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Evidence, Impact, Metrics Social Web Services: Evidence for Their Value

Brian Kelly

UKOLN

University of Bath

Bath, UK

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/eim-2010-12/http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/eim-2010-12/

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TimetableTime Content

Beyond The Institution: Evidence of the Value of Could Services and the Social Web

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

2

3

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:• 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

Intr

od

uct

ion

Today’s SessionRelevance 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? …

4

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!

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

5

Intr

od

uct

ion Benchmarking: Facebook

8,000 today

Benchmarking: Facebook

6

Seven months later:• “Revisiting UK University

Pages On Facebook” post,16 June 2008

• Identified 8 most ‘popular’ UK University on Facebook

7,539

1,116

2,976

“I still can’t see any hard data that justifies time and effort spent in managing data natively inside facebook”

• Post published 4 days after news that Fb is now most popular Social Network

• Marketing potential trumps Fb concerns?

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%)

7

“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?

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

11

• Usage statistics for slides on Slideshare

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

13

Questions

Any questions or comments?

Next two case studies:• “iTunes U: is it Worth it?”, Jeremy Speller • “Media Services in the Cloud”, Sarah Sherman

13:45-14.25

Discussion

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

Note: Informed by case studies

Scenario for DiscussionPVC 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

16

Questions

Any questions or comments?