This paper was submitted as part of the requirements and statement of interest for participation in the NSF funded NSDL Webmetrics Workshop in Aug. 2004. It documents GROW's experience with regards to development of webmetrics software and intention to include webmetrics strategies as a part of evaluation. GROWâ s evaluation strategy was articulated in conjunction with the library design and development framework (Budhu & Coleman, 2002). A digital library is a complex thing to evaluate and the â interactivesâ evaluation framework we proposed uses hybrid methods to study distinct layers and objects in the digital library (resource itself, the interface, the search engine, etc.) and understand users and evaluate educational impact. Our Interactives Evaluation strategy has been shared with users and stakeholders at various venues such as the Harvill conference and the NSDL Participant Interaction Digital Workshop, February 2004

A review of the literature reveals that web metrics is a complex topic that can be found under many different terms and phrases: e-metrics, web site traffic measurement, web usage, web mining, online consumer/usage behavior, are just a few. Data mining, web analytics, knowledge data discovery, informetrics (bibliometrics and web-o-metrics) and business analytics are also relevant. â Metricsâ are measures and â analyticsâ are measurements of information, processes and data analysis from processes but web analytics is also becoming synonymous for e-metrics and web metrics. â Verticalizationâ is one of the newest trends in business web analytics/metrics; this means not just web traffic logging and analysis but has been broadened to include understanding and predicting customer behavior and customer relationship management. â Personalizationâ is considered fundamental to improving customer motivation, satisfaction and retention. What is the potential of web metrics for understanding educational use of the NSDL and measuring educational impact? As Einstein said, â Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.â What do we want to count for the NSDL how, and why? These are the questions that have motivated the creation of this bibliography. We hope it will be a useful starting point and reference document as we begin framing a plan of action for the NSDL in this important area. Status: This bibliography is a work in progress. When it is completed (target date: 08/30/04) it will be a selective, annotated bibliography on web metrics. Currently, the abstracts in this bibliography are often taken directly from the source articles or websites and are not annotations. Books and journals dealing with this topic are not yet included (with one exception); we plan to include at least other texts and journals in the final version. Acknowledgments: Chris Neuhaus jumpstarted this bibliography and Anita conducted a literature search in databases such as the ACM Digital Library besides editing it. In addition, we found the statements of the Webmetrics Workshop participants most helpful in preparing this bibliography and some of the references in the statements have been included here. We also acknowledge the labor of Shawn Nelson, SIRLS, University of Arizona, in locating the abstracts and articles/items listed in this bibliography. Your feedback and comments (especially critical comments and reader annotations about any of the items) will help to improve this selective, annotative bibliography and are greatly encouraged. Version: This is version 2 of the bibliography prepared by volunteers of the Educational Impact and Evaluation Standing Committee for the NSDL Webmetrics Workshop ( a joint workshop of the Technology Standing Committee and the EIESC), Aug. 2-3, Costa Mesa, CA. This version adds two tools mentioned at the workshop and includes citations to two papers that were distributed at the workshop as well. Version 1 of the bibliography, also a volunteer effort, was distributed as a paper copy to the 26 participants of the workshop. For details about the workshop, visit http://webmetrics.comm.nsdl.org/. This bibliography is being made available through DLIST, http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/.

This study investigates the Web presence and Web Impact Factor (WIF) for country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) of Middle-Eastern countries, and sub-level domains (SLDs) related to education and academic institutions in these countries. Counts of links to the web sites of Middle-Eastern countries were calculated from the output of Yahoo search engine. In this study, we compute the WIF at two levels: top-level domains, and sub-level domains. The results show that the Middle-Eastern countries, apart from Turkey, Israel and Iran, have a low web presence. On the other hand, their web sites have a low inlink WIF. Specific features of sites may affect a countryâ s Web Impact Factor. For linguistic reasons, Middle-Eastern web sites (Persian, Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic, and Hebrew languages) may not receive and attract the attention that they deserve from the World Wide Web community.

This project was created in response to the need for research into web links: including web link mining, and the creation of link metrics. It is aimed at providing the raw data and software for researchers to analyse link structures without having to rely upon commercial search engines, and without having to run their own web crawler. This site will contain all of the following. *Complete databases of link structures of collections of academic web sites. *Files of summary statistics about the link databases. *Software tools for researchers to extract the information that they are particularly interested in. *Descriptions of the methodologies used to crawl the web so that the information provided can be critically evaluated. *Files of information used in the web crawling process.

