In765 - Proposal for project

Thomas Håseth Johansen

 

 

Information spread study.

 

How did the Master students in applied informatics find out about the program?

 

The network we are studying is the social network of humans, and how a piece of information travels through this network. The nodes are people, and the links is the “interaction” (conversation, email, etc…) that people have between each other to spread the information.

 

Data collection

The starting nodes will be the students attending the in765 class. I will then ask these students how they got to know about the Master program (who told them?), then I will go and ask these students and so on. In theory I should be able to go all the way back to the source of the master program and find the individual(s) that conceived the idea.

 

Purpose

All people that have studied or know something about marketing know that the most effective form of advertising is by word-of-mouth. The downside is that it’s a relative complex way of marketing compared to the more ‘traditional’ ways of marketing through the mass-media. It’s also a method that it’s hard to measure the effects from.

 

This study will tell something about how effective the knowledge about the product (the masters program) at Molde College spreads. And what form of marketing that seems to be the most effective.

 

It must be emphasized that this study will only focus on one of several programs that Molde College offers, and the result will therefore not be material enough in itself for the college to benefit from, although it might give an incentive to make another more extensive and detailed study.

 

Another self-evident purpose for this project will be to have something for the in765 class.

 

Output

The data collected from the survey would be used in the project to estimate the number of links that the nodes has between themselves.

 

This data could be used to determine the average number of links per node, if there are some people that functions as hub’s in spreading the information. The project can also determine if gender and age plays a role in the methods that people acquire and spread information.

 


 

Survey

 

Note: Only answer this survey once.

 

Name:

 

______________________________________________________________

 

Gender

Male | Female

Age

__________ Years

 

1. How did you first learn about the Masters program in applied informatics?

 

Personal e-mail | Talking to someone | Webpage | Mass-email | Letter | Other

 

2. If you selected “Other” then please elaborate:

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

3. Who was it that told you first about the Masters program?

(“who sent the email”, “what webpage” or “who did you talk to”, etc)

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

4. When was it you heard about the masters program?

(month, year, and the surrounding events)

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

5. Have you told anyone else about the program, when, and how did you tell them?

(list of names, date, and means of informing the persons)

(Personal email, Talking to someone, etc..)

 

_______________________________________________________________________

 

6.What pre-requisites did you have to be able to qualify to the Masters program?

(Bachelor degree, Practical experience, Age points etc…)

 

_______________________________________________________________________