Folding Forum

From Dr. Pande's blog: A new folding survey

Took it last night. Very interesting set of questions.

Just done it. Had to have a giggle about whether I have ever had any technical difficulties.. Yup that's how I ended up on this forum 4 years ago..

26 questions... It did take me some time answering it as I might have been too thorough.

Very good questions and open-ended to solicit some very interesting answers. Like PantherX it took a lot of time; well over an hour.

It took 40 minutes for me to complete. Can't wait for the results

And what's the purpose of this survey?

kscott wrote:And what's the purpose of this survey?

From Dr. Vijay's Blog:

...how digital technologies are changing the way scientists interact with members of the wider public... to know a little more about why people contribute to the Folding@home community, their views about the project, and about these types of project in general....

And what's the purpose of this survey?

Well, for many years, some of us have made this recommendation.

The support and communication with the donors is paramount to the project's success. Since the researches are primarily focused on their science(as makes sense), it would be a good idea for someone outside the group(not working on the math, biology or computer science) to study how to optimized the point system, donor appreciation, donor communication, social media, etc. etc. etc. etc.

The social, emotional, and "economic" aspects of a distributed volunteer project might be too complex to reduce to simple terms.

However, I welcome the study and hope that it will at least give some direction in areas that can be improved.

On Dr. Pande's blog there is a link, apparently weeks old, to a survey about participating in the F@H project.

Here's the link to the survey - http://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/open/foldingathome

I post this in case anyone might not have been aware of the survey, and might be interested in taking part.

I understand the survey is proceeding well -- with a reasonable number of responses -- but more would be better, especially now.

I see that I missed the thread about this survey in truly magnificent fashion - I think I had posted as a new thread ... it was too soon after waking up ... must drink a pot of tea before trying to think in the mornings.

Has the number of participants in F@H decreased over the past few years? Is that what prompted the publicity about the survey on Dr. Pande's blog, d'you think?

The number of participants has decreased substantially in the last year+, as you can see here. That graph runs up through last November; since then, the number's gone up to just over 200k. It was boosted by the fact that a number of clients weren't showing up in the OS count until this February, so the lows seen towards the end of last year probably weren't quite so bad.

We're completing a 5 year complete overhaul of the FAH software (both client and backend server). With that done, it's a good time for us to take stock in what are the highest priorities for the next 5 years. We have been pushing improving client ease of use and server reliability/fallbacks. While there are still ways we can improve there, it's a good time to think about other priorities too. The survey will help us get a sense of where donors feel are the priorities.

Survey results:
https://skydrive.live.com/view.aspx?res ... Word&wdo=2