Demystified, but still a little Foggy.

Though this posting's title could be describing me, that wasn't the intent! It's actually the way I feel about this really great post by 'The Future Collective' (whatever that is? Part of the 'Fog'?)

ANYway....I LOVED the post, and it specifically addresses engagement. As alluded to in a previous post, engagement is key in all learning. (DUH!) And 'The Future Collective' does a good job of showing where web analytics fits into the "equation". They/It define/s it simply enough: A+B=C where:

A + B = C -> (they are engaged) + (the site) = (to do what?)

* If you can describe what you want someone to do (”C”) and
* You know what the demonstrations of engagement are for your selected audience (”A”) then
* You can determine what the site (”B”) needs to be in order for “A” to happen such that “C” occurs.

The only FOGGY thing still is...that I DON'T know what the demonstrations of engagement are for my selected audience (learners rather than customers). It's not quite as straight-forward as a purchase, or putting something in a cart, or even registering. AND it probably varies quite a bit by person (thus the 'intended audience' qualifier). But my biggest hang-up is that I try to define what it is that demonstrates (learning) engagement in terms of what I know analytics can measure. Right now. Today. I'm pretty sure that progress will only come when we see past that limitation (that for all intents and purposes isn't real anyway!).

Glad I found the site. Will definitely be reading more. Read More......

Operationalizing Engagement

How does this formula grab you?


Whoa! Don't touch that back button YET!
What? this doesn't 'engage' you?

How about this version and explanation?
Σ(Ci + Di + Ri + Li + Bi + Fi + Ii)
Where

“Visitor Engagement is a function of the number of clicks (Ci), the visit duration (Di), the rate at which the visitor returns to the site over time (Ri), their overall loyalty to the site (Li), their measured awareness of the brand (Bi), their willingness to directly contribute feedback (Fi) and the likelihood that they will engage in specific activities on the site designed to increase awareness and create a lasting impression (Ii).”

"The components of the Visitor Engagement calculation are:
• Click Depth Index: Captures the contribution of page and event views
• Duration Index: Captures the contribution of time spent on site
• Recency Index: Captures the visitor’s “visit velocity”—the rate at which visitors return to the web site over time
• Brand Index: Captures the apparent awareness of the visitor of the brand, site, or product(s)
• Feedback Index: Captures qualitative information including propensity to solicit additional information or supply direct feedback
• Interaction Index: Captures visitor interaction with content or functionality designed to increase level of Attention the visitor is paying to the brand, site, or product(s)
• Loyalty Index: Captures the level of long-term interaction the visitor has with the brand, site, or product(s)"

You can read about that and MUCH more in the whitepaper entitled:Measuring the Immeasurable: Visitor Engagement by Eric T. Peterson and Joseph Carrabis. Engagement in the educational experience is essential! This too is a must read -- and an opportunity to join the conversation about engagement here. And just to whet your appetite, it documents Omniture's response to the subject of measuring engagement (and the author's response to their response):

"The same guys that want you all to believe web analytics is easy has now declared that “Visitor engagement formulas are largely another fad, just like parachute pants and the Hollywood diet. It’s a measure some consultants and vendors can pitch like snake oil.”

Omniture’s point that Visitor Engagement is a bad idea because it has subjective components fails to understand the work that folks like Jim Novo, Steve Jackson, Theo Papadakis, Joseph Carrabis and others have done; it makes me wonder if the author bothered to read anyone’s work on the subject."

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Architects and Designers meet Analysts for best ROI

The article: Information architecture: Data-driven design: Using web analytics to validate heuristics system by Andrea Wiggins and a cited reference around which the article is written are must reads. Though never discussing web analytics and education directly, it explains the need for educational designers and information architects to collaborate with analysts from the beginning of the project, to maximize ROI. It begins with a very insightful quote that applies directly to education:

"...However, web analytics' greatest potential lies in improving the online user experience. When analytics data is shared with the design team, a subtler and more sophisticated user-experience design can emerge."

