Continuing Evaluation and Marketing Update

Week 3

June 28, 2012: Continuing evaluation of each of the templates for the Earth sciences community, update about outreach to organizations within the community, and discussion of goals/metrics for evaluating the success of marketing efforts

Summary of Today’s Post:
1) Evaluated specific DMPtool template
2) Communicated with OBFS
3) Drafted letter to send to DMPo contacts (list provided by Carly) to request names of researchers for user testing group

Evaluating the DMPtool: In my ongoing evaluation of each of the specific templates from the Earth sciences community, in addition to the 5 identified in the last post, I also added NSF-CHE to the list, which now brings the number to 6 total.  Today I worked on the NSF-AGS template

1) Products of Research
– good

2) Data format
– “explain the specific format of your data.” I think some basic examples might be helpful, because I think format might be confusing.  File format and format of the data may not be exactly the same…. because not all data are digital. And the sentence about open source etc conflates data format and file format.

3) Access to Data, and data sharing practices and policies
– good
-maybe some links to papers about data sharing and the merits?

4) Policies and provisions for re-use, re-distribution and production of derivatives
– good

5) Archiving of Data
– DataBib appears: perhaps in the “help” section there could be some additional explanation about DataBib, describing what the researcher can do with it–ie. use it to find a repository that might be good for their data. Also, most of hte tabs to the right are generic resources that are found on every page, and then all of a sudden DataBib shows up.  If this tool is going to be promoted then maybe an “additional resources” tab at the top could be added.  I also think that literature explaining the ideas behind these terms such as data sharing, long term data preservation, access might help researchers to understand this movement they are not taking part in.  I think that hte DMPtool can also be a service used to educate researchers as well as assist them.  Similar to the “give a man a fish vs. teaching him how to fish”

Communicating with OBFS:

Just wanted to update everyone on the correspondence I have been having with OBFS.  I emailed them earlier in the week about the DMPtool and the potential interest their community might have in it.  They responded and seemed to be very interested.  I drafted an email for them to send out to their list-serv just promoting hte use of hte tool, and the fact that they did not have to officially part of the DMPtool contributing partners to use the tool and create an account.  However, I also informed them of the possibility of OBFS becoming an official partner, ie… creating customized guides for their community.  I spoke with Carly about this earlier this week.  And as I still don’t think I have access to the confluence, I am unable to send OBFS the forms that they would need to fill out in order to become an official partner, correct?

Evaluating Marketing Efforts:

Andrew commented on my last post about my thoughts on the metrics and goals for evaluating the success of the marketing effort, which will help me and all of us to know whether my efforts are successful or not in the end.

I guess I want to first ask all of you about what your opinions on qualitative vs. quantitative metrics.  With respect specifically to the marketing side of this project, I could do something like “I emailed X people and got Y responses.”  Or “I emailed X people and Y organizations are now contributing partners to the tool.”  I think what might be more valuable is to determine the various variables that I could track and from there, figure out the possible combinations of those variables and create some sort of scale on which I can plot the occurrences of the combinations of these variables.

For example, OBFS not only responded to my email about the DMPtool, they discussed it among themselves via email who in the group should be responsible for following up.  Once they determined who their contact person was going to be, they had me draft an email to send to their list-serv.  Once I am able to send them the forms, they may very well become a contributing partner to the DMPtool.   There is a lot of rich information here, and is seemingly more valuable than checking the box “yes responded.” or giving it a “1” versus a “0.”  Does that make sense?  Should be thinking of it in these terms?

In continuing down the more qualitative path, I have started to brainstorm the following variables:

– responds to email
– does not respond to email
– responds to follow-up email
– refers me to someone else
– requests more information
– declines any sort of involvement with DataONE
– Provides reasons for declining involvement  (this could also yield valuable data)
– becomes contributing partner
– visits the DMPtool (don’t know how to track that)
– creates a DMP using the DMPtool (don’t know how to track that either)
– provides feedback to the DMPtool

From each of these and more, I can create quanitative results as well, but ultimately create some sort of qualitative map or scale I think would be helpful.  Let me know your thoughts on this.

Last but not least….

Email sent to list of DMPo Contacts:

One of my biggest problem areas has been recruiting researchers to conduct user tests.  During the very helpful skype meeting that Carly and I had on Tuesday, she sent me a list of contacts at the various partner institutions with librarians.  Though their email addresses aren’t included, I have been successful at tracking down their contact information and sending out an email requesting 1 researcher’s name (who works in the Earth sciences) whom I can email about participating in the user tests.

Carly and I also talked about the possibility of drafting a very short 2-3 question email that I can send to these same librarians to get some other background information about what types of inquires and problems researchers whom they work with experience. Questions such as:

– When people ask about metadata standards, what are your go to standards?
– What repositories do you usually point researchers towards?
– etc?? ( of course these questions will be framed within the context of the earth sciences community

This type of on the ground information can help to determine what types of informaiton researchers might need from us and the DMPtool, with respect to the KIT or additional content that needs to be added to the tool.

Tomorrow/the weekend:

For tomorrow and the upcoming weekend, I plan to do some research about qualitative/quantitative surveys in order to begin more effectively constructing my user tests as well as my metrics for evaluation of my efforts.  I have been in contact with Laura Miller and have put in a request with her to have a phone conversation on either tomorrow or Monday.   So the tests/survey can be finalized early next week, and user tests can hopefully start as soon as mid-week next week.

Thanks so much,

R