ABSTRACT
Online research communities are groups of people who have been targeted, invited and recruited into a public or private online community to provide attitudes, opinions, ideas and feelings on specified issues, ideas or products over an extended period of time. This research method is popular in market research, the service industries and product development. Members interact with each other and the moderator via their computer, tablet and/or mobile phone. Researchers are able to observe this interaction, consider the ideas presented by members and record feelings about the topic(s) under discussion. Closed communities tend to be used for commercially-sensitive, private or confidential topics. Once an open or closed online research community has been established, a variety of methods can be used to engage members and collect data. There are a wide variety of commercial marketing and/or research companies that have existing online research communities that can be accessed by researchers or businesses.
