Transcript Institutional Web Services: Evidence for Their Value

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Evidence, Impact, Metrics
Social Web Services:
Evidence for Their Value
Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
Bath, UK
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Timetable
Time
Content
Beyond The Institution: Evidence of the Value of Could Services and
the Social Web
2
13.30-13.45
Social Web Services: Profiling Early Adopters [BK]
13.45-14.05
Case Study 1: iTunes U: is it Worth it?, Jeremy Speller, UCL
14.05-14.25
Case Study 2: Media Services in the Cloud,
Sarah Sherman, Bloomsbury Consortium
14.25-15.00
A Framework for Gathering and Using Metrics for Use of
Social Web and Cloud Services
15.00-15.15
Coffee
15.15-15.40
Report Back
15.40-15.50
Action plans
15.50-16.00
Conclusions
Introduction
Beyond The Institution
Cloud and Social Web services:
• Provision of content delivery services
• Popular & well-used
• Free institutional effort (& tax-payers money) to do
other work
• Must-use solution in today’s technical/economic
context
Or:
•
•
•
•
3
Selling our users’ eyeballs to advertisers
Risky – services may not be sustainable
Dangers of lock-in and deferred costs
Must avoid – need to be able to own & manage
key technical infrastructure
Today’s Session
Relevance of Cloud & Social Web services for today:
• Determined by evidence (not advocacy)
• Social Web can be cost-effective:
 How?
 How much
 What are savings?
 What are the intangible benefits?
…
Scenarios:
Headline 1: Unis waste millions on in-house social
media when free services available!
Headline 2: Students pay £9,000 p.a. to watch
YouTube video & chat on Facebook!
4
Introduction
Benchmarking: Facebook
8,000 today
5
Surveys of Facebook
usage in UK HEIs
• “In Nov 2007 76
hits for ‘university’
including Aston,
Cardiff, Kent and
UCLan”
• See post on “UK
Universities On
Facebook”
• 31 comments;
discussion on
‘unauthorised’
claims
Benchmarking: Facebook
7,539
2,976
1,116
Seven months later:
• “Revisiting UK University
Pages On Facebook” post,
16 June 2008
• Identified 8 most ‘popular’ UK
University on Facebook
• Post published 4 days after
news that Fb is now most
popular Social Network
• Marketing potential trumps Fb
concerns?
“I still can’t see any hard data that justifies time and
effort spent in managing data natively inside facebook”
6
Benchmarking: Facebook
“Planet Facebook Becomes Less of a
Walled Garden” survey in October 2010:
• Revisiting institutions from 2008 survey
• Significant growth in Cardiff (13,000%),
Surrey (540%) & OU (380%)
“I still can’t see any hard data that justifies time and
effort spent in managing data natively inside facebook”
Is:
• The hard data now available
• Supportive data available which needs further
analysis?
7
Benchmarking: iTunes U
“What Are UK
Universities Doing
With iTunes U?”
• Survey published in
Oct 2010
• 16 UK colleges with
iTunes U presence
• Comments on
perceived benefits
(cost, audience,
ease-of-use,
downloads, …)
8
Discussion on openness; lock-in & costs – but not on
evidence of ROI
Benchmarking: YouTube Edu
“How is the UK HE
Sector Using
YouTube?”
• Survey published
Oct 2010
• 16 institutions
with official
presence
• Page provides
stats on visits,
nos. of videos,
downloads, fans,
comments, ….
9
Benchmarking: YouTube Edu
Note blog post led to discussions on best practices;
other institutional & departmental channels, …
10
Other Work (1)
Small-scale monitoring
of use of personal tools:
• UK Web Focus blog
registered on
Technorati and
Wikio
• Usage statistics for
slides on Slideshare
11
Other Work (2)
Small-scale monitoring of use of
personal tools:
• Twitter stats using various service
(e.g. Twitoaster)
• Bit.ly for stats on clicks from tweets
12
Questions
Any questions or comments?
Next two case studies:
• “iTunes U: is it Worth it?”, Jeremy Speller
• “Media Services in the Cloud”, Sarah Sherman
13
13:45-14.25
Discussion
Note: Informed by case studies
Initial approach has been recording evidence of:
• Early adopters
• Usage and related statistics
• Indications of purpose(s) of services
• Trends (for Facebook growth)
What next:
• More comprehensive surveys across
sector (who does this?, how?, why?)
• Alternative / complementary approaches?
• How to relate to impact and value?
14
Scenario for Discussion
PVC requests evidence of value of institutional use of
Cloud Services including the Social Web following
tabloid headlines
You need to identify:
• Ways of gathering such evidence
• Ways of interpreting such evidence
• Concerns regarding dangers of (mis-)use of such
evidence
• Opportunities provided in aggregation of such
evidence
15
14:25-15.00
Questions
Any questions or comments?
16