It is well documented that the health behaviours and health status of Canadian youth are of increasing concern. This includes their inactive and sedentary lifestyle, less than recommended daily consumption of fruits and vegetables, and excessive intake of sugar sweetened beverages thought to contribute to the early development of metabolic syndrome, some cancers and certainly obesity. Strategies for reversing the declining health of Canadian youth have captured the interest of health promotion researchers. Health education in the school system has been identified as a potential vehicle of change since it is considered to be one of the last wide-scale and cost-free opportunities to motivate and educate students to be healthy and active. However, an increasing amount of research is suggesting that traditional curricula may be failing to adequately convey health information in high school youth. As a result of increasing technological literacy and exposure, a growing field of evidence suggests youth now prefer delivery of health information from electronic sources instead of traditional mediums. The majority of studies observing online health interventions show positive results, but research involving youth, and conducted in real world settings, is still in its infancy. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the utility of an online intervention tool as part of a health education curriculum, to motivate and support grade 10 students to make healthy decisions related to physical activity, screen time, fruit and vegetable consumption and intake of sugar sweetened beverages. Research questions included: (1) How do students use the online tool to support their health behaviour changes? (2) What were students’ experiences using the HPSS online tool? Are they satisfied with its function, features, look and content? (3) Was there any relationship between use of the online tool and students’ behaviour change? Students in Planning 10 and PE 10 courses (N = 44) in two high schools participated in the year-long study. Pre and post intervention data collection procedures included self-report survey of health behaviours, and anthropometric measures (BMI and waist and hip measures) to more objectively capture changes in health outcomes. Focus groups were conducted with students (n = 10) and teachers (n = 6) to gather their feedback about the website and its contribution within the curriculum. Finally, web metrics captured students’ use of and exposure to the online tool over the course of the intervention. Despite evidence in the literature that youth strongly engage with electronic mediums, students’ use of the website in this study was infrequent and disappointing: 52% of students did not login once, and the remainder visited the site fleetingly. No significant relationships between students’ web use and behaviour change were found. Qualitative data revealed that students’ appreciated the interactive and reminder functions of the website, but teachers struggled to define its role within the curriculum as a pedagogical tool, so it failed to attract students’ time and attention. The study contributes to the literature through its investigation of an online health education tool, contextualized in the real life setting of the school classroom. / Graduate

The paper Fundamental methodologies and tools for the employment of webometric analyses defines the most important rules to keep in mind before performing webometric analyses. The paper deals with the two basic elements, that constitutes the foundation for webometric analyses: the documents being analysed, and the tools that are applied for the data collection. The concepts of a citation theory and a link theory are discussed through a study of the current litterature. Different methodologies for uncovering motivations for making references in scientific articles are reviewed and discussed. A methodology for uncovering motivations for making links on webpages is proposed and applied on six researchers' websites at the Royal School of Library and Information Science in Denmark, and on all the institutes at the same institution and at selected institutes at The Technical University of Denmark. The paper further contains a review on the linktopology of the Internet and the current status for the tools available for data collection. Finally, alternative possible tools for applying webometric analyses are proposed. The alternative tools are the Researchindex invented by Lawrence and Giles (Lawrence, Bollacker & Giles, 1999b; Giles, Bollacker & Lawrence, 1998), Kleinberg's HITS algorithm employed in the Clever search engine (The Clever Project, n.d.; Kleinberg, 1998), Proposals for possible extensions to the HTTP protocol to facilitate the collection and navigation of backlink information in the world wide web made by Chakrabarti, Gibson and McCurley (Chakrabarti, Gibson & McCurley, 1999c) and finally Link Agent, a program we have developed for this paper. The program makes it possible to uncover the reciprocal linking webpages, that exist in relation to the outgoing links from a chosen webpage. Keywords: Informetrics, Webometrics, Citation theory, Link theory, Motivations for links, Motivations for references, Search engines, Webometric tools

This is a second signal-detection analysis of the accuracy of a robot in detecting open access (OA) articles (by checking by hand how many of the articles the robot tagged OA were really OA, and vice versa). We found that the robot significantly overcodes for OA. In our Biology sample, 40% of identified OA was in fact OA. In our Sociology sample, only 18% of identified OA was in fact OA. Missed OA was lower: 12% in Biology and 14% in Sociology. The sources of the error are impossible to determine from the present data, since the algorithm did not capture URL's for documents identified as OA. In conclusion, the robot is not yet performing at a desirable level, and future work may be needed to determine the causes, and improve the algorithm.

A usability evaluation was carried out of the recently-launched South London and Maudsley NHS Trust library web site using a variety of standard methodologies: content and design evaluation of selected comparable sites, focus groups, a questionnaire survey of library and web development staff, heuristic evaluation, observation testing, card sorting/cluster analysis, and label intuitiveness/category membership testing. All test participants were staff of or providers of services to the trust. Demographic information was recorded for each participant. Unsuccessful attempts were made to evaluate user feedback, and to compare usability test results with usage statistics. Test participantsâ overall responses to the site were enthusiastic and favourable, indicating the scope and content of the site to be broadly appropriate to the user group. Numerous suggestions for new content areas were made by testers. Usability problems were discovered in two main areas: in the organisation of the site, and in the terminology used to refer to information services and sources. On the basis of test results, proposals for a revised menu structure, improved accessibility, and changes to the terminology used within the site are presented.

