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

Katherine McGuireDi t f I tit ti l R hDirector of Institutional Research

Agnes Scott College

Overview

I. My perspective on and experiences with web design

II. Study of peer websitesIII. Best practices principles forIII. Best practices principles for

IR site content derived from study of peersstudy of peers

IV. How to maximize use of your websitewebsite

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 of two IR office websites– Both had very different issues, but in

both cases we pushed hard to move institutional culture towards moreinstitutional culture towards more transparency

– Institutional culture towards data, institutional priorities, and where IR fits in your hierarchy will influence your content and design choicesy g

What you can control and what youWhat 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 hierarchyy• Can control:

– Content by and largeContent, by and large– Organization

II. Peer Websites Data

What should go on my website?

Methodology– Started with schools on our various

peer listspeer lists– Looked through several of them to

see what types of info were typically yp yp yout there

– Collected and analyzed data on which f h d i f f i tof our peers had info of various types

on their websites– Made note of sites which had uniqueMade 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 sitessites

• 6 (17%) colleges had no dedicated IR web site as far as we could tellIR 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 searchhad to be found by a search function

Structural factors: Number ofStructural 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 tomaking decisions when subjected to too many choices

– Perhaps related to fact that working p gmemory is thought to be 7+/-2

Overview of IR and the IR Office

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

• 20 (69%) had the names of the office staff

• 26 (90%) had contact26 (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 of 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 SetSet

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 other accountability/right-to-know data

• Only 3 (10%) had strategic plan or a link to strategic planplan 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 sectionsprotected items or sections

A few other features worth noting

• IR office calendar• Census date

definitions/policies• Peer listsPeer lists• A few schools had their IPEDS

data onlinedata online• Factoid/“Did you know?”

III What Should Be Web ContentIII. 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 SignificantAdditional 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 of those studied was 7.2 +/- 2.1 (out of 16 total; maximum was 11))

• There was a small but significant positive correlation between staff size

d # f i ( 2 0 416and # 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 gmay be political—but doesn’t hurt to ask to be moved upAt l t k i– At least make sure your page is searchable!

How to make your site searchable (orHow 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 websiteSubmit to AIR website

Parting thoughts…

“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them ” Galileois to discover them. - Galileo Galilei

“To design is to communicate clearlyTo 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