Assessing the readership of the National Database of Telemedicine

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Assessing the readership of the National Database
of Telemedicine

• Dr Jim Briggs
• University of Portsmouth, UK
• jim.briggs_at_port.ac.uk

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Introduction

• Home of the UK National Database of Telemedicine
  (NDTM)
• http//www.dis.port.ac.uk/ndtm
• Funded by UK Department of Health and the British
  Library
• Launched in October 1998
• Contract to maintain it until May 2002

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Why measure readership?

• Resource for UK telemedicine community
• Who has and hasnt read it yet?
• What do readers want?
• Monitoring effect of marketing and publicity
• DH and BL mandate it!

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1. Guestbooks

• Not compulsory to use
• Users tend not to be representative
• Easy to spoof

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2. Simple counters

• Almost compulsory to use
• therefore counts virtually everybody
• Spoofable but not attractive to do so
• Cant find out any information about readers

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3. Server access logs

• Easy to record
• Compulsory
• Tell you where user came from and when
• Huge files to be stored (or can only analyse
  short periods)
• Dont tell you how user found your page

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4. Our chosen approach

• Extreme Tracking
• http//www.extreme-dm.com/tracking
• Records accesses AND referrals
• JavaScript embedded in your page
• They keep the data
• Limited to report formats offered

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Technical issues

• What constitutes a reader?
• Internet (IP) address
• Dynamic allocation
• Domain name mapping
• What constitutes a visit?
• Caching
• Repeat readings

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Results 1 - visitors

• About 9000 visits by 5000 visitors since launch
• Highest after initial publicity at launch
• Since then, steady 500 a month
• Busiest weekdays quiet weekends
• Busiest 9-5 quiet at night
• Most are Internet Explorer users

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Results 2 - tracked visits

• 54 come via links from other websites
• 288 pages with links (but many defunct/duplicate)
• 35 of references via NHS Information Authority
• 39 come via search engines
• 16 different engines know about NDTM
• 80 of references via Yahoo
• telemedicine is most popular keyword (26)

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Observations

• Readership is mainly UK based
• Reading as part of their job
• Continues to attract new readers
• Many repeat visitors
• ? valuable
• Look for us, youll find us
• Netscape is losing the browser war!

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Contact details

• NDTM website
• http//www.dis.port.ac.uk/ndtm
• Email
• ndtm_at_port.ac.uk