Use of Online Research Project (UOR)
** May 2012 Update **
We continue to monitor and analyze the ways in which people access and use the online research pages and products of our partner organizations. We have recently done an analysis of our partner's website and download data. Next steps include looking deeper into the data to make connections between website use, downloads, and if links make a difference to finding research.
Review our preliminary findings.
JOIN OUR STUDY!
We are currently expanding the number of websites we track. If you are an educational organizaiton with a knowledge mobilization mission and are interested injoining our study, we invite you to contact us at: rspe@oise.utoronto.ca.
Project overview
Our team has partnered with educational organizations in Canada and abroad to investigate the use of web-based research in education. We assess the extent to which research products, found on websites of participating organizations are used and the nature of this use. Initial findings suggest significant differences in the way individuals use various websites, which might be connected to differences in website design and how users search for research online.
The UOR project measures the use of web-based research materials, using two tools: 1) Google Analytic and 2) a two-part survey. Google Analytics is employed to assess the degree to which our partner websites are accessed and to what extent website users download research resources. The two-part survey is embedded on our partners’ websites and is used to assess whether and in what way online research resources are used by individuals who access research webpages and download research resources.
Preliminary findings as of May 2012
1. The effort put into sharing products online is not matched by broad uptake
2. Organizations spend a lot of effort on passive dissemination strategies rather than active strategies
3. Informal sharing of online research is more frequent then formal sharing strategies
4. There is very little traffic to research pages as compared to the homepage or non-research based pages
5. The homepage of a website is rarely the point of entry; therefore, we need to rethink how websites are organized to maximize navigation and the use of research found online
6. Visitors do not view websites as a whole - if they come to websites through search engines visitors are not viewing most of an organization's website. Setting up a website to highlight new research/products that are available for download might be better then updating the whole website
7. Focus on raising the percentage of repeat visits. Less than half of the visits across our partner websites are from returning visitors.
To take part in our study, please complete our Survey: Use of Web-based Research Material