Our Pilot study was conducted from January 24th 2013 to January 29th 2013 as a part of our Multimedia and the World Wide Web class. Our survey was written on Surveymonkey.com and all participants took the survey using the same website. Eight students participated in the pilot study. Through this pilot study we were able to pinpoint some problem areas within our survey. We found that we needed to add another option for the question “What is the main reason you use YouTube?” We included the option “To watch Popular Videos”. Another error we needed to remedy was to include a title when asking the question “How many videos do you watch a week?” For example, instead of simply having the option say “1-10 videos” we included “Light user-1to10”.

For our final study we used the convenience sampling method. We sent out our e-mails to participate in the study to DePaul students we knew were available to us through our courses. Our e-mails included a link to SurveyMonkey.com where all of the surveys were completed. Ten questions in total were asked, two of which were freeform questions. All of the participants used the knowledge and preferences they possess and did not need have to do any research or outside study to complete the survey.

The survey was conducted confidentially and included a paragraph at the top of the survey ensuring the rights, privacy and informed consent of participants. Participants were not asked to identify themselves and all IP addresses, names, and e-mail addresses were not recorded.