"I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind" Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Web metrics offer significant potential for online businesses to incorporate high-quality, real-time information into their strategic marketing decision-making (SDM) process. This SDM process is affected by the firm�s strategic direction, which is critical for web businesses. A review of the widely researched strategy and SDM literature identified that managers use extensive information to support and improve strategic decisions and make informed decisions. Offline SDM processes might be appropriate for the online environment but the limited literature on web metrics has not researched information needs for online SDM. Even though web metrics can be a valuable tool for web businesses to inform strategic marketing decisions, and their collection might be less expensive and easier than offline measures, virtually no published research has combined web metrics and SDM concepts into one research project. To address this gap in the literature, the thesis investigated the differences and commonalities of online and offline SDM process approaches, the use of web metrics categories for online SDM stages, and the issues encountered during that process through four research questions. A preliminary conceptual model based on the literature review was refined through preliminary research, which addressed the research questions and investigated the current state of web metrics. After investigating various methodologies, a multi-stage qualitative methodology was selected. The use of qualitative methods represents a contribution to knowledge regarding methodological approaches to online research. Four stages within the online SDM process were shown to benefit from the use of web metrics: the setting of priorities, the setting of objectives, the pretest stage and the review stage. The results identified the similarity of online and offline SDM processes; demonstrated that Traffic, Transactions, Customer Feedback and Consumer Behaviour categories provide basic metrics used by most companies; identified the Environment, Technology, Business Results and Campaigns categories as supplementary categories that are applied according to the marketing objectives; and investigated the results based on different types of companies (website classification, channel focus, size and cluster association). Three clusters were identified that relate to the strategic importance of the website and web metrics. Modifying the initial conceptual model, six issues were distinguished that affect the use of web metrics: the adoption and use of web metrics by managers; the integration of multiple sources of metrics; the establishment of industry benchmarks; data quality; the differences to offline measures; as well as resource constraints that interfere with the appropriate web metrics analysis. Links to offline marketing strategy literature and established business concepts were explored and explanations provided where the results confirmed or modified these concepts. Using qualitative methods, the research assisted in building theory of web metrics and online SDM processes. The results show that offline theories apply to the online environment and conventional concepts provide guidance for online processes. Dynamic aspects of strategy relate to the online environment, and qualitative research methods appear suitable for online research. Publications during this research project: Weischedel, B., Matear, S. and Deans, K. R. (2003) The Use of E-metrics in Strategic Marketing Decisions - A Preliminary Investigation. Business Excellence �03 - 1st International Conference on Performance Measures, Benchmarking and Best Practices in the New Economy, Guimaraes, Portugal; June 10-13, 2003. Weischedel, B., Deans, K. R. and Matear, S. (2004) Emetrics - An Empirical Study of Marketing Performance Measures for Web Businesses. Performance Measurement Association Conference 2004, Edinburgh, UK; July 28-30, 2004. Weischedel, B., Matear, S. and Deans, K. R. (2005) "A Qualitative Approach to Investigating Online Strategic Decision-Making" Qualitative Market Research, Vol. 8 No 1, pp. 61-76. Weischedel, B., Matear, S. and Deans, K. R. (2005) "The Use of Emetrics in Strategic Marketing Decisions - A Preliminary Investigation" International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, Vol. 2 Nos 1/2, p. 109-125.

Many online retailers monitor visitor traffic as a measure of their storesâ success. However, summary measures such as the total number of visits per month provide little insight about individual-level shopping behavior. Additionally, behavior may evolve over time, especially in a changing environment like the Internet. Understanding the nature of this evolution provides valuable knowledge that can influence how a retail store is managed and marketed. This paper develops an individual-level model for store visiting behavior based on Internet clickstream data. We capture cross-sectional variation in store-visit behavior as well as changes over time as visitors gain experience with the store. That is, as someone makes more visits to a site, her latent rate of visit may increase, decrease, or remain unchanged as in the case of static, mature markets. So as the composition of the customer population changes (e.g., as customers mature or as large numbers of new and inexperienced Internet shoppers enter the market), the overall degree of visitor heterogeneity that each store faces may shift. We also examine the relationship between visiting frequency and purchasing propensity. Previous studies suggest that customers who shop frequently may be more likely to make a purchase on any given shopping occasion. As a result, frequent shoppers often comprise the preferred target segment. We find evidence supporting the fact that people who visit a store more frequently are more likely to buy. However, we also show that changes (i.e., evolution) in an individualâ s visit frequency over time provides further information regarding which customer segments are more likely to buy. Rather than simply targeting all frequent shoppers, our results suggest that a more refined segmentation approach that incorporates how much an individualâ s behavior is changing could more efficiently identify a profitable target segment.