Solution Tag: User behaviour

User survey at public libraries

Posted on September 12, 2018 by -

Context of research

The first large scale survey among users of public libraries took place in 2004. Over the last one and a half decades, the public library sector underwent substantial changes, among other things because of the increasing influence of the Internet, which redraw the media landscape. Although lending books remains at the core of public libraries, many libraries have reinvented themselves. Nowadays, public libraries are also community centers that host a variety of activities. Membership is no longer a condition to visit a library. The umbrella association of Flemish libraries (VVBAD – “Vlaamse Vereniging voor Bibliotheek, Archief en Documentatie”) ordered a follow-up survey in 2018.

The challenges

The follow-up survey was conducted via MOTUS. The flexibility of this softwareplatform needed to guarantee that:

  • Results are comparable with the survey from 2014;
  • Results are comparable between libraries;
  • The questionnaire was adapted to the changes that libraries underwent; and
  • The recruitment of respondents was expanded beyond members (after all, libraries are, for example, also community centers).

“MOTUS offers the flexibility to ask questions about the unique context of each individual library within the framework of a comparable research design.”

The survey

Between February and June 2018, users – in the broadest sense – of public libraries were invited to participate in the survey. On the central webpage (www.bib2018.be) they selected their own library and completed a general questionnaire as well as a library-specific questionnaire. Every library receives a personalised report. They will use the results to evaluate their functioning and improve it where necessary.

The survey in figures

  • 107 public libraries participated;
  • 61 libraries added personalised questions to the questionnaire;
  • Over 45.000 users had their say;
  • The questionnaire was online for five months;
  • The average completion time of the questionnaire was 28 minutes.

BEHAVE: setup of a behavioural panel through MOTUS

Posted on August 31, 2018 by -

Background

Online panels are unavoidable in science

An individual’s opinion is central to better understanding the needs and behaviours of customers, users of services, and employees. The power of opinion is getting more important in market research. The internet provides a quick and cheap way to collect opinions, which gives online panels an important role in the collection of market oriented data (see regulations ISO26362). Fast and cheap available data also leads to the increased use of online panels for scientific purposes.

How reliable and valid are online panels?

Companies exploiting panels parade with the size of their panels and the subpopulations that are part of it. These two elements support the service they provide: opinions of a representative sample of the population or group in question.

On the contrary, information about the recruitment or entry of panel members is often scarce. This information, however, is essential for knowing the (non-)response rate and make generalised statements about a (sub)population. More information, for example about how often panel members participate successfully and about the quality of their answers, is often lacking as well.

A prerequisite for reliable and valid results is a random sample (f.e. from the National Register). This increases the representativeness of the panel and supports generalised statements about a (sub)populations. At the same time, all decisions and steps in the process of creating a panel need to be documented.

International examples of academic panels

There are a small number of panels in Europe that are managed according to academic standards. Examples are

  • LISS panel – Langlopende Internet Studies voor de Sociale wetenschappen – The Netherlands
  • GESIS panel – Leibniz-Institute für Sozialwissenschaften – Germany
  • ELIPSS panel – Étude Longitudinale par Internet Pour les Sciences Sociales – France

Outside Europe, some leading panels exists. Examples are:

  • HILDA panel – Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia – Australia
  • ALP panel – American Life Panel – America
  • UAS panel – Understanding America Study – America

It is striking that most panels are oriented towards social sciences with a focus on the individual. The HILDA panel is an exception. This panel focusses on the household from an (socio-)economic point of view.

Project BEHAVE

Design and aim

Project BEHAVE combines the need for an academically oriented panel with the focus on expanding knowledge on longitudinal patterns of behaviour. Data on human behaviour will be collected using the MOTUS software platform, both by means of active and passive registration. The project includes an interdisciplinary team and has the following goals:

  • Creating a panel in Belgium according to academic principles of reliability and validity;
  • Linking this panel to MOTUS, which will serve as the respondent management and research coordination platform;
  • Expanding existing methods of active registration (i.e. active involvement of respondent) with methods of passive registration (i.e. using wearables, sensors, and databases linked to MOTUS);
  • Focussing on a longitudinal, multidisciplinary, and open source data collection strategy.

Together, these aims make BEHAVE a unique project.

The process

The BEHAVE project exists of three types of partners. Central to the project is a multidisciplinary team of scientists at the VUB, from the department of Social Sciences & Solvay Business Schools, the department of Engineering Sciences, the department of Medicine and Pharmacy, and the department of Physical Education and Physiotherapy. In addition, an open call is done to include other scientific institutes. Finally, third parties can participate as well, as there might be: policy institutions, ngo’s, non-profit organisation, companies, etc. At this moment, 23 third parties have expressed their interest, including the Belgian statistical office (STATBEL).

“The research community needs an academic panel to render reliable and valid opinions of people. This holds both for scientific as well as for market research.”

The academic principles of reliability and validity are priority when creating the BEHAVE panel, as is securing privacy of its panel members.

