Evaluating online engagement: practical and critical

Shane McCracken & Rosie Schultz

Welcome

• Do it!• Zone Report• Handout

about.imascientist.org.uk/scc13

Introduction

• 4 themes

1. What is happening on your site?2. Who is on your site?3. What do they think about your site?4. Revealing the answers

Tips 1&2: Extracting site data

• How many approved questions did each student ask?

• Tools:– phpmyadmin– Excel

• Graph showing distribution of questions asked

Wha

t is

happ

enin

g on

yo

ur s

ite?

Tip 3: Semantic Analysis• What students are asking?• Tools:

– Wordle• Word cloud visualisation of top 100 most

frequently used keywords

Wha

t is

happ

enin

g on

yo

ur s

ite?

Tip 4: Measuring site usage

• How much was the Food Science Zone visited?

• Tools:– Google Analytics

• Statistics for overall page views and most popular pages and questions

Who

is o

n yo

ur s

ite?

Tip 5: Where are your audience

• Have we a national distribution?• Tools:

– Google Fusion Table• Map showing locations of participants

Who

is o

n yo

ur s

ite?

Tip 6: Who are your audience?

• Are we widening participation?• Tools:

– Excel– Education.gov.uk & others

• Graph showing distribution of participants across common widening participation measuresW

ho is

on

your

site

?

Tip 7: Who are your audience

• How often do teachers return for subsequent events?

• Tools:– Mailchimp– Excel

• Visualisation of teachers’ participation in eventsW

ho is

on

your

site

?

Tip 8: What do they think?• Are we changing attitudes?• Tools:

– SurveyGizmo– Mailchimp

• Measuring change in attitude to public engagement

Wha

t do

they

thin

k?

Tip 9: Tell them about it?• Disseminate our findings?• Tools:

– Wordpress• Series of articles on

about.imascientist.org.uk

Rev

ealin

g th

e an

swer

s

Tip 10: Tell them about it?• Disseminate our findings?• Tools:

– Twitter– Gephi

• Find key people in your networks

Rev

ealin

g th

e an

swer

s

Thank youshane@gallomanor.com - @shanemccrosie@gallomanor.com - @imascientist

about.imascientist.org.uk