Virtual Interviews and Focus Groups

Platform

Virtual interviews and focus groups with human participants can be conducted securely using Zoom and allows researchers to gather rich data from the comfort of their own home or office. Additionally, Zoom allows participants to virtually participate in research projects from anywhere in the world, expanding the scope and reach of data collection. Zoom offers HD video and audio, easy sharing of content, a digital whiteboard, accessibility functions, closed captioning and enhanced transcription services along with the ability to record meetings. 

Features include:

• Intuitive software to conduct virtual interviews or focus groups for up to 300 participants 
• Easy sharing of content 
• Digital whiteboard 
• Security features to manage and protect interviews 
• Accessibility features such as closed captioning, spotlighting for ASL, and more 
• Ability to access and download transcriptions shortly after the interview has completed 
• Integration with our video context management system, Panopto, to use enhanced features such as editing, automatic recording transfer, and more 
• UBC’s Zoom data is routed exclusively through Canadian data centres 
• Zoom is a cross-platforms client that works with Windows, macOS, Chrome OS, Linus, iOS, and Android.  

Possible uses include:

• Conducting a virtual focus group with participants location in different geographical regions. 
• Having a research assistant conduct a recorded virtual interview. After the interview has concluded, the recording automatically transfer into a secure folder. Permissions for this secure folder can be managed by research team members. 
• Downloading an interview transcription shortly after an interview and importing the data into qualitative data analysis software such as Nvivo Pro.  
• Interactive and collaborative virtual interviews using Zoom virtual whiteboards, remote desktop sharing, and more often new methods to collect interview data. 

For FoM Research Community members outside of UBC:

• FoM Research Community members outside of UBC can join a Zoom meeting without an UBC Zoom account as a guest. To join as a guest you must have a Zoom Account.
• For users who cannot load the Zoom desktop client on your computer, such as researchers working on Health Authority managed devices, you can still connect to a Zoom meeting by using the Zoom web client.