As science goes, Web-based research is still fairly new. However, it is now at least a decade old, as the publication record of Ulf-Dietrich Reips shows. Reips was one of the first to turn to the Web and has been at the forefront of the field since then.
It appears that Reips and Uwe Matzat run a yearly journal devoted to Web-based experiments: the International Journal of Internet Science. This journal is, fittingly, open-source. Although the journal describes itself as “a peer reviewed open access journal for empirical findings, methodology, and theory of social and behavioral science concerning the Internet and its implications for individuals, social groups, organizations, and society,” much of the research so far appears to concentrate on that middle goal: evaluation of Web-based experiments as a methodology (a project in which Reips has been involved in the past).
This is obviously important, since a number of people remain skeptical of Web-based research. A few of the papers that have come out already are worth mentioning and will appear in future posts.
Comments are closed.