we too are interested in this metric to apply to the Engagement Network we've begun in the 2010 Summer Virtual Institute of the DMSC Governors Challenge. Also interested in collaborating with others in this event. site: www.sandboxnetwork.org best, bob Robert R. Bradley Director of Technology Integration Communication and Information Technologies President and CEO Digital Media Sandbox Consortium Tennessee State University 3500 John Merritt Parkway Nashville, TN 37209 cell: 615.579.7446 fax: 615.963.1371 rbradley@tnstate.edu Think. Work. Serve. www.tnstate.edu/dme www.sandboxnetwork.org www.tedxnashville.com www.bobbradley.com ________________________________________ From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Steven Clift [slc@publicus.net] Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2010 1:32 PM To: onlinefacilitation@yahoogroups.com; air-l@listserv.aoir.org; ciresearchers@vancouvercommunity.net; nten-discuss Subject: [Air-L] Online Engagement Metrics How might you measure this? Engagement: Strengthen, broaden, and diversify engagement through effective and meaningful online discussion and information exchange on public issues This is an updated (draft) goal of E-Democracy.org and applies essentially to the online spaces and experiences we host ourselves. We need your help in identifying metrics that are both measurable and that measure something useful. While there is something satisfying about simply hosting online spaces that last years while many spaces flame out in weeks or months (or are filled with flames like online news comments) "open" is not a metric that is all that persuasive with potential volunteers or funders. So what should we measure? What measures will help us track our inputs and outputs? For example "inclusion" is a big emphasis http://e-democracy.org/inclusion in recent years, so we are very interested in how we compare the results of what we are doing to in lower income/highly diverse/immigrant areas (where we have some funding) with what is happening in our all-volunteer areas (we have 10 neighborhood level Issues Forums open and suddenly 10 new ones in the start-up pipeline driven by new volunteers for example - http://e-democracy.org/nf ). Once you move from volunteer oriented work to funded efforts, the bar is a lot higher (even if you still have lots of volunteers everywhere.) So what and how would you measure against this goal? Steven Clift http://stevenclift.com @democracy P.S. We've had a decent discussion on this post on the Democracies Online Exchange: http://groups.dowire.org/r/post/AmcuBr8r3WsKaHFerfTNV What would you add? _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/