Aim: at least 5,000 to 10,000 panel members

The project aims to include 5,000 randomly selected respondents in a panel in the first phase of the project. Behavioural research requires a greater effort of respondents than opinion research. This means that large scale studies can at most be repeated every three months. This can be supplemented with studies of a smaller scale. In a second phase, the project aims to increase the size of the panel to 10,000 respondents. Based on the interest and inclusion of other institutions, this number might rise.

Learn more?

The project starts in October 2018 and runs for four years. If you want to learn more about the project and the possibility to be included, contact Joeri Minnen.

Pedestrian zone and daily life in Brussels

Posted on August 31, 2018 by -

Background: pedestrian zone in Brussel

To answer to a pressing question of the community of Brussels, a decision was taken to extend the pedestrian zone in down-town Brussels. The expansion is located around the Anspachlaan and the Grote Markt (the green zone in the figure). Despite administrative implementation, the pedestrian zone is not functional yet. A number of road works are still ongoing to connect all separate zones. One major road work site is located at Fontainais. The pedestrian zone is expected to be fully functional by the end of 2018. The completing also kicks off this project.

The project: the use of the pedestrian zone

The aim of this project is to analyse the impact of the pedestrian zone on daily life in down-town Brussels. Amongst other things, we are interested to see how a car-free zone affects the daily activities of the residents and if certain lifestyle changes are permanent.

The questions central to this project are: how and in what way will the pedestrian zone be used? How will the pedestrian zone affect people’s daily life? And how do users experience the pedestrian zone?

The challenges: measuring time and space

Partners in this project are the BSI (Brussels Studies Institute), the ULB (Université libre de Bruxelles), the Research Group TOR and hbits. hbits is responsible for mapping daily life and the use of the pedestrian zone. To do so, it uses MOTUS. In this project, it is important to take both time, space, and social interaction into account. Space is defined as the pedestrian zone itself (probably divided in subzones) as well as the interaction with the space outside the pedestrian zone. Furthermore, the use of the pedestrian zone is not only characterised by a temporal context, that is, when and how often is it used, but also by a social context (i.e. with whom and for what reason).

In this project, the MOTUS-app will use API-locations. The API allows us not only to follow the trajectory of respondents along spatial dimensions, it also allows us to ask specific questions about their experience of the pedestrian zone. Combining the MOTUS-app with API-location allows hbits to map the temporal (i.e. when, how often, for how long), the spatial (i.e. where) and social (i.e. what and with whom) context of the use of the pedestrian zone.

“To map the temporal, spatial and social context of the use of the pedestrian zone, the MOTUS-app uses API-location.”

Prio-climate

Posted on January 5, 2018 by -

Renovation in social housing

Renovation is at the top of the EU-priority list to higher the energetic performance of buildings and to acquire a high-level indoor air quality for sanity reasons.

Media campaigns and subsidy strategies are used to convince private owners to invest in their houses.  All parties together need to take actions to arrive to a fully renovate building stock in 2050.

However, an important group of people do not own the house they live in. For these houses the renovation rate is much lower, while the financial and health costs remain to be paid by the dwellers themselves. This is even more true for families who cannot even afford to rent a house or apartment to stay in. Many of these families rely on social housing companies who make apartments of house available against a low monthly rent. These houses are most-often not adapted to today’s energy and living standards.

Foyer Anderlechtois

The Social Housing Company Foyer Anderlechtois is exemplary in Belgium for houses with a lower living standard of their stock. They manage about 3.700 tenements (apartments and houses) in Anderlecht. About 500 houses are situated at the quartier ‘Bon Air’, or ‘Good Air’.

Action plan

Foyer Anderlechtois’ action plan is to renovate 86 houses in 2018-2020 in Bon Air. This renovation includes modernization, isolation and ventilation. But, just like in every project and now even more, choices must be made. Due to budgetary reasons. And ventilation is often neglected in favour of (e.g.) isolation. While a good ventilation is a precondition for a good air quality and subsequently a healthier life.

This good ventilation is reached more easily with a ventilation system type D hybrid where windows are being opened and closed automatically based on censored data. On the other hand, a type C can be used with fixed ventilation grills in the windows. Variations in between exist.

Living Lab

This project is initiated to set up a living lab where in multiple houses multiple ventilation systems will be introduced with variations in costs and in ease of use. The brings us to three research questions:

  • How do other renovation aspects have an impact on the ventilation performances and needs?
  • How do dwellers in a real day-to-day situation make use of the ventilation system?
  • How satisfied are the dwellers with the ventilation system in use?

It is in particular the day-to-day performance of the ventilation system, the usage by the dwellers and their appreciation about it that are essential in the decision to promote a certain ventilation system. These essentials are brought into light by MOTUS.

Towards a reproduction approach

About 20 households will be followed over the period of one year. Over this period dwellers will keep a registration of their behaviour and answering (triggered) questions about the air quality (e.g. during the night) and their interaction with technical devices in the house (opening or closing windows, switching on/off ventilation system). At the same time technical measurements will take place to grasp information on the temperature, CO2, amount of particles, … .

Both streams of data need to arrive to a balanced renovation concept that includes ventilation solutions and that is affordable, replicable and acceptable by dwellers in social housing.