Bentley College students, in the first field use of Perseus MobileForms software, conducted customized market research recently for Entercom Communications Corporation's four Boston radio stations.

According to Perseus, using Palm devices as electronic clipboards, more than 300 people completed questionnaires in a four-hour period. As part of Bentley's new junior year required course, Integrated Business Functions, GB-301 the students used Palms and Bentley's Center for Marketing Technology to conduct interviews during the college's Spring Open House for admitted students and their parents. The field research was designed to ascertain consumer preferences for next year's "The Taste of Boston" event, sponsored by Entercom's Boston radio stations, WAAF-FM, WRKO-FM, WEEI-FM and Star 93.7 FM.

Perry Lowe, marketing professor in charge of the GB-301 Project, said, "Bentley College is the first to partner with Perseus in order to use their new PDA technology. The research project ran flawlessly and the ability to supplement our normal web-based research with personal interviews provides an additional dimension to students' ability to generate fast, inexpensive and actionable information."

With Perseus MobileForms mobile information collection software system, surveys are deployed on a handheld, eliminating, the company claims, the need for paper-based surveys. Using the Perseus SurveySolutions word processing interface, the company said Bentley students created, conducted and analyzed custom market research in less than one day. Their results were delivered in recommendations in their GB-301 Business Plans presented to Entercom management and Bentley faculty.