IR Offi IR Office Web Sites: W b Sit Tips and Best Practices Tips - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

IR Offi W b Sit IR Office Web Sites: Tips and Best Practices Tips and Best Practices

Katherine McGuire Di t f I tit ti l R h Director of Institutional Research Agnes Scott College

Overview

I. My perspective on and experiences with web design

• II. Study of peer websites
• III. Best practices principles for
• III. Best practices principles for

IR site content derived from study of peers study of peers

• IV. How to maximize use of your

website website

• I. Background and Perspectives

Background and perspectives

• Philosophical background:

“If it’s worth doing, it’s worth putting out there on the web.”

• Reasons:

– IR data exist to be used – Creates atmosphere of p transparency – Can save you work on routine y requests

Background and perspectives

• Lessons learned from redesign
• f two IR office websites

– Both had very different issues, but in both cases we pushed hard to move institutional culture towards more institutional culture towards more transparency – Institutional culture towards data, institutional priorities, and where IR fits in your hierarchy will influence your content and design choices y g

What you can control and what you What you can control and what you can’t

• Can’t control:

– Content management systems – Institutional routing policies

• May control:

y

– Placement of your page in the web hierarchy

• Can control:

– Content by and large Content, by and large – Organization

• II. Peer Websites Data

What should go on my website?

Methodology

– Started with schools on our various peer lists peer lists – Looked through several of them to see what types of info were typically yp yp y

• ut there

– Collected and analyzed data on which f h d i f f i t

• f our peers had info of various types
• n their websites

– Made note of sites which had unique Made note of sites which had unique features or were particularly well-done

Overview of peers

• 35 schools (including ASC) on our

various peer lists – 29 had IR web sites sites

• 6 (17%) colleges had no dedicated

IR web site as far as we could tell IR web site as far as we could tell

• Difficulty finding many of them

– In part due to institutional differences – In part due to institutional differences in IR location – Could be an indication of where IR and IR data fall as an institutional priority

Structural Factors: The “Click” Factor

• 25 of the 29 public sites (86%)

could be found from the college’s home page

• Average number of clicks from

college homepage was 2.4(+/- 0.7)

• 4 of the IR homepages (14%)

had to be found by a search had to be found by a search function

Structural factors: Number of Structural factors: Number of categories on index page

• Average is 5.3 +/- 2.3
• Other than being a rough

g g measure of quantity of info, why does this matter?

– Economic psychology research shows that people have trouble making decisions when subjected to making decisions when subjected to too many choices – Perhaps related to fact that working p g memory is thought to be 7+/-2

Overview of IR and the IR Office

• 26 sites (90%) had a definition
• f IR and/or an IR Office

mission statement

• 20 (69%) had the names of the
• ffice staff
• 26 (90%) had contact

26 (90%) had contact information

• Only 2 (7%) had a data
• Only 2 (7%) had a data

request form

Things

Survey and data policy information

• Only 3 of the sites (10%) had

some sort of official statement

• f data policy (confidentiality,

when/how/to whom data are released, data integrity, etc.)

• Seven of the sites (24%) had

information for survey researchers (IRB info, survey policies, survey calendar)

Types of IR Data

• 18 (62%) had some sort of

institutional summary (At-a- Glance/Quick Facts/Fact Sheet/About the College, etc.)

• 21 (72%) had some kind of

Fact Book

• 27 (93%) had a Common Data

Set Set

Types of IR Data

• 6 (21%) had Baccalaureate

Origins data or summary data

• None had explicitly labeled

AAUP data

Accreditation and accountability

• 10 (35%) had

accreditation/reaccreditation/ self-study data

• Only 3 (10%) had HEA or
• ther accountability/right-to-

know data

• Only 3 (10%) had strategic

plan or a link to strategic plan plan or a link to strategic plan

Some other features

• 13 (45%) had IR and/or

assessment resource links

• Only 2 (7%) had a “What’s

New” section

• 10 (35%) had password

protected items or sections protected items or sections

A few other features worth noting

• IR office calendar
• Census date

definitions/policies

• Peer lists

Peer lists

• A few schools had their IPEDS

data online data online

• Factoid/“Did you know?”

III What Should Be Web Content

• III. What Should Be Web Content

Best Practices?

Things Most IR Sites Have

• Staff listing (69%) and contact

info (90%)

• Definition of IR (90%)
• Common Data Set (93%)

Common Data Set (93%)

• About/At-a-glance (62%)

Fact Book (72%)

• Fact Book (72%)
• Assessment survey data

(76%)

Additional Things a Significant Additional Things a Significant Minority Have

• Accreditation information

(35%)

• Information for survey

researchers (24%)

• Baccalaureate Origins (21%)

Features Fewer Sites Have

• Accountability data (10%)
• Data policy statement (10%)

y ( )

• Strategic plan (10%)
• Data request form (7%)
• Data request form (7%)
• “What’s New” section (7%)

Staff Size and Amount of Content

ff (f 2 ff

• Average staff size (for 24 offices that

listed their staff) was 2.2 +/- 1.0

• Average number of content features
• Average number of content features
• f those studied was 7.2 +/- 2.1 (out
• f 16 total; maximum was 11)
• There was a small but significant

positive correlation between staff size d # f i ( 2 0 416 and # of content items (r2 = 0.416, p = 0.043)

• IV. Maximizing Website Usage

First Things First…

How many clicks are *you* off your school’s main site?

N mber of clicks is a big factor in ser – Number of clicks is a big factor in user frustration looking for data – How close you are to the main page y p g may be political—but doesn’t hurt to ask to be moved up At l t k i – At least make sure your page is searchable!

How to make your site searchable (or How to make your site searchable (or at least findable)

• Submit to web search engines:

www.google.com/addurl/ siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit

• Ask your webmaster about

search optimization strategies

• Ask other offices on campus to

link to your site

• Submit to AIR website

Submit to AIR website

Parting thoughts…

“All truths are easy to understand

• nce they are discovered; the point

is to discover them ” Galileo is to discover them. - Galileo Galilei “To design is to communicate clearly To design is to communicate clearly by whatever means you can control or master.” - Milton Glaser “It is not about you or me, it is about the user.” - Thomas Vander Wal"

Acknowledgements

• Tori Bell, Class of 2012, Work

Study Student, President’s Office

• Jillian Pilch, Class of 2011,

Research Assistant, IR Office