GVU's 5th WWW Survey Page
GVU's Fourth WWW User Survey

GVU's 5th WWW User Survey


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This is the main page for the Graphic, Visualization, & Usability Center's (GVU) 5th WWW User Survey. GVU runs the Surveys as PUBLIC SERVICE and as such, ALL RESULTS ARE FREE (subject to certain terms and conditions). The 5th Survey was run from April 10, 1996 through May 10, 1996 and was endorsed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) (which exists to develop common standards for the evolution of the Web) , NCSA's Software Development Group (SDG) (the folks who develop Mosaic and other Web technologies), and INRIA (the acting European host for the W3C in collaboration with CERN, where the Web originated). Over 11,700 unique responses were collected to eight sets of questionnaires, including:

Basic Sections: Consumer Sections:
  • General Demographics
  • Web and Internet Usage
  • Data Privacy, Censorship, etc.
  • Politics
  • Security of Transactions
  • Information Gathering Behavior
  • Purchasing Behavior
  • Opinions of Vendors
Special Sections:
  • Webmastering
  • HTML Authoring, Java, etc.
  • Web/Internet Service Providers


Executive Summary

The Fifth GVU WWW User survey, conducted from April 10 to May 10, 1996, received over 11,700 unique responses, which is about half the response rate for the Fourth survey and is comparable to the response rate for the Third survey. Despite this drop in response rate, GVU's Surveys continue to be the largest Web-based survey both in number of responses collected and number of questions asked. Once again, we have expanded the set of questions to include topics which we feel will play a central role in the growth of the Web: Politics, Data Privacy, and Java Programming. Also, for the first time we divide users by age and examine differences between different age groups.

Some key findings are: Average age has risen again slightly to 33.0 years old. The gender ratio continues to become more balanced with 31.5% reporting being female, compared to 29.3% for the Fourth survey. Estimated average household income has dropped slightly, but remains high in general at $59,000 US dollars. US respondents represented 73.4% of total respondents; Europe was the next largest category with 10.8%. More than half of the respondents access the Web primarily from home and are paying for their own access. Over 80% of respondents access the Web on a daily basis, and most use it simply for browsing and entertainment purposes. More than a third (36%) surf the Web instead of watching TV at least once a day.

In terms of politics, the largest category of Web users classify themselves as "moderate" (30.1%). For US respondents, 25.4% identify themselves as democrats and 21.1% as republicans. The next two largest categories were "independent, leaning toward democrat" with 16.4% and "independent, leaning toward republican" with 10.3%. Web users show a strong interest in political issues: 92% are registered to vote and 60% participated in the most recent elections in their respective countries. Over 40% report that they are more involved with political issues since coming online. These number suggest that the Web (and Internet) can potentially play a significant role in politics.

As the Web and Internet become a part of daily life for many people, data privacy issues become increasingly important. One question we asked examines the conditions under which users are willing to reveal demographic information. The condition that most respondents agreed to was "if a statement was provided regarding how the information would be used" ("use",78.5%). This number, along with others in this category, suggests that respondents are more concerned with their right to control demographic information, than any compensation they might receive for revealing it. Only 5.9% reported that they would not give a site demographic information under any conditions. Also, most recognized that Web designers have a legitimate need to collect demographic information, but they strongly objected to the idea that this information could be resold to other companies.

Java is a programming language developed at Sun Microsystems which can be used to add interactivity to Web pages. We asked respondents who have authored Web pages some of their opinions on Java: Only 17.3% of respondents who identify themselves as Web authors have programmed in Java. But, more than half of Web authors plan to use Java in the next year (58.1%). They identified "platform independence" as the a primary advantage of Java. The largest category of authors see Java as somewhat secure (46.9%). An equal amount think that Java is very insecure or somewhat insecure. Finally, more than half of the authors responding see Java's value as mainly functional (54.9%). Almost 30% feel it is mainly esthetic or adds no value at all. The remaining 15% think it represents a revolution that will fundamentally change the Web.

As part of GVU's commitment toward the growth of the Web and the Web community itself, we offer access to the collected results and datasets free of charge. It is important to note that there are certain restrictions on the use of the data. Nevertheless, we strongly believe that all Web users, regardless of ability to pay, should have access to the most comprehensive data gathered on Web users to date. Remember though, the data presented on the following pages is only a snapshot of the current Web user population - we do not make any claims about the representativeness of the data to the entire Web population.

