My name is Ben Carey from the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and I am conducting research for my doctoral project on the role of the creative writer in producing interactive narratives. I am currently seeking responses from aspiring interactive writers, such as yourselves, in the form of an online questionnaire. The questionnaire contains seven questions about the interactive writing process, such as ‘How much experience have you had in relation to writing interactive narratives?’ The questionnaire should take approximately 20 minutes of your time.
This project is supervised by Associate Professor Susan Carson and Mr Craig Bolland of QUT, Brisbane, Australia, and is due for completion in January 2017. My aim is to include my findings in my doctoral project as well as to publish this material and present it at a reputable conference such as the International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling.
Just as a FYI for the American (and many other nationality) forum members, QUT is a legit and quite well respected university in Australia.
While I can’t speak personally to the legitimacy of this particular PHD study, if you were wanting to participate I can vouch for the integrity and professionalism of the university itself.
Full disclosure I happen to be a QUT alumn myself so my opinion may be somewhat biased.
I see that you are aspiring to be a doctor. As a doctor I highly encourage your pursuit. I’ve never heard of QUT, but I’m sure it is completely reputable. I personally got my PhD from Google Images, but it says on it that I got it from some high end school in New York called “Xavier’s school for gifted childern”. It doesn’t even sound like a university, but I’m completely certain that it is legit.
This questionnaire is intended for aspiring authors. I am interviewing established authors separately. If you message me your email address we can discuss a potential interview. Or if you just want to take the questionnaire, that is fine as well! Thanks for your interest.
Thanks for that! I definitely should have mentioned that QUT is based in Australia. And yes, we do have a very good Creative Industries. Thanks for the input Lance.
I’ll admit now that I am no aspiring/current author and therefore will probably avoid the questionnaire (unless you guys want a non-writer to take the survey…) however I’ll admit that I find it pretty neat that we’ve hit the point in science (or perhaps it’s writing?) where even a small thing like interactive writing has become important enough to be interviewed, especially by an apparently important science facility thingy (sorry QUT I’ve never heard of you until now, Its just that I’m not Australian or a scientist/engineer)
or perhaps its the other way around and interactive writing has become large enough to be noticed by something like this? either way it seems pretty neat to me, as a random bystander.
I’ve participated. The survey is non-invasive and non-biased, seven questions about reasons why you write interactively, what obstacles you face, and your method in writing. You are participating anonymously, no personal info is given.
Hey guys I’ll second that QUT is a legit uni, it’s based in Australia which is why it may not be commonly known. This study is likely all above board. It doesn’t take long, if you’ve got the time, I’d say go for it.
@Ben_Carey
There are some issues with the questionnaire itself (at least at the time I filled it in). It doesn’t have anything to do with the content itself, but rather with the way the online questionnaire is put together. There are some questions where there is an option for ‘Other’, with the remark to fill in what you mean in the text-box below (forgot what it’s called). Some of those ‘Other’ options are not selectable because for some reason whatever the name of that text-box thingy is, is selectable as an option as well rather than being in plain text.
Just thought I might as well point it out, though it’s not exactly a big issue. It might give you some trouble if you were to try to process the data by some automated system though.
Thanks Jacic. It is indeed above board. If anyone has any doubt about that please click the link and read the Information form provided. I had to go through a 3 month ethics process with the university to get approved to undertake this research, so I can assure everyone it is above board!
