Cover Letter for Electronic Conference Questionnaire

Lorraine Sherry
RMC Research Corporation
1512 Larimer Street, Suite 540
Denver CO 80202
January 15, 1998

Dear (Name of Fellow Student),

I am now in the data collection phase of my dissertation, and I'm
requesting a favor from you.
The purpose of my research is to find out what factors affect the use of
e-mail and the Internet within the School of Education. The results will
be used by both CINS and the School of Education to find ways to support
new users as they begin to grapple with the tools and processes of online
communication. 

One of my data collection activities is an analysis of the Colorado
Education Online (CEO) conference for Laura Goodwin's Spring, 1997
Advanced Quantitative Methods seminar. Electronic conferencing is
considered by some to be a promising practice in using Internet tools to
support teaching and learning, especially at the graduate level. 

Last spring, you were enrolled in Laura Goodwin's seminar. One of the
voluntary activities in the seminar was participation in an electronic
conference, primarily via CEO. To date, I have collected all of the
messages that were posted on CEO, but I do not have any record of messages
that were sent and received via other university accounts (Carbon or
Ouray), nor commercial accounts such as AOL, Compuserve, or accounts that
you may use at work. Nor do I have any information from those of you who
did not participate in the electronic conference.  

To complete my data analysis, I need to gather impressions from all
students who were enrolled in the seminar. As you can see, your response
is very, very important to me, whether or not you ever participated in the
conference. Though your response is purely voluntary, I feel that
responses from nonparticipants may be quite valuable since they may reveal
important insights concerning lack of access, problems and concerns of new
users, and limitations or negative aspects of electronic conferencing. It
will take only a short time to answer the ten questions on the enclosed
questionnaire and to return it in the stamped reply envelope. I have
included some reflective questions that you may wish to think about as you
answer each of these questions. Please feel free to write on the back of
the paper, or to include extra sheets of paper if required. 

Of course all answers are confidential and will be used only for the
purposes of my dissertation. To assure anonymity, your responses will be
coded with an identification number instead of your true name. If you are
interested in seeing the results of this research, I will post a copy on
my Web Page (www.cudenver.edu/public/education/sherry/dissertation) when
it is completed.  Please return the completed questionnaire at your
earliest convenience.  Thanks so much for your help.  

Sincerely,



Lorraine Sherry
Doctoral Candidate, CLT Emphasis Area