Presentation of all the results is an arduous task (please forgive any typos and spelling errors. Not only is the process time-consuming, but finding a meaningful way for users to find the results of interest is not easy either. Toward this end, we've created over 200 graphs (See: graphs and tables) of the results and added our interpretation to each question asked in the Survey. These interpretations are also available in a separate, non-graphical format (See: bulleted lists of the findings). These bulleted lists provide an easy way for users to scan the results non-graphically first, and then inspect the graphs for only those questions of interest. There are a lot of interesting results. Plus, PDF files of the entire set of HTML pages presented herein are also available.

For all questions, analysis between the following groups were performed: European vs US users, Female vs Male users, and by age (19-25, 26-50, 51+). These comparisons provider deeper insight into the characteristics of these user segments.

For those wishing a more in-depth, market savy report on Internet demographics (Colleen and I only have so much free time), we highly recommend the FIND/SVP Emerging Technology Research Group's The Emerging Internet Market Report (or contact: Marcia Chin of FIND/SVP @ 800-346-3787). FIND/SVP has been monitoring the evolution of Internet users since early 1994, and as such, is able to present unique trend analysis and insights. The report also provides a much needed comparison of the methodology and results of other major surveys. Through a licensing agreement with the GVU Center at Georgia Tech, FIND/SVP utilizes data gathered from GVU's WWW surveys and compares those to findings of its own survey instruments in an effort to provide a more accurate picture of the Internet user population and how that population has evolved over time.

Special thanks to all who participated for another wonderful survey.

Regards,
Jim Pitkow &
Colleen Kehoe

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High Level Summary and Trend Analysis

General Demographics

What's the average age?

The average age of all the Web users that responded to the Fifth Survey is 33.0 years old, a slight increase from the Fourth Survey, which had an average age of 32.7 years old.One of the re-occurring differences between European and US users is age profiles, with the European users (average age 28.8) being younger than their US counterparts (average age 33.9). These averages are almost the same as observed in the Fourth Survey (European 29.7; US 33.2). As with the Fourth Survey, there are few major differences between the age profiles for men and women. The average age for women is 31.9 years old, which is slightly younger than the men, which have an average age of 33.4 years old. These numbers are almost identical to the Fourth survey where the average ages were 31.8 years old for women and 33.1 years old for men.A trend observed in the Fourth Survey that continues in the Fifth Survey is for the women to have a stronger presence within the 11-20 year old range, with 12.9% of the women belonging to the 16-20 year old category compared to 10.1% of the men. The stronger presence of younger women is supported by the occupational data which also shows a strong presence of women college students.

What's the gender ratio & how has this changed over time?

Overall, 31.5% of the users are female and the other 68.5% are male. This represents a moderate increase in female users from the Fourth Survey, where 29.3% reported being female, and quite a significant jump from the Third Survey (April 1995), where 15.5% reported being female.The US segment continues to be integrating more female users into its user base than other countries, with 34.4% of the users being female in the US (65.6% male). Europe reports only 15.2% females. However, this is a 45% increase from the the Fourth Survey, where 10.5% of the European users were female.Compared to random sampling surveys, like O'Rielly, FIND/SVP, and Nielsen, the gender ratios for the Fifth survey are all with the reported margin of error, i.e., no statistical differences.

What's the average and median income?

The estimated average household income for the Fifth Survey is $59,000 US dollars. As with the Third and Fourth Surveys, this questions received the most 'Rather not Say!' responses (14.0%), nearly seven times greater than any other question. The average income for the Fifth Survey is slightly lower than the Fourth Survey ($63,000) and much lower than the Third Survey ($69,000). We do note that for the Fifth Survey, we changed the ranges provided to the users of values to more accurately reflect normal income levels. As with previous surveys, the European users have more users in the lower income brackets (23.0% under $20k) and fewer above $50k (31.3%). This trend is due to the strong presence of students in the European Web user community. As one would expect is directly proportional to age, with the 19-25 year old age group reports having less income than the older age groups (29.4% under $20k). For the 26-50 year old age group, 48.4% report a household income above $50k, with 61.5% over $50k for the over 50 year old age group.

What about location, marital status, & occupations?

For classification of location by major geographical location, 73.4% of the respondents were from the US, 10.8% from Europe and 8.4% from Canada & Mexico. Compared to the Third Survey which was run one year ago (80.6% from the US, 9.8% from Europe, and 5.8% from Canada & Mexico), this represents a significant shift towards less of a US dominance in Web users. Additionally, notable increases occurred in most of the other geographical areas like Asia, Africa, Oceania, the Middle East, and Central & South America. Responses were received from all the continents. The vast majority of older users are located in the US (83.4%), more so than the other age groups (74.9% 26-50 year old and 67.1% 19-25 year old). Besides the US, the largest concentration of younger users (19-25 year old) is in Europe (16.6%).

