Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-29-2014
Abstract
Scientists are increasingly engaging the web to provide formal and informal science education opportunities. Despite the prolific growth of web-based resources, systematic evaluation and assessment of their efficacy remains limited. We used clickstream analytics, a widely available method for tracking website visitors and their behavior, to evaluate 60,000 visits over three years to an educational website focused on ecology. Visits originating from search engine queries were a small proportion of the traffic, suggesting the need to actively promote websites to drive visitation. However, the number of visits referred to the website per social media post varied depending on the social media platform and the quality of those visits (e.g., time on site and number of pages viewed) was significantly lower than visits originating from other referring websites. In particular, visitors referred to the website through targeted promotion (e.g., inclusion in a website listing classroom teaching resources) had higher quality visits. Once engaged in the site’s core content, visitor retention was high; however, visitors rarely used the tutorial resources that serve to explain the site’s use. Our results demonstrate that simple changes in website design, content and promotion are likely to increase the number of visitors and their engagement. While there is a growing emphasis on using the web to broaden the impacts of biological research, time and resources remain limited. Clickstream analytics provides an easily accessible, relatively fast and quantitative means by which those engaging in educational outreach can improve upon their efforts.
Recommended Citation
Goldsmith, G. R., A. D. Fulton, C. D. Witherill, and J. F. Espeleta. 2014. Improving the efficacy of web-based educational outreach in ecology. Ecosphere 5(10): 131. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/ES14-00206.1
Copyright
The authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Included in
Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Databases and Information Systems Commons, Other Communication Commons, Other Computer Sciences Commons, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons, Science and Mathematics Education Commons, Social Media Commons
Comments
This article was originally published in Ecosphere, volume 5, issue 10, in 2014. DOI:10.1890/ES14-00206.1