in converting the survey to an online form, and for providing information about SAA's plans for online forum development.
Page last updated: 6 October 2003
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