InformalScience.org Evaluation Research Study

The InformalScience.org web site is a resource for researchers working in the field of informal science and provides access to information linking researchers with one another and to member-contributed resources. Through use of the web site resources such as member projects, publications, and evaluation reports, users have opportunities to develop social and human capital. This report analyzes the value of InformalScience.org in supporting participants in the community as they navigate and advance the changing field of informal science education (ISE) research. In addition, we identify opportunities for further automatic data collection to expand the ability to analyze the development of social and human capital from the site. Using available automatically collected data about site visitors, use patterns, and content, SRI was able to describe the web site community and recent use. Visitors to the InformalScience.org web site reach the site through a broad range of referring sites. Registered members represent a variety of institutional affiliations and roles within the informal science research community and membership growth has been steady. Content is contributed by a diverse range of members representing a breath of roles and institutional affiliations. The pool of available resources shared between members and visitors therefore represents a wide range of expertise and areas within the informal science education research community. In terms of expertise sought, most users interested in accessing member profiles appear to be looking for people with expertise in evaluation. Users searching for project information showed an interest in media projects despite the fact these are fewer in number, relative to museum projects. User contributed publications and projects link members in the web site database. SRI used this information to draw network maps of the online community. The network of members with shared publications is more cohesive than that of projects with a few researchers being highly influential. A detailed comparison of evaluation reports available in 2006 and frequently accessed in 2009 indicated a modest shift in available and accessed content more aligned with NSF priorities. The 2009 set of evaluations had more studies with quasi-experimental measures and more studies focused on programming that was oriented toward research goals. There are opportunities for collecting more detailed data on resource use, membership, and content. Our gap analysis discusses possible strategies for automatic data collection in future versions of the site including several possibilities that would require changes to the web site and what it captures, but would require little or no effort on the part of the user. The appendix of this report includes a coding and observation form.

If you would like to edit a resource, please email us to submit your request.