Interesting. I wonder if they have any preliminary data that shows that the library features in successful students' lives, and even more interesting if they can say that within an at-risk group (one not expected to make use of the library? - I don't know how you'd measure that.) that when you do see higher library use, you also see higher success rates?  In other words, did we intervene or are we just measuring correlations?

Cindy Harper

-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Joshua Welker
Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2015 11:52 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Website KPIs

Thanks. That is a helpful start. So in that case the KPI is the number of interactions with the library per student?

Josh Welker
Information Technology Librarian
James C. Kirkpatrick Library
University of Central Missouri
Warrensburg, MO 64093
JCKL 2260
660.543.8022


On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 5:44 PM, Will Martin <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> The University of Minnesota has a fairly intricate process for 
> recording patron interactions with their library that yields very 
> detailed information of the sort you're looking for.  For example, 
> they can tell you
> -- based on statistically significant data -- the exact amount by 
> which a student's GPA rises on average for each point of contact with the library.
> I've been working (slowly) towards doing the same kind of thing at my 
> institution.
>
> In brief, they log personally identifiable information about patron 
> interactions.  Say Sally Student checks out Moby Dick.  They would log 
> her name, student number, and the type of activity -- "checked out a 
> book", or "accessed a database" or "logged into a lab computer" and so 
> on.  Then, each year, they package up that data and send it to the Office of
> Institutional Research.   The OIR connects all of the student library data
> with their student records, and conducts statistical analysis on it, 
> focusing on measures of student success.
>
> They've published some aggregate results.  The person to talk to at 
> UMN about this is Shane Nackerud.
>
> This may be larger than you're looking for, because it touches on 
> overall library performance rather than just the website.  But you did 
> ask for big picture stuff.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Will Martin
>
> Chester Fritz Library
> University of North Dakota
>
>
> On 2015-09-16 10:50, Joshua Welker wrote:
>
>> We are in the middle of a large strategic alignment effort at our 
>> university. A big part of that is developing KPIs (key performance
>> indicators) to use as a benchmark for self-assessment and budget 
>> allocation. The goal is to develop "scorecards" of sorts to help us 
>> track our success.
>>
>> Our website and other web platforms are of vital importance to us, 
>> but I really don't know what would make good KPIs to help us evaluate 
>> them. We collect loads of website usage data, but I don't know what 
>> kind of metrics could serve as a scorecard. Looking at raw sessions 
>> and pageviews is simple but not particularly meaningful.
>>
>> There are two ways to approach KPIs. There is a data-based approach 
>> that correlates performance with data and then just tracks the data, 
>> like pageviews. Then there is an outcomes-based approach that is more 
>> qualitative in nature and simply states the outcome we want to 
>> achieve, and then a variety of types of data are examined to 
>> determine whether we are achieving the outcome.
>>
>> Long story short, I am curious about how other libraries assess the 
>> success or failure of their websites. I am not looking for usability 
>> testing strategies. I am thinking more big picture. Any help is 
>> appreciated.
>>
>> Josh Welker
>> Information Technology Librarian
>> James C. Kirkpatrick Library
>> University of Central Missouri
>> Warrensburg, MO 64093
>> JCKL 2260
>> 660.543.8022
>>
>