museumsandtheweb.com - analytics

Making Sense of Numbers: A Journey of Spreading the Analytics Culture at Tate

ElenaVillaespesa — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 17:21:02 +0000

MW2012

Elena Villaespesa, Tijana Tasich, Tate, United Kingdom

Abstract

Program Item Reference:

Making sense of numbers: a journey of spreading the online metrics culture across Tate

New Techniques for Visualizing Large Image and Video Collections

Lev Manovich — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 22:49:02 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

visualization

Keywords:

images

Keywords:

video

Keywords:

analytics

Keywords:

digital image processing

Keywords:

UCSD

Abstract:

Many museums and media archives have already digitized large parts of their collections, and we may expect even more images and video to become digitally available in the near future. Are the standard web and desktop interfaces for accessing digital collections adequate for understanding these collections? Popular interfaces for showing images and video such as list, gallery, grid, and slide do now allow us to see the contents of a whole collection. These interfaces usually only display a few items at a time, regardless of whether you are in a browsing mode, or in a search mode. Because we are not able to see a collection as a whole, we can’t compare sets images or videos to each other, notice patterns of change over time, or understand parts of the collection in relation to the whole.

Graphing and visualization tools offer a range of visual techniques designed to reveal patterns in data. However, these tools have their own limitations. A key principle, which underlies the creation of graphs and information visualizations, is the representation of data using points, bars, lines, and similar graphical primitives. This principle has remained unchanged from the earliest statistical graphics of the early 19th century to contemporary interactive visualization software which can work with large data sets. Although such representations make clear the relationships in a data set, they also hide the objects behind the data from the user.

Since 2008, our lab (Software Studies Initiative, http://www.softwarestudies.com) at University of California, San Diego (UCSD) has been developing visual techniques that combine the strengths of media viewing applications and graphing and visualization applications. Like the latter, they create graphs to show relationships and patterns in a data set. However, while plot making software can only display data as points, lines or other graphic primitives, our software can show all the images in a collection superimposed on a graph. We call this method “media visualization.”

To date, we have already successfully applied our techniques to artworks, photos films, video games, comics, magazines, books, and other media content. Examples include all paintings by van Gogh, one million pages from manga series, hundreds of thousands of pages from 19th century American newspapers, and hundreds of hours of video gameplay. Our past and present collaborators include Getty Museum, Library of Congress, Austrian Film Museum, Magnum Photos, Netherlands Institute for Sound and Image and other institutions who are interested in using our methodology with their media collections. Starting in the Fall 2011, we are releasing our fully documented tools we developed under open source license.

In our demonstration, we will show the examples of our visualization and explain our key techniques for creating media visualizations.

Type:

Demonstration - show your project

MW2012 Demonstrations I

Site:

http://lab.softwarestudies.com/2008/09/cultural-analytics.html

Authors:

Lev Manovich

Clicks that Count: Achieve and Measure Online Success with Google Analytics & AdWords (Google Analytics Custom Dashboard Workshop)

balpert — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 15:15:57 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

analytics

Keywords:

metrics

Keywords:

google analytics

Keywords:

information dashboards

Keywords:

reporting

Abstract:

Since its introduction in 2005, Google Analytics has become "the most widely used website statistics service, currently in use on around 57% of the 10,000 most popular websites" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Analytics). Even though "GA" is renowned for its ease-of-use and full-featured functionality however, the challenging question remains: "How can I use the data to improve my website and further my organization's goals"?
In the first section of this Google-oriented joint workshop, the Smithsonian Institution's Web Analytics Analyst Brian Alpert will discuss the basic practice of using web analytics to improve a website, highlighting an Excel-based "custom dashboard" based on data exported directly from Google Analytics. This dashboard enables Smithsonian's web practitioners to use trended data to discern actionable trends and insights, articulate the impact it is having on their organization, and further articulate the steps being taken to correct or improve the situation.
Smithsonian Institution Archives' Catherine Shteynberg will extend the discussion by presenting a case study illustrating how the Archives came up with the goals, strategies, tactics, and finally, measurements that drive their Google Analytics dashboard. Consideration will also be given to a broader analytics approach, using other techniques to gain insight pertaining into other, non-web program elements.
Another Google product that seems daunting to many users is AdWords. Google offers an in-kind program including free AdWords advertising for nonprofit organizations. Participating nonprofits have a monthly budget of $10,000 per month but most nonprofits' marketing professionals don’t come close to reaching this cap. The ad spend depends on many variables, including the number and kind of campaigns you create, the number of people who search for the chosen keywords, and whether or not Googlers choose to click on your text-based ads.
Balboa Park Online Collaborative's Senior Editor Maren Dougherty will conclude the workshop with an overview of how to create and track effective AdWords campaigns. The session will start with the basics of developing keyword lists, creating campaigns, and evaluating ad performance using Conversion Tracking. Participants will then use their museum’s upcoming events or exhibitions to develop new ad campaigns.

