Knowing NetGen Users and their educators: A Study of an Online Survey

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Knowing NetGen Users (and their educators)
A Study of an Online Survey

• Alexis Braun Marks, Charles H. Wright Museum of
  African American History

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Agenda

• Wisconsin Historical Society User Study
• Structure
• Results
• Educators
• Students
• Wisconsin Historical Images
• Turning Points
• What the WHS is doing with the information
• WHI
• Other Digital Collections
• Thats nice
• Why should I care?
• What we should be asking?

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Wisconsin Historical Society Web-Based User Study

• Initiated to understand Who are our users? and
  What do they want?
• Question the Assumptions of Use Patterns

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Study Structure

• A survey of closed and open-ended questions was
  created and posted on 9 content sites within the
  larger Wisconsin Historical Society Website.
  (www.wisconsinhistory.org)
• Although developed in Spring of 2007, not posted
  on sites until August 2007
• Eight of the nine links will remain live through
  the end of the 2007-2008 academic year in an
  attempt to capture the perceived use patterns of
  students, especially National History Day
  participants

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General Survey Results

• A preliminary report was provided in November of
  2007 with analysis of responses captured between
  August 9th when the survey went live and October
  9th.
• During this two month period more than 743 users
  began the survey
• 8.1 self-identified as teachers, 2.3 as
  professors, 2.6 as undergraduate/graduate
  students, 1.7 as middle/high school students,
  and 3.8 as information professionals
• 24.4 of users found the site through a web-search

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Overall Satisfaction

• The four most common responses for I am
  impressed by were
• materials are available online and/or the
  service is free 14.6
• scope and variety of materials 12.8
• ease of navigation and/or user friendly
  design 11.3
• research and writing of the staff 10.5
• I am surprised by How often a name or event
  triggers a memory from my Wisconsin childhood. I
  often think "Yeah, I remember hearing or seeing
  something about that, but I never understood the
  whole story or how it fits into historical
  context."
• Wis. Historical Images

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Overall Dissatisfactions

• Asked what they would like to do, but cant
• 37 were unsure or specified nothing
• 15 want to be able to more easily print or
  download
• Asked what they were disappointed with
• 33 were unsure and specified nothing
• 30 noted lack of information on some specific
  topic, person, etc.
• The most common responses for I am frustrated
  with were
• 37 were unsure, or nothing bothered them
• 10.5 cited lack of information on a specific
  topic, place, person

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What Educators Said

• Educators come to us for historical sources,
  images for a project, examples for classroom
  instruction, nothing in particular, and lesson
  plans.
• Educators are impressed by the scope of available
  materials, the quality of materials, and the
  quantity of materials in full-text.
• Navigation All educators found what they were
  looking for Always, Most of the Time, or
  Sometimes. None said that they Hardly Ever or
  Never found what they want.
• More than half would change nothing about the
  site. Of those who are disappointed in
  something, equal numbers noted the lack of
  topic-specific documents or difficulty saving,
  printing and/or downloading. Half of teachers
  wrote that they could think of nothing they were
  disappointed by.

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What Educators Said

• I am impressed by the breadth of the collection.
  I get distracted from my research by reading all
  the historical records. I'm amazed that your
  staff has spent the time to organize and scan
  these documents. I can't wait to send my History
  Day students to your records.
• American Journeys
• I was impressed by The general organization
  of the site. It is easy to find information
  quickly. I like to review sections as quick
  refreshers for me right before I teach a lesson.
  It is important to me to pass on correct
  information. Turning Points

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What Students Said

• Undergraduates and graduate students provided
  more than 70 of the student responses during the
  Aug. Oct. period.
• We are seeing an increase in undergraduate and
  graduate students as well as National History Day
  students in responses since November.
• The most common sites visited by students were
  Wisconsin Historical Images, American Journeys,
  Odd Wisconsin and the Dictionary of History.
• Students are looking for, in order or popularity
  Nothing in particular, historical sources, images
  for a project, or lesson plans (self-identified
  as undergraduate/graduate students).

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Findings about Specific Resources

• Analyzed results in detail for
• Wisconsin Historical Images
• www.wisconsinhistory.org/whi
• Wis. Genealogical Research Service
• Turning Points in Wisconsin History
• www.wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints

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Wis. Historical Images Survey Findingsabout 270
responses were submitted

• When I visit the site I am impressed by
• Quantity of Images Offered 32
• Quality of Images 27
• Research/Writing by the staff 22
• Scope of the Collection 21
• When I visit the site I am disappointed by
• Unsure/Nothing 96
• Lack of photographs of specific
  people/places/events 28
• Inflexibility/Complex search 9
• When I visit the site I am frustrated by
• Unsure/Nothing 37
• Personal constraints 15
• Lack of information on topic, era, ethnic
  group 12

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Turning Points Survey Findings165 responses
were submitted

• I am impressed by
• Scope and Variety 17
• Research and Writing by Staff 15
• Quantity of Materials Available 14
• I am disappointed by
• Lack of Topic Specific Information 18
• Lack of tools for younger students 5
• Personal Constraints 5
• I am frustrated by
• Unsure/Nothing 24
• Personal constraints 9
• Usability (paging, print/saving images) 6
• Lack of information on topic, place, person,
  era 4

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What Is To Be Done?
Slide Courtesy Michael Edmonds, WHS
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Or, What Actually Can Be Done?

• Given that
• we have no programmer on WHS staff
• the wholesale site redesign will address many
  issues
• we need to act quickly to reduce declining
  revenues

The staffs of WHI, WGRS, and Other Stuff met,
and decided 15 things can probably be done
Slide Courtesy Michael Edmonds, WHS
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Wis. Historical Images Action Plan

• Increase promotion efforts
• implement flickr proposal
• collect and contact more email addresses
• promote galleries to target audiences
• promote place file to local media outlets
• market to the Web photo community
• Redesign main page to draw users back often
• Emphasize users' power to purchase copies
• Make it simple to request something be added
• Link to photos from within the Dictionary

Slide Courtesy Michael Edmonds, WHS
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Digital Collections Action Plan

• Turning Points make it simple to suggest new
  additions
• Wis Historical Collections improve navigation
• Dictionary link entries to related Magazine
  articles and WHI searches
• Dictionary expand content (unit histories,
  historic markers, and more)
• County Histories fill gaps tag chapter home
  pages with subjects
• Preservation Use SAN to properly back up and
  store collections.

Slide Courtesy Michael Edmonds, WHS
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If It All Works

• Users will be even happier
• Traffic will rise
• Sales will increase
• Our resource base will expand
• Well be able to make users
  even happier
• So traffic will rise
• Sales will increase
• Our resource base will expand
• and so on
• and so on

Slide Courtesy Michael Edmonds, WHS
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Thats nice, but I cant do that

• Web-survey resources used personnel and survey
  hosting (the last part could be less)
• Survey Monkey is a free service (to a point)
  www.surveymonkey.com
• The better question to ask is Can I act on the
  results?

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Why should I care?

• They are digital natives, born into the age of
  computers
• The numbers of this generation going to the
  internet as their sole source for information
  will only continue to increase
• The 2008-2009 academic year will mark the first
  year when all incoming freshman will be a part of
  the net-generation
• The youngest members of this user group are just
  beginning to learn about archives as more and
  more teachers are using programs like National
  History Day and primary sources in the classroom

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If you decide that this is important, what you
should consider asking

• How did you find us? (Google, site address,
  recommendation, etc.)
• How do you like to get your information? (blogs,
  wikis, podcasts, other downloads, etc.)
• How can we help you? (IM reference, more teaching
  tools, federated search, etc.)

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Questions

• ?