One of the more stable characteristics of Web users over the survey is marital status. Overall, 41.1% of the users are married, with 40.8% being single. The users whom reported living with another was 9.6% and those reporting begin divorced was 5.1%. Europeans were twice as likely to report living with another person (18.4%) compared to the US (8.0%). These percentages are almost exactly the same as in the Fourth Survey. As with the Third and Fourth Survey, women Web users are less likely to be married than men (38.2% verses 42.5%) and more likely to be divorced (7.0% verses (4.2%) or living with another person (10.8% verses 9.1%). As one would expect, three quarters of the 19-25 yr olds are single, with three quarters of the 50+ yr olds being married. The 26-50 yr olds are more likely to be married than single (54.0% vs 25.6%).

As with the Fourth Survey, Educational occupations account for 29.6% of the Web users, with Computer related occupations a close second at 27.8%. This is significant shift from the Third Survey a year ago where Computer related occupations accounted for 31.4% of the users and Educational occupations accounted for 23.7%. Thus, there appears to be a solid migration of non-computer science users, with a strong inflow from the educational sector. Professional and management occupations account for 18.9% and 10.7% respectively.Female users tend to be primarily involved in Educational occupations (35.5%), with Professional (19.8%) and Computer related (18.2%) occupations following. This is quite a different occupational profile than males, and is supported by the educational attainment and age profiles of females. Male users are slightly more likely to be in Computer related (32.2%) occupations than Educational (26.8%), with Professional (18.5%) and Management (11.5%) following.

How willing are users to pay for access to Web sites?

This question has changed since the last survey, so a strict comparison of answers is probably not fair. In previous surveys, we asked if respondents willingness to pay depended on the cost and/or quality of the information provided. This time, we presented several different payment schemes to find out what schemes users preferred. With each survey, the percentage of respondents who have stated outright that they would not pay for access to WWW pages has been increasing. For the fifth survey, 65% said that they would not pay. This may reflect the fact that most people primarily use the Web as a source of entertainment and not necessarily a resource they are willing to pay for. Another reason might be the fact that so many users are now paying Internet service providers for Web access. They may not be willing to pay twice: once for access to the Web in general and again for specific Web pages. For respondents who would agree to pay fees for Web pages, the most popular models were a subscription model (12.1%) and pay-per-view (10.9%). For those willing to pay, the subscription model was favored by the youngest users (13.0%), while older users preferred a pay-per-view model (13.7%).

Politics

This was a new questionnaire for the Fifth survey which investigated the political profile of Web users as well as their online political activities.

What is the political profile of Web users?

Overall, the largest category of respondents considered themselves moderate in their political views (30.1%). 21.1% considered themselves to be conservative or very conservative, while 35.18% were liberal or very liberal. For US respondents, the curve peaked at moderate (32.5%) with 4.4% in the conservative extreme and 8.9% in the liberal extreme. In Europe, however, the curve peaked at liberal (33.6%) with only 0.7% in the conservative extreme, but 17.1% in the liberal extreme. One thing to consider with these numbers, though, is that the terms "liberal" and "conservative" may have slightly different meanings in different cultures, so a strict comparison between the US and Europe may not be appropriate.More females than males reported being liberal or very liberal (40.6% female, 32.7% male). About the same number, however, reported being moderate.

For respondents in the US, we asked what party they identified most strongly with. The largest category was "democrat" with 25.4% closely followed by "republican" with 21.1%. The next two largest categories were "independent, leaning toward democrat" with 16.4% and "independent, leaning toward republican" with 10.3%. Only 7.4% of respondents classified themselves as strict independents. 5.8% classified themselves as libertarians. It is interesting to note that although most people identify with one of the major parties, most also classify themselves as "moderates".Respondents over age 50, in general, identify more strongly with their party of choice than do other age groups; 42.9% classified themselves as clearly democrat or republican.

What are their voting behaviors?

An extremely high percentage of respondents are currently registered to vote (91.9%). This is not surprising given the high levels of education and income also reported by survey respondents. Approximately 60% of all respondents report having participated in the most recent local, legislative, and national elections. In the US, the highest participation rate is in national elections (72.5%) while in Europe, the highest rate is in local elections (59.1%). Across all voting categories, the participation rate increased dramatically with age. The age 19-25 respondents averaged 45.8% participation, 26-50 averaged 69.6%, and over 50 averaged 81.6%.