Type:

Workshop - full or half day

Clicks that Count: Achieve and Measure Online Success with Google Analytics & Adwords (Google Analytics Custom Dashboard Workshop)

Site:

http://www.si.edu

Authors:

Brian Alpert

Maren Dougherty

Museums in perspective: share and discuss daily data about museums and their audiences.

rui — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:28:14 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

evaluation

Keywords:

social media

Keywords:

analytics

Keywords:

participation

Keywords:

engagement

Keywords:

community

Keywords:

strategy

Abstract:

It is common practice among museums to publish quarterly or annual reports that include the museum attendance figures, online visits and more recently information about their social network activities. These figures are generally accepted as indicators of the effectiveness of museums activities both online and offline. While this information can give some hints about how organizations have evolved throughout the years, it is often hard to understand what these values mean without contextualizing them with information from other organizations. For example, what does it mean to have tens of thousands of followers on Twitter? Do the changes on annual attendance numbers reflect a global trend or a new local policy? Some of these questions can be better understood once figures from different cultural organizations are analyzed comparatively.

This paper introduces an online tool that collects information about more than 3000 museums and galleries. The published information includes annual attendance numbers, exhibition attendance numbers, online visits, as well as information about popularity and engagement on social networks. The information that is automatically collected or contributed by organizations can be visualized as interactive graphs and displayed comparatively with information from other organizations. The online tool introduced in this paper is accompanied by an online platform where museum professionals can discuss topics related to the published information, such as, issues and limitations of comparative studies and adequate online and offline strategies.

The information that is now being collected on a daily basis has been previously published in a scattered manner for several years. The Art Newspaper yearly publishes the attendance numbers of the most visited museums and exhibitions world wide. More recently Culture24 has published a report that analyses both website visitors and social network in terms of popularity and engagement of several organizations. Sean Redmond has created an automated data collection tool that daily reports the popularity on Facebook and Twitter of thousands of museums and galleries. At the Walker Art Center a tool has been developed that automatically aggregates and shares information from google analytics of several museums. These initiatives were important precedents that led to the development of an online tool where all this information is cohesively presented and contextualized.

Rather than just introducing an online tool, this paper also presents new insights encountered while developing the tool and comparing data. By listening to the communication channels of more than 3000 museums and galleries, it is possible to infer information specific to the sector. For example, it is possible to answer questions such as: what are the current trends in the sector being discussed on twitter? Which content published by a museum has been most shared online? We hope that by answering these and other questions, organizations will be able to understand better their online and offline presence and finally be able to concentrate on their specific goals rather than on numbers.

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Case studies in reading web metrics

Site:

http://www.museum-analytics.org/

Authors:

Rui Guerra

Going further with web metrics with Seb Chan

sebchan — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 03:43:37 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

analytics

Keywords:

strategy

Keywords:

metrics

Keywords:

technical

Abstract:

Web analytics are an essential skill for every museum web developer and content producer. With the new complexities of a 'web presence' rather than just a 'web site', museum professionals need more than ever the ability to measure and track visitors so as to both improve their products and content, as well as demonstrate value to managers, directors and funders.

This workshop looks in detail at best practices for web analytics using Google Analytics and participants will learn how to bake in analytics when designing and building digital projects, and how to ensure that useful reports are able to be generated and insights learned.

We will specifically look at -

tweaking tracking codes and health-checking
analytics gotchas
understanding the new look Google Analytics (2011)
understanding and designing segmentation and goal tracking
making useful dashboards and reports
social tracking and 'engagement' metrics

We will also look at, time permitting, integration with Excel for advanced reporting, as well as integration with heat mapping, and ISP-level analytics.

