Wisdom of the Crowds: Developing a Social Media Platform for Socially Responsible Research

INFORMATION SHEET

Researcher(s) Introduction

My name is Maggie (Ji Yu). I am a PhD student at the School of Management, Massey Business School, Massey University. This research is being conducted for my PhD degree.

Project Description and Invitation

To cater to researchers’ needs for wisdom-of-the-crowds(WoC)-type data for socially responsible research (SRR), which refers to studies that are conducted with consideration for the benefit of society at large, a new social media platform is developed in this study. It reaches and engages target participants – people over 50 – to obtain their perspectives on current social issues.

The mission of the platform is to provide valuable, accessible, ethically sourced data and analysis for researchers and to facilitate participants’ interest, interaction, and cognitive skills while maintaining our values of ethical principles and social responsibility.

There are two types of users in this platform: people over 50 who are the target participants, and can use it to meet the needs of information acquisition, idea exchange, and social engagement and who are also the contributors of WoC; and researchers who leverage the platform to acquire WoC-type data for SRR.

A design science research methodology is used in the platform development. The stages include: problem identification and motivation, defining the objectives of a solution, design and development, demonstration, evaluation, and communication.

I really appreciate your participation, which is completely voluntary. If you decide to participate, you have the right to:

* decline to answer any particular question;

* withdraw from the study at any time;

* ask any questions about the study at any time during participation;

* provide information on the understanding that your name will not be used unless you give permission to the researcher;

* be given access to a summary of the findings when it is concluded.

If you decide to participate in my research, please access the platform to register and use. Please note that authenticity is the key to this study. Please make sure you provide your real identity and data when participating in this study.

Data Management

* What will happen to the data when it is obtained?

Both qualitative and quantitative data will be collected from the platform. For the qualitative (text) data, which consists of participants' discussion, keywords analysis, topic modeling, sentiment analysis, and text summarization will be used to aggregate wisdom. For the quantitative data, which mainly consists of ratings and rankings, e.g., ranking the best alternative based on users' discussion, statistical methods will be used.

* Storage and disposal of data:

The platform is hosted on https://nz.godaddy.com/ with security monitoring, protection, and data backup functions. The data is stored in a MySQL database on the godaddy site. The database backups will be copied to my local machine periodically.The data is owned by the researcher of this study.

* Method for accessing a summary of the project findings:

The summary will be posted on the website and sent to participants via email.

* Method for preserving confidentiality of identity:

Participants have the option to disclose your real identities on the platform. If you do not want to do so, the system will generate a unique pseudonym for you, and your identities will not be shown. All the data will be reported anonymized in the thesis and potential publications.

Project Contacts

* The names and contact details of the researcher and supervisors:

PhD student, Maggie (Ji Yu), j.yu3@massey.ac.nz, +64 (09) 414 0800 ext. 43180

Professor David Pauleen, D.Pauleen@massey.ac.nz, +64 (09) 414 0800 ext. 43385

Dr Nazim Taskin, nazim.taskin@boun.edu.tr

Dr Hamed Jafarzadeh, hamed.jafarzadeh@mq.edu.au, +61 (2) 9850 6125

Dr Shafiq Alam, S.Alam1@massey.ac.nz, +64 (09) 414 0800 ext. 36262

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about the project.

Compulsory Statements for evaluation phase

LOW RISK NOTIFICATIONS

This project has been evaluated by peer review and judged to be low risk. Consequently, it has not been reviewed by one of the University's Human Ethics Committees. The researcher(s) named above are responsible for the ethical conduct of this research.

If you have any concerns about the conduct of this research that you wish to raise with someone other than the researcher(s), please contact Prof Craig Johnson, Director, Research Ethics, telephone 06 356 9099 x 85271, email humanethics@massey.ac.nz.