What other political activities do people engage in?

Overall, 40.3% of respondents reported that they are more involved with political issues since coming online. 48.36% reported being equally involved. Over 52.2% of respondents report engaging in some "other" online political activity that does not fall into any of the given categories. For the categories given, the most popular online activities were: writing a government official (31.0%), discussing political issues (23.3%), and signing petitions (22.1%). The majority of respondents have never sent email to their highest government official (73.1%). 17.7% have sent 1 or 2 email messages. Only 2.5% reported that they cannot send email to their highest official.The percentage of respondents aged 19-25 who take part in online petitions is more than double the percentage of those over age 50 (30.4% and 13.6% respectively).

The most popular offline political activities were: discussing political issues ("debate",68.4%), signing a petition (46.8%), and writing/calling government officials (34.9%). The least popular were: joining a political group (9.9%), volunteering for a party/candidate (10.93%), and attending a rally (17.1%).More than half of respondents over 50 have written or called a government official in the last year (52.6%) compared to 22.4% of those aged 19-25. More than a quarter (27.2%) have contributed or solicited money compared to only 16.9% of those aged 26-50 and 6.9% of those aged 19-25.

Data Privacy

We predict that issues of data privacy will become increasingly important as the Internet becomes a part of many people's daily lives. This new questionnaire provides the first insights into users' knowledge of and concerns about data privacy issues.

Do users know what information can be automatically recorded during a Web transaction?

Most users are aware the the time of the request (85.1%) as well as the name of the requested page (82.7%) are loggable. Following in order of response rates, the name of the user's machine (71.0%), the name of the user's browser (59.0%), the user's email address (45.2%), the user's operating system name (37.9%), a site id the persists across sessions (aka cookies) (37.7%), and finally the user's physical location (31.7%). 14.7% reported not knowing what information is loggable. This question reveals that while the majority of users understand the basic information that can be recorded per transaction, many do not know some of the advanced features like cookies. Additionally, the current HTTP specifications do not enable the user's email address to be logged, thus indicating that 45.2% of the users hold a false belief about what is loggable. Yet, given the recent implementation bugs (enabled the user's email address to be sent to whomever) of certain browsers that implement scriptable languages like Javascript, this results may be a bit ambiguous.

What are some of their opinions on various data privacy issues?

For this question, users were asked to rate their level of agreement with various statements about data privacy issues. There were 5 choices, ranging from Agree Strongly (5) to Disagree Strongly (1).The statement that respondents agreed most strongly with (4.6/5.0) was: "I value being able to visit sites on the Internet in an anonymous manner." A close second at 4.4 was: "A user ought to have complete control over which sites get what demographic information." The desire to control their own information is also seen in the conditions under which users are willing to reveal that information.Continuing to emphasize the importance of control, many respondents agreed that they "ought to be able to take on different aliases/roles at different times on the Internet" (3.7). But they strongly disagreed with the idea that "content providers have the right to resell information about its users to other companies" (1.7).Most users, however, recognize that Web site designers have a legitimate need to collect demographic information in order to better design their Web sites (3.8) and to market their sites to advertisers (3.8). Most also recognize a role for advertising-supported content (4.0).

What are the conditions under which users are willing to reveal their demographic information?

The condition that most respondents agreed to was "if a statement was provided regarding how the information would be used" ("use", 78.5%). The other statement that more than half of the users agreed with was "if a statement was provided regarding what information was being collected" ("notice", 59.1%). This second statement refers mainly to information that can be collected automatically during a Web transaction, such as browser type and machine name. Other conditions that respondents were somewhat less agreeable to were: "for some value added service (e.g. notification of events)" ("value", 44.4%) and "in exchange for access to the pages on the Web site" ("exchange", 46.7%). Interestingly, this suggests that respondents are more concerned with their right to control demographic information, than any compensation they might receive for revealing it.Only 5.9% reported that they would not give a site demographic information under any condition.

WWW Usage & Preferences

Where do people access the Web from?

This was a new question for this survey. Respondents were asked to indicate the primary place from which they access the WWW. Only one answer could be selected. "Distributed" means that they do not have a primary place--their access is distributed.More than half of the respondents said their primary place of access was at home (55.4%). This number corresponds well with similar questions, such as Who Pays for Your Access where over half of respondents indicate that they pay for their own access.More European users than US users consider work to be their primary place of access (46.3% vs. 32.2%).More than 73% of those over 50 reported that their primary place of access is at home.

