From:	 "Paul Dholakia" <dholakia@rice.edu>
To:	 <lwn@lwn.net>
Subject: Request from academic researcher
Date:	 Sun, 31 Mar 2002 11:33:46 -0600

Dear Linux User Group Moderator:

I am a faculty member in the Jones school of management at Rice
University in Houston, Texas (this may be verified using a Google search
with Paul Dholakia, or Utpal Dholakia). We are conducting an
academic research project, studying social interactions online, and how
communities organized around products or brands are formed, from a
sociological perspective.

In this regard, LINUX user groups and mailing lists provide a wonderful
context to study these sociological issues.

We are conducting a survey of members of LINUX user groups/ mailing
lists seeking information on different elements of their thoughts,
feelings, and motivations of participating in such groups, and the value
of the group to them... The survey is available on the web at the
following URL:

http://www.surveypro.com/cgi-bin/surveypro/run_survey.cgi?id=3D2444


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

As a small token of our appreciation for participants' time, and in the
spirit of the philosophy underlying the open-source movement, we will
donate $500 total to the five favorite organizations/ groups of our
participants' choice (we ask the participants to nominate their
favorite groups in the survey).

I am writing to seek your help in conducting this research, first
through participating, and second, through encouraging your portal
members to participate in the research.. A short notice at an
appropriate place on your website will be exceedingly helpful.
Participation in the survey  will not take more than ten minutes of your
(and their time). Broad participation will increase the validity and
generalizability of our findings, making the research more useful.

We welcome all help, and look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,
Paul Dholakia
Assistant Professor
Rice University
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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