It discusses how web analytics can help evaluate and quantify the user experience using Robert Rubinoff's user experience audit. His audit has four main components, three of which apply very directly to education (functionality, usability and content) and the other (branding) indirectly. This is the most insightful article (and reference) I have read to date -- even though it does not address educational uses directly -- mainly because it points out the importance of analysts working with designers.
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Adopting Web Analytics in Education: Why so S-L-O-W?

In an ongoing hunt for information about the use of Web Analytics (WAs) in education, I’ve looked for answers to the questions from the domain (if,how) x (have,can). If WAs have, if WAs can, how WAs have, how WAs can contribute(d) to the understanding, measuring, and ultimately improving of educational offerings, resources, and experiences on the web. What I’ve found, or rather what I have NOT found, has led me to believe that at this point, there is little evidence that WAs have contributed (in a substantial way) thus far to those goals.
After elimination of the ‘have’ factor, what is left to explore is the ‘can’ factor. It seems only natural that the answer to the ‘if-WAs-can’ question is Yes! In fact, the summarizing statement in an article entitled: A Practical Evaluation of Web Analytics states:

“…it is apparent that the vast majority of work in this area focuses, unsurprisingly, on the business domain, in particular e-commerce. However, we would argue that such approaches could equally be applied to cultural and social settings, where understanding user behaviour has less financial impact but is crucial for the continued success of the social context.”

Though the authors did not specifically mention education by name, it too falls into both the cultural and social context where in understanding user behavior may have less (immediate) financial impact but is crucial in continued (and especially in expanding) success in an educational context. The authors do not, however, address the “how-WAs-can” question. There are several other quotes from that article that are worth-while reading from an educational perspective. However, for me they only highlight another question. This article was written four years ago, in 2004! What progress has been made with web analytics in education since then? Why has the research and early adoption been so slow, if indeed it has moved at all?

Is it funding? Is it because it’s not obvious (from research or actual implementations) that WAs can/will contribute to the “bottom line” of education as it does business? And what IS the “bottom line” of education anyway? Do we agree on this?

Is it accessibility? Is it because there is a much higher demand than supply for ‘experts’ in analytics, and business can make the investment, but education can’t?
Is it technology implementation? Is it because we are only in the first generation of web analytics (the assembly language) that is not yet accessible to educators? Will more adoption come with succeeding generations (authoring languages) of WAs?

Is it political? Have we still not reached consensus about the value and place of web-enabled resources and opportunities in the overall educational picture? Must that battle conclude before WAs in education can move forward? [There is no longer any debate about the impact or necessity of web-enabled business resources and opportunities]

Are educational goals harder to define than business goals? Or are they just harder to define in terms of what is now measured in WAs, instead of what could be measured?

Is it a matter of (excuse the recursion) education? Are there too few educators aware of the concept of WAs in general, much less the possible potential of WAs in education?

Or is it all of these things together, or something else entirely?

And the last and most important question: Which of these roadblocks that slow the adoption of WAs in education can (and will) we help to remove? Read More......

Whoa! Who Knew? Web Analytics!

I really don't know the ins and outs of all the reports and data that Google analytics provides. But already it has informed me of something I never would have guessed. This Blog shares a name with some hip/hop rap "artist".

I thought I had come up with an original name. Analytics count and track, and kind of 'suck' important data out of the life of a session. Count Trackula seemed like a perfect name. Now maybe not so much.

How did Google analytics inform me? First I noticed (from the map) that I had a visit today from Italy. Italy? So I looked at the report. It came from a Google search engine on the words "count trackula"! So guess what I did next? Yep. And there you have it. Now I have two questions: 1) How many of you 18 'absolute unique visitors' knew that already -- but only thought it was amusing? and 2) Do you have any good ideas for a new name -- or should I bother? Read More......