How often do people use their Web browser?

For this question, we mean how many time you use the Web for a specific set of tasks or activities. We do not mean how many times the browser is launched per day. 43.6% of respondents use the Web 1 to 4 times a day. 37.9% use it more frequently, and 18.5% use it less frequently. compared to the fourth survey, this indicates a slight rise in the percentage of respondents using the Web on a daily basis. Fewer females use their browsers on a daily basis: 72.2% of females compared to 86.6% of males. Both of these percentages, however, are higher than in the fourth survey. These numbers are very good news for Web sites that provide content that changes daily.

Why do people use their Web browsers?

These responses are almost identical to the responses for the fourth survey. The most common Web activity is simply browsing (78.7%) followed by entertainment (64.5%) and work (50.9%). The only notable change is in shopping which went from 11.1% in the fourth survey to 14.2% in the fifth. The 26-50 age group reported significantly more work (59.6%) and business research (47.1%) being done on the Web than other age groups. Those aged 19-25 report more entertainment uses (76.5%) and academic research (48.8%).

What are the main problems with using the Web?

For this question, users were asked which of the following problems they encountered when using the Web: not being able to find a page I know is out there ("find info"), not being able to determine where I am ("lost in htext"), not being able to organize well the pages & information I gather ("organize"), not being able to find a page I once visited ("return"), it takes too long to view/download pages ("speed"), not being able to visualize where I have been and where I can go ("visualize"), and it costs too much ("cost"). Users were allowed to mark more than one answer. As was found in the fourth survey, the most common problems are: speed (80.9%), organizing retrieved information (33.6%), and finding information (32.4%). Speed is even more of a problem than in the last survey (69.1% fourth), even though respondents are reporting higher modem speeds. The least reported problems are: getting lost in hypertext (5.4%) and the cost (9.2%).

How often do people use the Web instead of watching TV?>

This question was refined from the fourth survey to allow us to get more detailed information about the relationship between Web use and TV watching.

Almost 36% of respondents claim that they use the Web instead of watching TV on a daily basis. An additional 28.9% say the Web replaces TV on a weekly basis, usually more than once a week. Older users are more inclined to use the Web instead of watching TV. For those over 50, 74.3% report using it at least several times a week compared to 60.0% of those aged 26-50 and 57.4% of those aged 19-25.

How fast are people's connection to the Internet?

The most common connection speed is 28.8 Kb/sec (39.0%) followed by 14.4 Kb/sec (25.5%). This is the reverse of the fourth survey, where 14.4 Kb/sec connections were the most common.The number of respondents connecting at speeds less than or equal to 28.8 Kb/sec has grown slightly since the fourth survey from 61% to 65.5%. So while respondents have faster modems than in previous surveys, more respondents are using modems than in previous surveys.European respondents, in general, have faster connection speeds. A higher percentage of respondents over age 50 are connecting with speeds under 28.8 Kb/sec (87.5%).

Web Authors and Java

This is a new section for the Fifth survey that asks Web authors about their uses and perceptions of Java, a programming language developed at Sun Microsystems which can be used to add interactivity to Web pages.

Have you used Java and do you plan to use it in the future?

Only 17.3% of respondents who identify themselves as Web authors have programmed in Java. But, more than half of Web authors plan to use Java in the next year (58.1%). Just over a quarter are not sure (26.4%).

What are the major advantages of Java?

This question asked Web authors what they thought the major advantages of Java were. Respondents could choose more than one answer. The most cited advantage was Java's platform independence which was noted by 46.7% of respondents. The next largest category was "Other/Do not Know" with 42.64%. About a quarter of respondents identified the fact that Java doesn't require special permissions (unlike CGI programming) (24.9%) and better interactivity (23.5%) as major advantages. Only 11.5% of users cited built-in security measures as an advantage of Java programming.

What are authors' perceptions and knowledge of Java's security?

For this question, authors were asked to rate their knowledge of Java's security measures as: "None at all", "A little (e.g. could list some of them)", "Moderate (e.g. have read the white paper)", "A lot (e.g. have a thorough understanding of flaws recently found)", or "Expert (e.g. have written code to test them) ". Of those who knew something about Java's security, more than half of the respondents reported that they know "a little" (53.9%). 45.0% reported knowing a "moderate" amount or "a lot". Only 1.0% considered themselves experts.