Seb Chan has been delivering Google Analytics and web analytics consulting and workshops for cultural institutions all over the world since 2008. Participants are advised to read his previous MW papers on analytics (2008 - https://conference.archimuse.com/biblio/towards_ne... and 2010 - https://conference.archimuse.com/biblio/spreadable...) , as well as the Lets Get Real report he co-authored for Culture 24 in 2011 (http://weareculture24.org.uk/projects/action-resea...).

Participants will need access, preferably admin level, to their organisation's Google Analytics account.

Type:

Workshop - full or half day

Going further with web metrics with Seb Chan

Authors:

Sebastian Chan

Web Analytics: Part Two – Going deeper with Google Analytics

dbear — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 20:41:01 +0000

Type:

Workshop

Programs:

Web Analytics: Part Two – Going deeper with Google Analytics (including personal health check!)

Tech Level:

Somewhat technical; Web server access required to install Analytics code

Date & Time:

April 6, 2011 - 1:30pm - 5:00pm

Location:

Tubman

afternoon workshop

analytics

wednesday

Required fields are marked with a red asterisk (*).

A confirmation of your registration will be sent to your email address. Please print it out and bring it to the conference.

You will not receive registration confirmation by regular mail.

If you do not receive your confirmation today, please contact us.

Archives & Museum Informatics EIN: 77-0708617; GST / BN 887978914

Description

Web Analytics: Part One – The why and how of measuring and tracking online visitors

dbear — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 20:39:44 +0000

Type:

Workshop

Programs:

Web Analytics: Part One – The why and how of measuring and tracking online visitors

Tech Level:

basic

Date & Time:

April 6, 2011 - 9:00am - 12:30pm

Location:

Tubman

morning workshop

wednesday

analytics

morning

Required fields are marked with a red asterisk (*).

A confirmation of your registration will be sent to your email address. Please print it out and bring it to the conference.

You will not receive registration confirmation by regular mail.

If you do not receive your confirmation today, please contact us.

Archives & Museum Informatics EIN: 77-0708617; GST / BN 887978914

Description

How to Evaluate Online Success – New action research with 24 institutions

sebchan — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 11:49:32 +0000

MW2011

Published Paper:

How to Evaluate Online Success? A New Piece of Action Research

Keywords:

metrics

Keywords:

collaboration

Keywords:

social media

Keywords:

best practice

Keywords:

analytics

Keywords:

evaluation

Abstract:

How to measure and define the success of cultural websites and online services is a problem common to all parts of the cultural sector – museums, archives, galleries, arts organisations, libraries, publishers. Worse, funding agencies and government departments lack the expertise to offer guidelines or set standards. The result is a confusing mixture of statistics and reporting that reveals little about genuine user satisfaction.

In mid 2010 a group of 24 organisations and agencies from across the cultural heritage and arts sector in the UK began collaborating on a piece of action research addressing the issues around 'evaluating online success'. Coordinated by Culture24 and working with Seb Chan, the group of institutions have been developing a framework and best practice guide for measuring online projects both on organisational websites and those presented through social media channels.

This mini-workshop will present the findings of the project to date, along with several case studies from partner institutions, anonymised where necessary, demonstrating the impact of metrics customisations, cross-sector audience segmentation, and benchmarking.

The full list of project partners is:

Powerhouse Museum
British Library
National Gallery
Science Museum
Tate
British Museum
Kew
National Maritime Museum
Imperial War Museum
National Portrait Gallery
Watershed
Royal Shakespeare Company
National Museums Scotland
National Museum Wales
Design Museum
English Heritage
Roundhouse
DCMS
Arts Council of England
Heritage Lottery Fund
Museums, Libraries & Archives Council (MLA)
University of Leicester
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery

Type:

Mini-Workshop - teaches something or explores approaches

Mini-Workshop on How to Evaluate Success

Site:

http://www.culture24.org.uk/sector+info/art80724

Authors:

Sebastian Chan

Jane Finnis

Rachel Clements

Spreadable collections: gaining insights from educational cut & paste

biblio — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 22:10:55 +0000

Chan, S. (2010). Spreadable collections: gaining insights from educational cut & paste. (Trant, Jennifer, David Bearman, Ed.).Museums and the Web.