Strange Intersections

Sometimes, not very often, several different components of my life seem to merge together in some kind of strange intersection for a brief moment that is so odd that I wonder if it’s purely coincidence (is there such a thing?) or is it - for lack of a better word- ‘orchestrated’ to help me see another perspective, another opportunity, another connection? One of those moments in time happened just last Tuesday.

I’m taking two sections of IP&T 692R this semester: New Media (taught by David Wiley), and Web Analytics (taught by Clint Rogers). Each requires a blog. I started out with one blog for both classes but it didn’t take me long to realize that it would be less confusing for me, the professors, and my class mates (especially those who are NOT in both of the classes) if I used two separate blogs. Also, I thought it would be kind of useful to have two blogs on which to run the analytics anyway – so I separated them. [The one you are currently reading is for our Web Analytics class (Count Trackula) , but you may also have reached this through a link from my New Media blog. ]

If you give a mouse a blog…

One day I had the bright idea that as long as I have to be in blog-mode so much anyway, why not keep my scripture, idea, and remember journal in a blog? It would be in one centralized place – I could share it with my family that way, or others who were close to me. Sounded like a good idea – so I started a new blog (The Record Which I Make). But, just for kicks and learning, I thought I’d make it a wordpress blog (my other two are blogspot blogs). I did this partially because I was under the (mistaken) idea that wordpress blogs had the capability of pages. [As it turns out you can’t really have the functionality of pages at all if you host your blog on wordpress.com.] I had envisioned titles for the pages: Scripture Journal, Sudden Strokes (from the J.S. quote related to the holy ghost and ‘sudden strokes of ideas’), and Remember,Remember (from Elder Eyring’s Nov ’07 conference address). I began with just a couple of entries.

Fast forward to my web analytics class...

In exploring the google analytics that I had enabled for my two 692R blogs, I noticed that you get data back about search engine phrases people used to get to your blog. Cahlan’s blog talked a bit about getting a blog to rise to the top of google’s search engine by linking and comments, etc. So I was curious. Could I find either of my 692 blogs with Google’s search engine? How many pages down would they be? I tried words and phrases from my blogs, with no success whatsoever – I even checked 10 or more pages down. Nope. No luck. Then I thought: “try your journal blog”. I didn’t think there would be any chance of THAT search returning fruit, In fact, I was actually hoping for no results – after all it would eventually probably end up being a fairly personal blog in some entries – and I may not WANT someone finding it through a search engine. I knew I could password protect it, or keep it private – but at this point I didn’t think it was very likely anyone would happen across it anyway.

I brought up Google, I tried “A Mouth and Wisdom” (a title of one of the posts) – nope. Nothing. Next I typed “sudden strokes”. ... Enter.............Jackpot! Talk about ‘above the fold’!

I just stared at the results – no way! It was the very top link! What?? Cool! Exciting! Funny? Then I looked at all the other links that Google’s search engine returned. They were almost all about strokes – you know- the brain kind! But there I was at the top. Wow. So people want to find out about strokes, and they get my post about email, IM, Blogs, texts, and tweets. I’ll bet they were highly puzzled! Then I thought: “Should I have some sort of link there for those who find it accidentally? They come looking for a diagnosis or information or…comfort …and they find… my post? What link could I weave into my blog to help them, if by chance they started reading? Isn’t this sort of somehow (albeit a big stretch) like what Elder Ballard had talked about? So…I linked the words ‘premortal life’ in my post to an explanation on the newly redesigned www.mormon.org site.

There’s certainly no huge following of my blog (as evidenced by wordpress’s primitive stats). So far 64 hits – not counting me. And they probably all arrive by accident – what can I offer them? Any suggestions? Or should I just rename my page and tags? And HOW did this come to the top of the search engine? And what am I supposed to learn from this? Or is it just ‘coincidence’ and a simple consequence of not considering that the tag "sudden strokes" could be confused with something totally different?

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