Tutorials on Google Analytics: How to Craft a Web Analytics Report for a Library Web Site

Abstract

Based off the following report, the following are recommended:• Establish a Change log for the website. A log that would record changes, what day they happened, and why they happened. If a new URL is created, or an old URL is removed, it should be recorded in the change log to take into consideration for analytics. • Establish a Website Assessment Policy-With all the various oddities of the library website, it is recommended that a clear assessment policy be developed. • Dynamic News Box-Investigate if the auto scrolling news box is causing "clicks" in Google's "In-PageAnalytics". If it is, see if the code can be changed so that it doesn't count as clicks. If not, make note of the anomaly to avoid it causing problems in the future. • Links-Out Documentation-Make a comprehensive list of URLs that are on the main library website that we do not have Google Analytics for so that can be factored in when looking at web statistics. • Right Side Links-Are underutilized. Either move the content to left or make it more noticeable.Perhaps links for students can be on the left and links for staff can be on the right. In order to verify if the right side links are a problem, an eye-tracking usability study should be considered. • Personal Librarians-An eye tracking usability study might be considered to see which link to the Personal Librarians page is most easily found by students. The less of the two should be removed to simplify navigation and learnability. • Hours Page Link-An eye tracking usability study might be considered to see which link to the Hours page is more visible. The less of the two should be removed to simplify navigation and learnability. • Employment-Since this is such a heavily used link, and is one of the few links Google includes in the result for TTU library, it should be moved to a more prominent location higher up on the left side. • Home Page False Positives-An observational study can be done to see how users on the main floor of the library handle the fact that the home page is the Main Library website. Users can be observed and statistics kept of how often they leave the page open while they are looking at other things. This could also be done in a usability study where students are asked to go to other websites.If the study shows that a certain percentage of use is passive, then that needs to be factored into assessments about performance of the library website. It could be that stats on the main page are false positives, and need to be removed from analysis. This would need to be declared in an official website assessment policy for the library. • Safari-The stats from 2012 show that Safari Browser was not working well with the Library website.It is recommended that testing be done to see if the library website is not preforming as quickly with some browsers or if there are other factors that are causing the Average page load time to be so high.

Participatory Approaches for Designing and Sustaining Privacy-Oriented Library Services

“…Similarly, libraries have recognized the usefulness of web analytics and other tracking technologies (Yang and Perrin 2014;Conrad 2015;Farney 2016). The usage measurements generated through tracking software can help tell a story of impact for library stakeholders, including funding agencies, administrators, and community boards.…”

Web Analytics: What dermatologists need to know

“…6 Previous studies showed that expression of STAT3, STAT4 and STAT5 has potential diagnostic and prognostic value in CTCL patients. 7,8 The objective of our pilot study was to investigate the expression levels of STAT4 at different stages of MF and benign dermatoses.…”

“…6 DermNet displays a privacy policy to comply with European data protection regulations about such cookies (GDPR). [7][8] The Google Analytics Home page uses a heat map to signal user numbers at different times. Data are displayed in the owner's time zone, which is GMT+ 12/+13 for DermNet.…”

Protecting privacy on the web

“…The library science professional literature includes many contributions that detail the implementation, application and justification of Google Analytics for the purposes of web traffic analysis and service improvement (Hess, 2012;Barba et al, 2013;Cohen and Thorpe, 2015;Fagan, 2014;Yang and Perrin, 2014;Conrad, 2015;Farney, 2016). User privacy is seldom mentioned in these articles and manuals.…”