The largest category of authors see Java as somewhat secure (46.9%). An equal amount think that Java is very insecure or somewhat insecure. It would be an interesting analysis to see how level of expertise was related to perceptions of security.

What is the real value of Java to the Web?

More than half of the authors responding see Java's value as mainly functional (54.9%). Almost 30% feel it is mainly aesthetic or adds no value at all. The remaining 15% think it represents a revolution that will fundamentally change the Web.

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Limitations of the Results

Highly distributed, heterogeneous, electronic Surveying is a new field, especially with respect to the Web. Our adaptive WWW based surveying techniques are pioneering and as such, require conservative interpretation of collected data due to the absence of time-tested validation and correction metrics. Basically, our Survey suffers two problems: sampling and self-selection. Essentially, when people decide to participate in a survey, they select themselves. This decision may reflect some systematic selecting principle (or judgment) that effects the collected data. Almost all surveys suffer from self-selection problems. That is, when a potential respondent hangs up on a telephone based surveyor, self-selection has occurred. Likewise, when a potential respondent does not send back a direct mail survey, self-selection has occurred.

The other issue is sampling. There are essentially two types of sampling: random and non-random. Random selection is intended to ensure equal representation among populations. To accomplish this, steps need to be taken to get respondents in a random manner, e.g., drawing numbers out of a hat. Our Survey uses non-random sampling, which does not use randomization techniques to get respondents. This reduces the ability of the gathered data to generalize to the entire user population.

Since the Web does not have a broadcast mechanism (yet) we used the following diverse mediums to attract respondents:

We felt that by providing many channels to bring respondents to the survey, we would attract a larger and more diverse set of users. To determine if the different channels were indeed attracting different sets of users, starting in the third survey, we have included a question asking how the respondent found out about the survey. This allows us to group respondents accordingly and look for differences between the different populations, specifically gender differences. For the third survey, we reported that there were no significant differences between the response profiles of women and men for the following categories: remembering to take the survey, other Web pages, the newspaper, other sources, and listserve announcements. There were differences found for: finding out via friends, magazines, Usenet news, and the www-surveying mailing list. Differences were even more pronounced in the fourth survey and we expect to find the same in the fifth. Given the low effectiveness of all but other Web pages and Usenet news announcements, which account for well over 50% of the respondents, most of these differences lead to nominal effects. To be conclusive, we would need to examine other basic demographics (e.g. age, location, income) across the different populations, as well. The differences in gender across the populations, however, are a positive indication that the different channels are reaching different sets of web users.

Additionally the Fourth and Fifth Survey's ratios for gender and other core demographic characteristics like income, marriage, etc., are almost exactly those reported by North American based random sampling surveys. While the WWW User Surveys do attract heavier users than random phone based survey, it does not appear that frequency of use is a differentiating characteristic within the population, as one might expect. It is also important to keep in mind that up until the Fall of 1995, no random number dialing survey had been publicly released to compare the WWW User Survey results to. Indeed, to date, no international random sampling survey has taken place, so the biases and corrective metrics necessary are still indeterminable.

Despite the evidence to support the Survey results, we remain unconvinced that the Survey's sampling methodology is optimal and welcome suggestions and further comments on this subject.

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Technical Information

Statistical Inferences

All analyzes were performed using Splus version 3.3 for Unix. Tests for significant interactions among variables are forthcoming.

Execution

The Surveys were load balanced using a dedicated Sun Sparc 20 and two Sparc 5's. All HTML pages were generated on the fly via our Survey software and query engine (written in PERL). For more information about how the Surveys actually work, see: the write-up in the paper on the Second Survey Results. For inquiries about the availability of the survey code, contact: www-survey@cc.gatech.edu.

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In Appreciation

We owe the loan of the fabulous artwork to
Melissa House & Allyana Ziolko (please contact Allyana: allyana@cc.gatech.edu for permission to use the artwork) and technical support to Michael Mealling (OIT), Dan Forsyth (CoC), Dave Leonard (CoC), Randy Carpenter (GVU), & Kipp Jones (CoC). Of course, the resources necessary for the Surveys would not be possible without support from the GVU administrative staff and Dr. James Foley, GVU's Director.

Special thanks go to Greg Calhoun, Emil Sarpa, & John Dutra of Sun Microsystems, whose generously provided the machines which ran the Surveys. Back to the top


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Copyright 1996
Georgia Tech Research Corporation
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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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For more information or to submit comments:
send e-mail to www-survey@cc.gatech.edu.

GVU's WWW Surveying Team
Graphics, Visualization, & Usability Center
College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332-0280